(no subject)

[fearofpiggies]

It hadn't even been two months in his new apartment when Sollux pointed out that the rumor mill had been running about who he was, and what he could do. Word had gotten around that he was the one who'd upgraded Vriska's prosthetic arm, and despite really keeping to himself for the most part, Dib had been getting calls from around the country about if he could help fine-tune their equipment as well. He was surprised to see that so many people were looking for that kind of work, and it felt as if he was one of the only ones in the industry with the know how and expertise to really do a good job of it.

He'd been taking work as a private eye besides doing the occasional tune-up on cybernetic parts that, from what he'd noticed, all came from the same maker - someone with whom his boyfriend (?) and friend Vriska were both acquainted - yet he never bothered calling the guy. He figured if word got around as fast as it had been, he'd be getting a phone call from the maker himself, instead of the other way around.

Sollux had offered to introduce him to his friends, but schedules seemed to interfere with social time, and every time he put aside a few hours, things didn't pan out, so he pretty much called it a wash.

What Dib was currently doing, however, was something involving, surprisingly, not the inside of his house, or any house for that matter, but the animal shelter in a town nearby. He'd been told that there was something spooking the animals beyond the usual nervousness that animals taken into shelters had. He hadn't recognized the voice on the other end of the phone, but he certainly recognized its owner when he came to the shelter to have a look around.

"You're still an enormous douchebag, Cass, thanks for reminding me that you exist."
"Hey, no worries, mate. Hey, since you're here, I've just gotten off work, would you like to go have some supper with the guys and me? I've a feeling you'd get along with at least one of them." Cass grinned up at his prodigal friend, and waved him to follow him back.

"Oi, Tavros, you about ready to call it a night? I'm dragging everybody out for dinner. S'on me." He said into the back office, grinning wide as a wolf as Dib followed quietly along, clearly unsure how to hold himself in this situation. Cass looked over his shoulder at the bespectacled man in the trenchcoat, then at Tavros. "Oh, and this is Dib, he's comin' along. New arrival, as it were, though we've known each other a few years back."

Dib managed a slight wave and a nervous smile as he said, "Hey."
 

Comments

[adiostorero]

Tavros was pulling his sleeves down after finishing the last of the paperwork of the evening after the final adoption had been cleared, and pausing at the sudden invitation. He blinked at Cass, then shrugged and grabbed for his bag to sling up over his shoulder. "If it's somewhere with takeout would you mind me grabbing an order for Gamzee before we go? That way he doesn't have to worry about dinner or anything," he smiled up at Cass, then turned his attention to Dib. "Hi. Uh...I'm Tavros. So I'm guessing that everyone includes you then?" He looked back at Cass, then carefully stood to one side and started toward the door, careful of his horns especially around someone new.

As they walked, Tavros glanced back at Dib again every now and then, trying to figure out where he'd seen the guy before, the back of his mind bringing up the feeling that he was just familiar. He shook it off though, and looked up at Cass, striking up conversation. "Did I tell you about this plan that Gamzee had about my legs? He thought they would look good with some etching stuff in the plates. Like something I could show off, y'know? And we got to talking about what to put on them but I still haven't settled on a design or anything. But he said he knows a guy that could do it in like a three-tone thing so it does a thing when I move and show new patterns. Something like that. I'm not really sure how it works."

[fearofpiggies]

Dib smiled and nodded, "I guess. I was kind of hijacked to come over here. Cass, you know you could've just said t come over and I would have," He pointed out before Cass shook his finger in the air with a tut of his tongue and a shake of his head, "Not if I wanted to circumvent your bad schedule luck, mate. Now we're going to have fun one way or another." Both the men, and a few other stragglers, once they got done rounding up people, listened to Tavros, and Dib was somewhat confused, before Cass grinned, "Oh, that'd look lovely, Tavros. Have you considered laser etching? I'm pretty sure there's two or three of my friends who have access to the laser engraver on campus, and they'd probably adore to have a new project. Erm. Dib, yeah, Tavros has prosthetic legs. Robotic, too, to a degree."
"Oh. Oh! You must be Sollux's friend Tavros, then, right?" Asked Dib with a small smile of recognition. "He said we should meet, but he never got around to it."
Cass grinned to himself and fell back to speak to others while the other two got introduced.

Dib held out his hand. "I'm Dib Membrane, I just got here a couple months ago. Sollux helped me and my sister through the game. She'd played before, in Cass' session, but she found her way through to our home dimension and was my time player. It's pretty convoluted, but I promise it makes sense in the fine print." He chuckled nervously and looked down. "You were part of Sollux's session, right?"

[adiostorero]

"Well I don't really know if we'd be called friends, we never really hung out all that much. He was always too busy with Karkat or Aradia when I was around. But he talked about me? Hopefully not about anything too bad," he chuckled as he walked beside Dib, smiling widely as he slowed down briefly to take Dib's hand in a short shake then twitch up the bottom hem of his pantleg to show the hint of slightly tarnished metal of his shin. He went on as Dib continued, nodding a bit. "Yeah, that's generally how it is with most of our stories. None of it makes any sense when you look at bits of it but then you get a better summary and then you can see where it works. Anyway, what Cass said about laser etching, I was thinking about that, too. I wasn't sure about any of it at first because I don't want to weaken the structure any but if it's just surface work I don't think any harm would come to it. It's just a matter of figuring out what I want to do with them in the first place. It's probably not as permanent as a tattoo but it's still an investment, y'know?"

[fearofpiggies]

"Well, I can't be sure about here, but where I'm from, the laser engraving only goes fractions of a millimeter into the surface of the metal, and shouldn't, at least not majorly, weaken the structure. Do you mind if I get a better look at your legs once we have a few minutes? I'd love to see the work, if you don't mind. I'm guessing this is that Zahhak guys' work, too? He's really good, it's kind of enviable that he can fabricate things so flawlessly, but his fine tuning skills need definite improvements before I'd consider the product a finished one. I've actually worked on a number of his other works before, making sure the motor function of the prosthetic isn't just as good as natural, but better. Mostly through a little work of my own, not that... er. Not that I'm bragging." He gave a small laugh. "I'm actually pretty impressed that Zahhak is so good at what he does, considering what I heard about him having trouble with his own... well, he has strength control problems, from what I heard." He tucked his hands in his pockets as they all walked. It wasn't far to get to a really great brewpub in the city, and once they were all within sight of it, the pace was picked up from the back of the group.

[adiostorero]

"Yeah, he kind of tended to break glasses just by looking at them funny. I was pretty nervous when it came to him working on anything with me in case I walked away with a crushed pelvis or something, but I like his work. Better than anything the humans developed and believe me, I had to shop around a little while when I first got here. I didn't remember Equius for a while and kept wondering why my legs felt so horrible and janky when they never did before, and I'd been living with prosthetics since I was like thirteen or so. Before that it was a wheelchair, but that was from unrelated happenings. My ex was uh...not very nice." Tavros walked with one hand in his pocket, the other rested on the rather beaten-up bag over his shoulder. He could hear the others chatting behind them, but for now he didn't really want to talk to much of anyone aside from Dib, mostly because Dib didn't seem interested in his private life or really much of anything outside of his legs just then. "Maybe later or tomorrow after work or something you can check them out, I guess. I don't really need them to function any better than they do but I guess a tune-up would be nice. I mean I can obviously walk and do my job and everything and stairs? Pff, stairs are nothing. But I was one of Equius' first prosthetic clients so I can tell you first-hand he's improved so much. He's...kind of weird when you meet him in person. Really, he's kind of weird anyway. But he's not a bad guy or anything, just...yeah."

[fearofpiggies]

"Believe me, I'm not used to whatever normal is, so weird would be something like a breath of fresh air for me. Seriously, this world's kinda... Well, honestly? It's sorta boring compared to where I'm from. Not like boring's necessarily bad, but with what I'm used to, it's just..." He gave a massive shrug at that as they started filing into the restaurant.

"Honestly, I'm more interested in the guy's fabrication work than I am about tuning things up for him. I'm pretty much an opportunist, and the more I learn about his fabrication process, the faster I can get something out there on the market that competes, and is capable of working more smoothly." He shrugged a little. "It's definitely not what I had planned to do once I got here, but if opportunity knocks, y'know?" He looked towards the tables that they were being sat at, and took the seat in a booth, looking around as he snugged himself into the corner of it. "So you work with Cass? That's pretty impressive. I never thought he'd be working at the ASPCA, but I guess since world domination through science is kind of out of the question here, he had to fall back on something."

[adiostorero]

"Honestly? I don't think he's in it for the money, or to be the best engineer or anything. I mean, that's never been the impression I got. I think it's kind of like my work with the animals at the shelter. I love my job and I'd do it for free if I didn't have bills to pay." Shrugging in kind, taking the seat across from Dib. It was easier in booths for him because even if they were a bit cumbersome to move in, he wouldn't be as likely to turn his head and black someone's eye this way. At the question of working with Cass, he nodded and tucked his bag under the table out of the way. "Yeah, he got there after I did and he's been really helpful with things in general. I like him, he's pretty cool to talk to and work with and everything. He makes really good cookies, too. Even if some of them are pretty casually offensive." He grinned, shaking his head a bit as he recalled the last time Cass had brought in a small package of baked good, several cookies bearing phrases he'd decided were specifically to confuse and/or fluster him. "I wasn't aware he was into the whole mad scientist thing."

[fearofpiggies]

"Oh, definitely. He was going to college for some crazy engineering thing, but once his scholarship for MIT ran out, he started going in for forensics. I don't know. He's got a lot of potential, but his focus is..." He looked over to Cass, who was flitting from person to person as he spoke to them amiably, grinning the entire time. "Mm. So yeah. Seeing him work with animals isn't really that big of a surprise; he had a ton of pets when I knew him, and kept care of each of them like nothing I've ever seen. I don't know where he gets that kind of energy."

[adiostorero]

"I have no idea. Apparently he cat-sits for a couple of friends of ours but he also cleans their apartment out of boredom?" Shrugging, Tavros looked around at an approaching waitress and quietly made his order after she'd set down a pair of water glasses for them. She was gone when Dib had finished making his, going to see to the rest of the little party. "What about you though, you're not going to school for anything? I mean, you look a little older than me, but that's not really saying much. I mean, a lot of people look older than me."

[fearofpiggies]

"I'm 24," Dib explained with a shrug, "I've already done as much college as I can possibly stand, and I'm not going to deal with any more of it. What I do mostly doesn't even need it. I'm a pa-- private investigator. It's not so bad, either, so long as you don't mind snooping on people. It's pretty decent money, and I really don't have a great understanding of personal space? So I guess that helps with things a little." He smiled when the waitress returned in quick order with their drinks, and he grabbed his dark beer with a nod of thanks. "I was in school for a while, really because if I didn't go, I'd be cut off from my dad's funding, which I needed back home. I really don't need to be swamped with my own pursuits here as well as a ridiculous class schedule."

[adiostorero]

Tavros caught that little stutter as Dib corrected himself, but made no indication that he'd noticed as he nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. I had wanted to go to school until I learned about the shelters . We didn't have things like that before, y'know? So I basically devoted all of my time and effort to that. I actually got my cat a year or so ago from working there, when I had an apartment that allowed pets." He sipped some at his soda, glancing around as he taped his fingers on his glass. Now was when the awkwardness started to set in and he couldn't help but fidget. "Somehow I doubt that's all that exciting. Snooping around people, I mean. Real people don't hold the same intrigue as actors or soap opera characters."

[fearofpiggies]

"Not usually, but they really don't hire private investigators unless there's something bizarre or dramatic happening. Usually it's a jealous spouse getting really pissy over the possibility that their husband or wife is cheating. That's like, 80% of my work right there. The other twenty percent now, is more to the tune of kismeses trying to dig up dirt on their blackmate, which y'know, I'm cool with doing, too. Anything to make the shit feel balanced." He noticed that Tavros was starting to fidget and smiled a little. "But I'll tell you the truth. It's nothing like what I did back home. I was a little more specifically narrow in my investigations. Usually? It involved the supernatural. You know. Spirits, aliens, cryptids. Black magic. Stuff like that. There was a lot of that there, but since this reality's pretty new, I don't think I'm going to be finding much work in letting people know that their house is haunted or the nearby woods is infested with liches or whatever." He smiled bashfully. "Sollux told me that I'd have probably liked it on Alternia, where that sort of thing was commonplace. His ex apparently spoke to the dead, too. And he can hear the not-dead-yet. Which, er, that's probably a lot less useful than I think it sounds."

[adiostorero]

"Well, it'd be a lot more useful if people listened to him about it. He heard all the voices of Alternia before we played the game, from what I've heard. So I guess it would be good for like...predicting and trying to minimize the damage of some wide-scale catastrophe? Something like that anyway. But yeah, there was a lot of talking to dead people and being dead and things like that for us. I spent a long while as a ghost, too. It was weird getting to use my own legs again but whenever I got my body back my legs went back to being defunct. Anyway, yeah, you'd probably have fun investigating Alternia if you like that kind of stuff. It was basically everywhere. Spooky powers and creatures everywhere and things. If this really is what's normal for humans," he gestured around them, "I'm not surprised you guys are interested in alien stuff so much."

[fearofpiggies]

"It's a lot like this? But... well, it's different from what I'm used to, too. For one, it's not as technically advanced, but on the other hand, it's not as polluted. And I know that trolls figured out interstellar travel, so you guys had that up on us, even though I kinda sorta managed that on a regular basis personally. I kinda came into possession of a small, er, interplanetary... thingy. It was kinda like a puddle jumper plane but only for interstellar travel. Nothing huge like a ship or anything, but I got by with it." He shrugged and took a sip of his beer. "I guess for you guys extraterrestrial things were pretty blase, just, y'know, sorta boring. We didn't have an official first contact that any higher parties confirmed or anything, but we had aliens coming to Earth for a long, long time. Hell, my... well, it was kinda like a platonic kismesis, I guess. He was from Irk, which was a lot like trollkind, at least insomuch that they invaded planets to use their natural resources and all that. Though I think trolls have the foothold in that thing. At least you guys have your own brains." He grinned and hushed as the waitress came by to drop down his burger. He'd gotten just comfortable enough with beef from this world where it didn't upset his stomach as much.

[adiostorero]

"Between you and me, I'm pretty sure there are a few of us that don't really have their own brains either," Tavros muttered. He'd met his fair share of dumbshit trolls just as much as he had humans in his time living here, that was for certain. "And well, I know this isn't really normal for anyone, at least where it comes to cohabitation. Before all of this I'd only ever met a couple of humans and even then, we didn't really get along." He took his own order with a quiet thanks, starting to pull his chicken apart with his fork as soon as it was put down. He dipped a piece of it in the sauce over his pasta then blew on it and popped it into his mouth. Human food was still weird to him, but it was pretty good, in spite of that.

Dinner was relatively quiet, between the occasional smalltalk, a question here and there about Dib's paranormal interest and eventually coming around to the topic of Tavros' gaming habits. He mentioned offhand that he was a DM but didn't really make much of a big deal of it, feeling that Dib wouldn't be all that interested in sitting around with him and his friends in a campaign, especially one that had been going on for months now. He did enjoy talking to Dib though, even as meandering as their conversation was.

[fearofpiggies]

His interest ran more along the line of having never heard or such a thing than wanting to join, and it seemed as though by the end of Tavros' explanation, he was at least willing to come by one night to watch how it worked. "I'll have to check it out, maybe look at a couple of the books you told me about. I mean, I've heard of RPGs for computer and consoles and stuff, but tabletop is completely new to me." He wondered if it was from the fact that they didn't have it in his version of earth, or perhaps he'd been sheltered from it for whatever reason. Once desserts were being ordered, Dib had found it pretty easy to talk to Tavros, despite the nervousness between them. He grinned a little once his slice of pie was handed over, and he laughed a little. "You know, I really think Cass is just a little bit magical? I mean sure, nothing too outrageous, but I really do think he is. He probably wound up getting blessed by one of the gods he used to hang out with or something, and now he knows exactly how to make people have a good time. It's like his gift or something. Usually I'd hate going out like this, but this was fun."

[adiostorero]

"That wouldn't really surprise me, to be honest. How else would he put up with absolutely everyone and still be able to walk out of his house every morning without a plan to throttle them all?" Shaking his head, Tavros finished off his coffee and the slice of pie he'd ordered, sitting back with a content little grin and glancing around. They weren't the only ones that had finished eating; most of their party was just waiting for the checks to come around. "If you want, you can sit in on the next game night," he offered. It would go better than the first (and last) time he'd invited Dave and Karkat over to play, at least.

[fearofpiggies]

Dib chuckled quietly at the first, but the next, his head tilted and he considered it. "Sure," he said finally after he finished off what little he had left of his beer. "Sounds like fun! Here," he said, reaching into one of his jacket pockets to pull out his phone, "What's your number? I'll send you a text so you can put me in your address book, we'll get in touch when it's time for that. Honestly, I probably should get out of the house more often. I mean, for more than just for cases."

[adiostorero]

"Yeah, I can't imagine that you'd get out much even where Sollux is concerned. He doesn't really get out of the house much either, but he's not really social anyway where he doesn't have to be." Shrugging, Tavros gave him his number and waited until the bill was brought around then stood and stretched, standing up on his toes briefly then holding out a hand to help Dib out of the booth. "I guess we can talk more later on. I still have to get home and feed my cat and everything so I guess we can talk later? I'll let you know for sure what time the game is so we can do that. If you're interested when it's over I can show you how to build a character and everything so you can play, too."

[fearofpiggies]

"That sounds pretty awesome!" Dib said with a nod, standing before sending Tavros a quick text so he could have his number in turn, and made his way out of the pub with a wave to Cass, who told him not to be a stranger.

It was a couple weeks later when he took Tavros up on the session sit-in. He arrived after the address was given to him, with soda and the offer of paying for pizza. His brows arched high at the height of Tavros' matesprit, and of his clown paint, and he immediately made the mental connection of the rumors. But he was pleasantly surprised at the amiable, mellow way Tavros' matesprit acted, and he was put at ease - or as close to it that Dib ever got - rather quickly, as he took a seat off to a corner, ready to watch.

[adiostorero]

While Gamzee seemed to be content to stay back out of the way and watch, himself, Tavros seemed to run the show, setting things up while a few others arrived and seated themselves, each of them carrying with them a binder or folder or notebook that held the stats and changes and occasionally sketches of their characters. There were a few books situated around where Tavros was sitting, one of which he offered to Dib so that he could look things up if he got confused about something to do with stats or rules. There was another that looked more like an encyclopedia with information on scads of creatures in the 'verse in which their game was being played. He was enthusiastic about it, and it seemed like the rest of the group enjoyed it as well, handfuls of dice held close to each of them.

When someone finally mentioned that they were getting hungry, the others spoke up as well and Tavros looked back around at Gamzee and Dib to ask what they'd want on their pizza before he made the order.

[fearofpiggies]

"I'll eat anything on pizza," Dib said as he perused the book at length, as he'd been doing while paying attention to the game itself. "Just get whatever, I'll snag off of whatever pizza gets close to me," he said with a brief smile. Gamzee's smile, however, got wider and he started listing off everything he wanted on his pizza - it started off as hawaiian, but started getting more complex, with black olives and mushrooms, and baked tomatoes, and sausage, and, and, and...

Dib chuckled, turning to Tavros to see what he'd do with his still-rambling matesprit's stoner desires.

[adiostorero]

By now, Tavros was used to this kind of thing from Gamzee and when he was ready to order, he asked after a regular supreme, then asked for another that had everything a supreme had, plus everything else they could possibly put on a pizza as well. He didn't even seem to care that he'd have to pay extra for all of that, clearly intending to eat some of it himself while everyone else went for the more normal of the two pies. He got up to go for the soda that Dib had brought and had been stashed in the refrigerator with the rest of Gamzee's pop, pouring several different flavors into an assortment of cups. It was a relatively streamlined process, something that had happened enough that everyone knew how to make it go as smoothly as possible.

At the arrival of the pizzas, Tavros was once again the first one up and moving and making sure that everything was as it should be, tipping the delivery boy and making brief conversation then sitting the pizzas down on the coffee table for everyone to get at.

[fearofpiggies]

Dib handed over the money for the pizzas, happy to help out in any way, and curled around his soda and pizza as he listened and ate, watching the group quietly. They had decided to take a break to eat, and while they did, they discussed their favorite shows, and while Gamzee was content to settle and listen as he ate, draping himself around Tavros after he sat down, Dib got into the discussion as well, once they started talking about a show he'd recently gotten into as well.

Once the game got underway again, Dib followed along with renewed interest, asking one of the nearby guys for a piece of paper and a pencil, sketching out what their surrounding area would look like, with a fairly accurate rendering of where they'd been already had looked like during their session. It was more technical than artistic, more or less a blueprint of the dungeon, before he considered the logical possibilities of what would be ahead, and laid some lighter lines down for those before handing them off to Tavros with a slight shrug.

[adiostorero]

Tavros had resumed the game before the pizza had been completely decimated and sat with a slice on his knee, a paper towel in hand that he wiped his fingers on and took the sketch from Dib, looking it over with interest. He started to work out in his head how things were going in comparison to the story framework they were laying down, on top of the pseudo-blueprint, nodding to himself then at Dib with a rather impressed little smile. He continued on with the campaign until someone finally mentioned that they had things to do in the morning, the game having run on well into the evening. They cleaned up the area while making general small talk, then started out until all that was left was Gamzee, Dib and Tavros, who was still writing for a minute until he too could put his things away with everything accounted for. It all had a place there in Gamzee's apartment just as it did in his own.

"So, think you'll wanna play next time?" he asked Dib as he settled down at Gamzee's side. He didn't know if Dib had anything to do the next day, but he didn't want to ask and seem as if he was trying to hustle him on out the door.

[fearofpiggies]

In fact, his day was just about to start; Dib had a case involving a night owl whose girlfriend was convinced he was cheating, and had to get to Denver to go various nightclubs and tail the guy. He smiled to the offer. "I can come early next time and we can set up a character and all that for me. I've got to dash, it's about the time that nightclubs open up and I have to go pretend to be a barfly for a little bit, for a case." He smiled a bit as he watched Gamzee continue to drape himself over Tavros and drift off to sleep. "I'll leave the two of you to your own devices."

[adiostorero]

"Have fun with that. I can't imagine it'd be all that fun. Especially if you're not going to actually drink while you're out," Tavros shrugged, leaning back into Gamzee and easing just enough to one side to let his matesprit lean more heavily into the back of the couch. He added after a moment, "Maybe next time you have the time available you can actually get a look at my legs. Since you were all interested in them before, and all."

[fearofpiggies]

"Oh! Right, I forgot completely about that," Dib said with a grin as he made his way to the door. "I definitely would love to see those as soon as I'm able," he added, "Take care, Tavros. Goodnight, Gamzee!" He waved over his shoulder as he left, considering for a moment that he had made a fairly hasty retreat, and wondered if he sounded rushed or aloof, and that really wasn't his intent.

[adiostorero]

Tavros let him go without comment, waving him off then closing the door behind him and returning to Gamzee's side to curl up against him and finish off the last of his soda before finally deciding that it was time for the two of them to retire for the night. It had been a good day and promised a good night's sleep.

The next game night was held at Gamzee's place once more, and everyone had chipped in money the night before to order a large amount of chinese from one of the delivery places. The food was supposed to arrive maybe half an hour after everyone else had come and settled in, giving them ample time to sit and wait as Tavros assisted in setting up Dib's character. He'd printed out fresh sheets to start from, and was busily explaining the basic stats and what they meant in the game itself, giving a better layman's perspective on what Dib had already read in the books.