Part 1: John

The speed that it took for the week after John's birthday to go from great and awesome to tragic and upsetting was just insane. He's trying really hard to keep his spirits up, but with his nanna in the hospital in… less than ideal condition over the past couple days, it's almost impossible to keep up with schoolwork and also whatever's going on on the other side of the world. With so much on his mind he mostly just wants to tune out and think about a new comic issue or something. Just, something else.

The only thing he knows for sure is that his grades are going to start slipping. He knows that there's a lot more important things happening at the moment, world-wide conspiracies, super powers, and real life tragedies, but that one detail sticks out in his head. Nevertheless, he absolutely cannot convince his brain to parse out its own static long enough to do any of his damn classwork. So he'll just sit here, stewing, with his backpack next to him open enough to reveal papers, folders, notebooks, and binders, things that will remain untouched until his brain finally sorts itself out. Which John hopes will be soon.

There's a storm brewing outside, which would be poetically appropriate if he didn't live in Seattle, where this is just another Friday. There's also a girl passed out asleep in his bed, who he knows is Roxy, and upon asking his other clustermates if sleep visiting is a real thing or something he should be concerned about, he's been assured that "she just does this, don't worry about it." But that means his bed is occupied, sort of, so he's sitting at his computer desk watching the screensaver bounce around.

Wow, okay, he's sick of just sitting here stewing like the weather. It's time to explore some of his new super powers. Long overdue, actually! He stands up from his chair and flicks on the lights, making his room look less gloomy already. With a glance he confirms that Roxy doesn't stir, because he has no idea what time it is in France and he'd feel bad if he kept her up. But that would be a good starting place, right?

John focuses on the thought of Roxy, and pops into her room. It's a dark dorm room, with just the one twin sized bed, the blinds are down and all the way closed to block out any light at all. She's sleeping on her stomach with one arm hanging down off the bed, and her hair falls over her face in strawberry blonde tangles and pink streaks. Her alarm clock on the nightstand next to her reads 2:00, which he assumes is in AM. The dorm is trashed, with papers and clothes scattered around. There's also a bottle or two, but he's noticed she's been drinking a little less since whatever her talk with Dave was.

He tries to nudge a bottle with his finger, but his hand goes through. He glances at Roxy again, who hasn't stirred, and wonders if this is weird. He can't interact with anything in her room, but what if he poked Roxy? Would she feel it? Would she wake up? ...Nah, he's not going to test that right now. That would be rude.

Instead he goes back to his own room, and thinks about who else might be awake. ...Probably most of them. He's aware he's the latest in terms of time zones, everyone else is ahead of him, but they're either also in the States or they're far enough ahead that it's morning time. Most of the cluster seems like early risers anyway. Roxy and Dirk in Europe are probably both asleep, but- Oh. No, he can kind of feel that Dirk is awake. Weird. That's really the only feeling John gets from him, too.

"Hello?" John asks, appearing next to Dirk. He takes a look around, realizing that they're standing in a park under the shade of some trees, not that shade matters since it's long past midnight.

"John," Dirk says with the slightest dip of his head. He's smoking a cigarette, a realization that makes John frown with both disapproval and worry. "Been meaning to ask you, what do you know about CrockerCorp?"

"...CrockerCorp?" John asks, confused.

"Jade said you might know something?"

"Oh! Um, I don't really know things about it, but there's a lot of conspiracy theories about Meenah Peixes and Skaianet, is that what she meant?" he guesses. Dirk shrugs. "Okay, well, there's the classic, that Peixes looks way too young for her age, and she keeps collecting new businesses and consolidating them together. She's like the classic immortal power hungry big business villain, I guess."

"She's also a Sensate," Dirk supplies.

"What? Seriously?" John blinks and takes in this information. "Huh. I honestly don't really know where that fits in. Are Sensates immortal?"

"Not as far as we know. You should also know that Jane's probably being mind controlled. We're working on it, but her and Jade are deep in dangerous territory right now."

John does not know how to respond to that information. Dirk takes another drag of his cigarette, and unfortunately, John can feel and worse taste all of that too. He wrinkles up his face in disgust.

"I should probably apologize for being a dick, by the way." Dirk says everything in a very flat tone, throwing everything out like it's an indisputable fact with no inflection or emotion to be found. His face is the same, stony behind his ridiculous anime sunglasses. It's literally the dead of night, why does he do this? How does he see?

"Thanks?" John says, realizing he should probably respond. "It was, um, a weird situation. I don't really blame you!" Though the apology does make him feel a lot better about Dirk as a general human being.

"Really?" Dirk turns to face him slightly, raising one eyebrow, which almost makes John jump with the sudden expressions going on here. "Alright. Cool. Is that Roxy on your bed?"

With the question, John's suddenly taken out of the German park and back into his room. "Yeah," he shrugs. "She's sleeping. Sleep-visiting? I don't know if there's a technical term." Dirk gives a slight nod.

"I'll see what I can find out," he says, and then vanishes. John blinks a couple times, not knowing what to make of that, which is usually how he feels around like half of the cluster anyway. They're all a bunch of weirdos, huh?

John figures that if he's got Sensate questions, Jade, Rose, or Jane would be his most likely bet. Then again… Maybe he wants to figure this out on his own, actually do the puzzle instead of being told the solution. Why should they know all that much more than him, anyway? None of them knew Sensates existed before a week ago, except Jade. He can talk to her later.

He can also hear music that isn't his own, so he'll make a stop before continuing on this world tour. John follows the music, and finds himself next to Dave, who he hasn't really seen a lot of yet. He's sitting in front of his computer, with a music mixing thing on his lap that lights up with different colors whenever Dave presses a square. He probably can't hear anything with the big headphones on, and he probably can't see John either with his sunglasses on indoors at night.

"Sounds good," John comments, and he means that. There's definitely a rhythm going on, and he can tell Dave's just improvising with different sounds and melodies. Dave tenses the slightest bit at the sound of his voice, which he can only hear through the headphones because John's just in his head already, but he covers it up with a slight nod.

"Yeah," he mutters under his breath. He puts the pad back onto the desk, pressing play on a track on his laptop labelled 'mixnumberwhatthefuckever.' It's sort of similar to what he was playing before, but a little more defined and polished. Definitely in Dave's own distinct style. He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through Instagram.

"You make music?" John prods, feeling a bit ignored.

Dave relocates their conversation to be in John's room once again. "Yeah, I do mixing and stuff. Can't play real instruments for shit but I'm vain enough to say that I've got a good touch."

"It's pretty good," John repeats, nodding. In Dave's world, he's sitting absentmindedly on his phone. It's weird, usually they don't try to multitask like that, from what John has seen so far. "...Are you ignoring me?"

Dave catches his glance, looking at him over his sunglasses for a second. Back in John's room, he explains, "Nah, sorry. My bro's catching on, he's really suspicious right now. So it's probably best he doesn't think I'm hearing voices. I mean he's already seen it and there's no uncrossing that bridge now that it's been thoroughly crossed but we're doing some damage control, okay? He definitely already thinks I'm insane though."

"Sure, makes sense," John shrugs. "But he's not around, is he? Shouldn't you be fine just in your room?"

"You'd think, right? Nah, he's probably got a couple cameras in here by now. Before that was like a line that we didn't cross, bedroom was my space, but that defense kind of falls through under suspicion of insanity," Dave explains. He looks over at Roxy, who's still sleeping, snoring now, even, and takes it in stride, not even questioning it. John wonders how often she does this.

"Alright, well, I was just experimenting with the new superpowers. So we can definitely hear each other's music if we want, and apparently have sleepovers," John gestures to Roxy, then to the button pad. "Can I try using your mixing thingy?"

Dave hesitates, but silently reaches over and casually adjusts it so that John can use it at his angle. John presses a square, lighting it up blue, and he can hear through Dave's headphones when a staccato drum beat kicks in. "That's at a different BPM entirely," Dave complains in a low voice, taking over again and turning off the sample.

"Sorry, I just play piano," John apologizes sheepishly. "But, we proved that I can interact with it at all, so that's neat."

"Piano you say?" Dave echoes. "Okay, we can work with that, actually." He reaches under his desk and pulls out a really short keyboard, holding maybe one and a half octaves worth of keys. He pulls out some more wires, plugs them into his computer, and presses the record button, a little red light on the keyboard flicking on. "Play me a ditty and make it good, I want to see what happens."

John doesn't see a reason not to, so he leans over Dave's chair and uses just his right hand to play a few measures of a really simple melody. When he's done, Dave hits the button again, ending the recording, and then plays it back, sounding exactly like John played it. "Guess I'm not just in your head, then?"

"Guess not. Just to be sure though," Dave says, holding his phone out like he's taking a selfie. The phone's in his left hand. "Play it again."

John glances nervously at the camera, but he doesn't show up on it at all. Dave looks like he's alone, looking over and nodding encouragingly to no one when he starts recording the video. But John has to watch his fingers to play it right, so he focuses on that. He asks, "So what does that look like?"

"Let's see," Dave says. He plays the video, and it looks for all appearances like Dave's looking dead into the camera behind his shades, holding it up with his left hand while his right hand perfectly plays the keys. "Okay so is this some kind of body possession shit because I'm not entirely sure I gave my full consent, here. John, are you some kind of vengeful ghost, because legally you have to tell me."

"I don't think so! It looks more like we're sharing a body than that," John comments, frowning. He gently takes Dave's phone and watches the video again, kind of hating the way Dave's hand looks like it moves completely on its own. He wonders if to outsiders it looks like Dave is just watching the same video on his phone several times over. The idea of other video cameras being in the room makes him uneasy.

"Someone's home," Dave says suddenly, and John assumes that's on his end, but Dave's specifically looking towards John's bedroom door. He gives Dave a confused look, and Dave explains, "Just heard the door open and shut, it sounds like only one person. You just live with your dad, right?"

"And my nanna," John corrects, suddenly anxious once more. Now that he knows his dad is home, it feels like it takes an eternity for him to come up the stairs and finally give John an update.

"That's more bad feelings than I've had my entire life, dude," Dave comments, looking uncomfortable. "You good?"

John waves a hand at Dave. "Shhh," he shushes, eyes glued to the door. Finally there's a quiet hesitant knock, and he calls, "Come in."

John's dad opens the door carefully, and comes in, which is already a bad sign. Usually he'll just poke his head in, or stay in the doorway. He comes in, and closes the door behind him. "Son."

"How's nanna?" He'd been with her in the hospital all day, while John had been at school. He'd had to ride the bus home for the first time in years. His dad doesn't respond, taking a breath like he's trying to, but from the expression on his face John can kind of guess what he's going to say. "...Is she…?"

His dad nods, looking relieved he didn't have to be so blunt. "She passed this afternoon. If you… need anything, or need to talk about anything, I'm here, alright son?"

"Okay, dad, thanks," John says, mind suddenly a million miles away with the news. He'd call his thoughts racing, but he doesn't have any distinct words going through his head. But the 'nothings' are going through very fast, making him slightly dizzy. He convinces himself to walk forward the few steps to give his dad a hug, because he probably needs it more than John does. His dad keeps a tight grip around him for a second, not saying anything, and then carefully lets go with an understanding nod, and leaves the room.

Dave is still there. John doesn't know why he keeps having witnesses for stressful emotional times, first Rose when he got the call Nanna was getting worse, then Jake when she had to go to the hospital. Oh, and Roxy is still here, too. But he'd sort of like to be alone right now?

"So… are you… okay?" Dave says slowly, tense and slightly panicked. It would be funny on any other day. John just shrugs, sitting back down on his desk chair and spinning it in a slow circle, kicking his feet around. "I, um, never met my grandparents, if that makes you… I guess, I don't understand what you're going through? But I imagine it's hard, and I'm here for you, buddy."

Dave pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. John musters up a little smile, because it really is funny how hard he's trying and how badly he's failing. "Thanks, man."

"Dave you fucking suck at this," Roxy quietly calls from the other side of the room, having apparently woken up at some point, startling them but effectively getting their attention. She pats the bed space next to her. "John. Come lay down, you'll feel better."

"Okay I'm just gonna-" Dave meets Roxy's eyes and she gives him a nod in permission to leave, and then he vanishes.

Part 2: Rose

Things have been tense in the Lalonde house as of late. Rose catches glimpses of her mother out of the corner of her eye with an alarming frequency that is an entirely new development, whereas before she could go for days without any sightings at all. Her mother has also taken to carrying around a journal that she scribbles down notes in, especially when Rose talks to herself. Then she pretends she has done nothing of the sort when Rose looks over at her in disdain.

She's been seeing Kanaya more, too, and though they have different enough schedules that there isn't time to talk during school, twice in the past week she has driven Rose home, even though she lives so far out of the way. It's very kind of her.

John's a whole country away, but all of them felt it when he got the news of his grandmother's passing. Rose has elected to give him space until he feels he is ready to talk. She knows that Roxy has been there for him, and Dave too, even though it's obvious that he would rather be anywhere else. John is being taken care of, she can tell that he's asleep at the moment as well, so she won't worry herself too much.

That was all last night, and now Rose sits in a private library study room, where Kanaya will be meeting her soon. With both Jane and Feferi so thoroughly compromised with whatever Her Condescension is up to, Kanaya is their best source of information beyond the man who first awakened Rose and presumably the others, though none say they ever saw him.

Ah, there's Kanaya now. She peeks in the window in the door first before entering, and then gracefully sits down at the table across from Rose.

"Hello, Rose. You may begin your interrogation," Kanaya says with a smile. Rose looks at the door to confirm that it is closed, that they are in real privacy that she can no longer achieve at home. Her mother cannot eavesdrop here.

"Thank you. Lovely to see you as always," Rose responds. She leans forward, tucking her feet under her chair and resting her chin on her hands. "So. You're a Sensate."

"Yes, that is quite clear by now."

"Alright then. How long have you been a Sensate?"

"My cluster had our awakening when we were thirteen. That is very young, from what I can gather." Kanaya hums to herself, and Rose lets her go on at her own pace. Whatever information she chooses to share, Rose will be grateful. "And there are twelve of us, which I also gather is very unusual."

Rose blinks in surprise. "Twelve? How can you stand having so much in your head? And for so long?"

"Admittedly we have lost contact with a few. I only regularly speak to about five of them, or six on rare occasions. Several of them are entirely unlikable." Kanaya takes a sip from a thermos she has brought with her. "What about yours?"

Rose thinks about her own cluster for a moment, going through each one as a list in her head. "I like all of them so far," she shrugs. "They're very nice, though some seem to be closed off emotionally, thus making it harder to get a fair judge of character."

"You will get to know them very well soon enough," Kanaya reassures her. "Being mentally linked tends to expedite the friendship courting process."

"I don't doubt it." She frowns. "But how can you cut off contact with your cluster like that? Aren't you always connected?"

"Well, there are blockers of course," she says. Rose looks at her in confusion. "Blockers are pills that neutralize your Sensate abilities so you cannot visit or share."

"Where do you go to get those?" Rose wonders. "I can't imagine there being a store for Sensates just lying around."

"Oh, I assure you, it is a highly illegal black market drug, and it is very difficult to get a hold of. It helps to know people."

"Hmm," Rose hums. She can't imagine a scenario where she would want to use those. Having her cluster on hand seems like it can't be anything but a benefit, even if it can be quite distracting from the real world. "Useful information regardless, I suppose. How did you learn all of this?"

"Experience mostly. Our cluster's mother did not stay around for long after she awakened us. We had to learn a lot ourselves."

Rose sits more upright, curiosity piqued. "Your cluster's mother? I don't think we've ever met our own parent. A different man came to me and awakened us remotely, he said that our mother was busy."

"That is very strange," Kanaya says, frowning. "You should be in frequent contact with your mother, she is supposed to explain to you how to be a Sensate. Though, my own was not the best in that department. She preferred controlling over explaining."

"That sounds a bit like my real mother," Rose shrugs. "You don't think she could also be my cluster's mother, do you?"

Kanaya shakes her head. "No, she is not a Sensate. We would be able to tell. And what reason would she have to hide that information? But please, tell me more about the man you saw."

"Well, he was short, and old, and he wore a green and white suit. I don't think I ever saw his face, and I haven't been able to contact him since."

"That was Scratch," Kanaya says suddenly, her eyes wide.

"Scratch? What do you mean?"

"An incredibly smug and irritating little old man?"

"Yes, that is how I would describe him," Rose confirms.

"That is Scratch, he is in our mother's cluster. I suppose he could have stood in for your mother, if…" she trails off, thinking to herself and frowning some more. Oh, or maybe she's not just thinking to herself, she seems to be nodding along to something she's listening to. Rose wonders if this is what visiting looks like from the outside.

"Are you visiting?" Rose asks. Kanaya's eyes snap back into focus, and she looks back up at her.

"Yes, I do not have the most experience with Scratch, but my clustermate Vriska does. He is, in her words, a 'manipulative asshole,' and she advises you to stay away," Kanaya says. Rose has heard Kanaya swear before, but it catches her off guard each time, because of how well-spoken and eloquent Kanaya tended to be. "And perhaps you should listen to her, he can be dangerous."

"How so?" Rose lifts an eyebrow. He had seemed perfectly harmless, and that is even considering the fact that she had thought he'd broken into her house. Smug and irritating, sure, and entirely too confident, but she wouldn't describe him as dangerous.

"Well, he tricked Vriska into nearly getting another of our cluster killed." She casts a sharp look to her left. "Luckily, he survived."

"I think I'll try to get in contact again, regardless. I have questions that I doubt you can answer. No offense, of course. I would just like to know more about my own cluster," Rose explains. Though Kanaya's warning is off putting, Rose is still on a mission. She needs to find out all that she can, especially after the attack on Jake. Knowledge is power.

"Rose, I would advise against it, he nearly tore the cluster apart," Kanaya says, reaching her hand across the table to touch Rose's own. "We still haven't recovered yet."

"Thank you for the warning, I know to be careful now. I won't do anything stupid. Promise." Halfway through, Rose realizes Kanaya's not listening to her. She's frowning again, looking over to her left.

She gives a sigh, finally focusing her attention back to Rose. "I'll see what I can do to help, I suppose, if I can't talk you out of it. My cluster can act as a lookout for anything suspicious happening. Some of them are very well connected."

"Thank you," Rose says genuinely this time, relieved as she relaxes her shoulders. "That would be helpful. I'll try to do the same, we've already caught wind of strange things happening with Skaianet and the heiresses. One is in my cluster."

Kanaya raises an eyebrow. "Oh, yes, I've heard the same. We lost contact with Feferi a few months ago completely. Is Jane Crocker really in your cluster?"

"Feferi's in yours?" Rose asks, eyes wide. Kanaya nods, and Rose reevaluates. "You… lost contact completely. Hmm. That sounds- Troubling."

"Yes, after a series of events that would take too long to recount. Her mother had begun hunting us through Feferi. We never quite understood why."

"Oh, fuck. Like the attack on Jake a few days ago." Rose leans her head down and rubs her temple. "This might be worse than we thought."

"She's attacking you as well?" Kanaya looks a bit panicked now. "Rose, you should reconsider your plan to seek out Scratch. It might very well be worse than any of us thought."

"No," she shakes her head. "We need to know as much as we can, now especially. I've got to go, I need to start coordinating and organizing our group before it gets too late." Rose stands and pulls her messenger bag off of the chair, putting it over one shoulder.

"Rose," Kanaya says, stern.

"Kanaya," Rose answers, passive. "It's been lovely, I promise to keep you updated, and I only ask that you do the same."

She takes a cab home. It would be incredibly awkward to ask Kanaya to drive her back after that, after all. But she arrives home to an equally awkward state, because her mother is home from the lab earlier than expected.

"Rose, darling, how was your outing?" Her mother is in the living room, probably waiting for Rose to get home. She's had a tendency to show herself wherever Rose might be at any moment. She has a wine glass in one hand, curled up on the couch with a magazine in the other.

"I've unlocked international conspiracies that have a chance of affecting my life, personally," Rose says while she hangs up her black peacoat on the rack, slipping off her shoes. Those go neatly into the cubby on the floor with the rest of the shoes organized there.

"Oh?" Her reactions are minimal, controlled, while she attempts to decipher what Rose means by telling her this. "Is this something I need to be concerned about?"

"No, not until they attempt to kill me, or whatever it is they want," Rose says nonchalantly, making her way up the stairs now. She's disappeared into her room before her mother has a chance to respond to that. She allows herself a smug smile. More encounters with her has led to more opportunities to score points in the little games they play.

Now, to reinstate contact with this Scratch. He's not in her cluster, so she can't do the reaching out process that she uses with the others. She thinks back to the first time, when he appeared before her. She had been sitting and meditating, er, well, more drinking than anything else. But perhaps the relaxed mindset had something to do with it. Keeping her psyche open, to reference some of her old wicca practices. Her third eye, even. Now she wonders if old witchcraft customs were actually related to Sensates before the scientific side was discovered, but she doesn't have time to leap into that rabbit hole. She'll tuck that away to debate with Jade later.

Regardless, she will light some candles and set them in a circle on the floor. They smell nice, and the scent relaxes her. If they help with the endeavor that's just a bonus. Rose sits down on the floor, and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, and waits. There's not much else to do.

Well, not much else besides talk to herself and pray that her mother's ear isn't pressed to her bedroom door. She suspects it has taken its place there multiple times lately. "Scratch," she says aloud, her voice hesitant and soft. She clears her throat and tries again, like she's talking to a real person, as she intends to. "Scratch. I know your name now, and I would like to speak with you again. The first time we spoke, you asked me for questions. I didn't know what to ask. Now, I do. I would like some answers."

Frustratingly, nothing happens.

Part 3: Dave

Yeah, he's being watched now. The surveillance cameras previously used mostly for weird puppet snuff films have now spread from the living room and the kitchen to his own damn bedroom, and it's a boundary that he never thought would be crossed. The day he actually sees Bro in his one sanctuary on this earth is the day he has a real aneurysm and finally passes away into blissful oblivion. That's too much. Even the knowledge that Bro must have been in here to set up the cameras at some point makes his skin prickle. But there's definitely a little red light that blinks from the top of the closet door's frame. He's also got a band-aid over the webcam on his computer, for extra security, but that's one he's had for a while.

He wouldn't be able to get away with removing or otherwise damaging them, either, they'd just go up again and he'd have to pay for the sabotage. So in the meantime, he's just going to have to avoid doing anything suspicious, and maybe Bro will back off in like a week or so. That's wishful thinking, and he knows it. Maybe panicking and nope-ing out of the situation when Bro first asked about it, back when he first met Dirk, was not the best move to make.

So for a lack of anything better to do about it he's gonna… try… talking? To Bro? And see if that does anything at all, or if it's even possible? It's probably not. It's probably not, and he's an idiot for ever believing it might work. He shouldn't even try- He's already opened his bedroom door. He solidly puts a foot into the hallway… Oh, fuck, he's doing this. Alright, here we go then.

There's no traps in the hallway again, which again sets him on edge. But he sees why as soon as he enters the living room. He doesn't have his sword, because he's trying to give the impression that he wants to talk this time instead of fight, so hopefully the lack of a weapon will deter Bro from immediately launching into strife.

His strategy seems to be working. Bro himself is sitting perched on the back of the futon couch, legs drawn up under him like a large overgrown seagull. He sees Dave the second he walks in, probably heard him pacing around before he opened the door, too.

He speaks, "Gonna tell me what's up now?"

Dave stops, thrown off. "Um. Yeah?"

"Good. Does it have anything to do with that?" Bro hooks a thumb behind him to the window. Dave frowns and carefully walks past Bro and the futon, over to the window by the TV. He sees what Bro means pretty quick, there's a van parked across the street with a direct line of sight to the apartment. It looks stereotypically menacing, dark black with no logo on the side, blacked out windows and everything. He would have noticed it if it had been there for a while, so it's been there maybe two days tops.

"They're not after you? No puppet porn deals gone wrong?" Dave asks, turning back to Bro, who doesn't react at all. That's a no. So it might be related to the New Zealand drama, or the Japan drama. That's too much drama, and Dave wants no part of it. No new Houston drama, thanks. He huffs. "Well. No big deal but I may have gotten mixed up in some shit."

"Kid, if you're doing drugs under my roof you can pack a bag right now," Bro deadpans.

"No, not drugs," Dave asserts, making 'x' motions with his hands to emphasize how not down he is with that idea. "Just. Like." He looks around the room like that will help him figure out how to explain. He definitely should have planned better, because he has absolutely no idea where to go from here. Just getting Bro to listen was further than he thought he'd get. "You're not going to believe me but it's like… Superpowers…? Except not really, because Jade keeps telling us not to call them that, but that's what they are, and we've got, like, metahuman abilities and I don't know how that doesn't qualify as superpowers..." He trails off, realizing that he's rambling, and that Bro's not saying anything or doing anything besides just looking at him. "Uh. So I've got like other people living in my brain but they're real and they just live far away, and I don't really know how to prove it to you."

"And that?" Bro asks after a second of quiet, gesturing to the window again, a complete non-reaction to all the batshit insane stuff Dave just explained.

"...That might be related to the fact that there's a shady government organization thing supposedly hunting us down for unknown purposes." He has to force his hand to stop fidgeting. So what, he's just not going to get any response to all that? Does Bro believe him, just accepting all of that blindly? Does he think he's lying, or insane, or bending the truth? Wouldn't he have at least some questions? Why can't he just react at all?

Bro just nods. "I'll take care of it." He jumps down from the futon, Dave takes a quick step back, and then Bro speeds off in a blur. Dave takes a deep breath. That could have gone so much worse. Though he has no idea how it went yet, actually. He doesn't know if it went good or not. Fuck.

He needs to do something else now. Probably should tell somebody about the mysterious stalker van, right? If they think Peixes is behind it, then he should ask Jane, but she's brainwashed or whatever as of last time someone updated him. So Jade, then.

Dave focuses his attention and directs it at Jade, an invitation to visit. She's the most receptive, so far, and usually he can feel her fluctuating thoughts and feelings across the link more clearly than the others.

"Hi Dave!" she greets, appearing next to him in the apartment. Dave glances around, wondering if Bro's still there or still watching him, wondering if this is the easiest way to convince him he's not crazy.

"Sup," he jerks his head at her. "Come take a look at this." He brings her over to the window, showing her the van.

"Oh! Suspicious!" Jade says, eyes wide as she puts her hand on the window sill and leans forward enough that her forehead bumps the glass.

"Think it might be the same people who went after Jake?"

"Hmm. Those guys had SUVs, I believe, but maybe!" Jade turns away from the window, and she looks around her room. In Japan, it's dark, and she's standing over a pile of blankets on the ground. Shit, was she asleep? It didn't seem like it, but it's gotta be really late there. He can also see Jane in a large bed in the same room, sound asleep. "There hasn't really been anything shifty over here. I'm supposed to go back home later today, and if Mrs. Peixes was really focused on taking out Sensates she wouldn't be cool with me leaving, right? Maybe the thing with Jake was because of something else!"

"Wait, you think they're trying to take out Sensates?" Dave asks.

"...Well, what else would it be? It's too much of a coincidence that this all happened right after our rebirth! Unless, of course, this is a regular occurrence for you guys," she says, looking out of his window again. Dave follows her eyes, and sees a flash before one of the tires on the van bursts. "Oh!"

"That'd be Bro." Dave looks down, and there's a series of blurs and flashes before the other three tires burst in sequence. A man steps out of the van, comically shaking his fist at Bro as he blurs around out of sight. The man looks mad, but not necessarily super nefarious.

A knock sounds on the door. Dave and Jade both turn, and Jade looks to Dave with a frown. He raises one eyebrow, mind trying to figure out what the fuck that could be about. They never get visitors. Bro's gotta be downstairs on the street still, he's not that fast. As far as Dave's aware, he isn't capable of teleporting yet, and besides, the door should be unlocked anyway. Whoever it is is knocking out of politeness, which might be a good sign, but just confuses Dave more.

He goes over to the door, treading lightly and his footsteps don't make a sound. He leans over and looks through the peephole, seeing a guy with really messy dark hair and skin a light brown. He looks like he's a couple years older than him, but in spite of that he's definitely shorter than Dave. He's standing with a scowl and his arms crossed while he taps his foot, anxiously looking up and down the hallway. Dave doesn't really know what to make of that.

"Ask what he wants," Jade advises.

"Who is it?" Dave calls, shooting Jade a look. He's admittedly grateful for the support. If he's murdered, he at least needs someone to witness his last moments, right? She'll be able to tell the story of how he heroically fought off attackers before sacrificing himself for the greater good of their cluster, taking down their enemies with him. It'll be great.

"Just let me in, it's important!" The guy yells back, impatient and twice as loud as Dave. He looks to Jade again, who shrugs dramatically.

"I'm gonna grab a sword," Dave mutters to Jade, quiet enough the visitor can't hear him. He silently rushes back into his room, grabbing his katana while he assesses all the factors of the situation. Hostiles downstairs with Bro, possible hostiles at his door. Jade's there too.

When he goes back to the living room the door is swinging open already, and the boy enters the apartment, closing it behind him. Dave points the sword at him. "Dude, what the fuck," he says.

He holds up his hands in surprise, looking startled. "Is that a fucking sword? What the fuck right back!"

"Yeah it's a sword, it's dope as shit," Dave says, taking a couple steps closer. "Haven't you ever heard of breaking and entering? It's illegal."

"Obviously, listen. I'm here to warn you, as fucking stupid as that sounds. There's not a lot of time." He's exasperated, crossing his arms again with a huff. "Obviously."

"I already know about the creepy van dude. Just tell me who you are and what you want."

"Stop calling me dude!" He snaps. "It's an organized crime gang thing, we don't have time to get into that right now! Important thing is, they started hunting younger Sensates, and it's fucked up. So you've either got to get out of here or convince them to back the fuck off like the other one did."

"Oh, man, is this like a 'come with me if you want to live' situation? In my real life?" Dave asks. He gets a glower in response. "By other one do you mean Jake and by Sensate do you mean-"

"Dave!" Jade says, and he looks over at her before he can think better of it. "Can you stop messing around?! This is important!"

"Yes! I don't know what your clustermate is saying, but I agree with them. Get your head out of your ass and get a move on!" He takes a couple steps closer to Dave, and he levels the sword at him again. "And put that thing down, you look like a moron."

"Nah. Don't know if you've noticed, but there's not a whole lot of trust happening around here yet. Are you with the guys down there?" he asks. The boy hesitates for a just split second, but that's enough of an answer. "You said they're hunting Sensates? So you know that I'm a Sensate? Why the fuck would I trust you?"

"I'm a Sensate too. They don't know, nobody does, I'm just trying to look out for my own fucking species. Is that so hard to believe?"

Dave looks to Jade, again. She bites her lip. "I think you should trust him. For now. And in the meantime, I'm gonna go ask some questions! I'll be back!" She gives him a wave, and pops out of sight.

He heaves his shoulders once in resignation and lowers the sword, but doesn't let his guard down. "Fine. Then what's your plan, wise guy?"

"You're gonna need to get somewhere safer. Do you live alone?" He asks, frowning as he looks around the apartment. It's a mess of puppets and assorted weaponry, so it might look like he lives without any parental guidance, and that's because he absolutely does.

"My bro's taking out the stalker van as we speak," Dave says, gesturing with his thumb to the window again. "Thanks for the heads up and all, but I think we've got it covered."

"You-" he rushes over to the window, leaning towards the glass. He turns back and takes a deep breath, looking just as angry as when he came in. "Okay. Your brother might have just pissed them off more, great job, fuckwit."

"Uncalled for," Dave protests.

"Whatever. We should just get out of here before they start shooting or something. They might already be in the building, so-" He lunges forward and grabs Dave's arm, pulling him in the direction of the door.

"Dude!" Dave jerks out of his grip, affronted and shocked. "No touching. Not cool. I need to-"

"Oh my god whatever it is we don't have time for it! Let's go!" He doesn't grab at him again, but he just gives Dave a pointed look while he goes back to the front door. Dave follows him with minimal grumbling, sword still in hand, and grabs keys off the counter before leaving the apartment.

Part 4: Jade

Jade leaves Dave with his mysterious new visitor, and it might be four AM in Japan but she is willing and prepared to wake people up to get some answers. If she had to wake up to help Dave, then so does Feferi! Jane can sleep for now. She probably needs it, she seems really stressed all the time! Plus Jade's a little wary of her now. Feferi, too, but honestly if Jane is compromised she's much more of a threat to their cluster, though the thought makes her really sad. But she can talk to Feferi. Especially since she's leaving today, it might be her last chance.

Jade sends a cautious glance to Jane, who's sleeping in her bed, and tiptoes out of the room. Luckily, she hadn't woken up while Jade was talking to Dave. She was trying to be quiet, but she's also been told that she doesn't have the best volume control in the world. But Jane was asleep! So she must be getting better!

She crosses down the hallway and knocks softly on Feferi's door, not wanting to wake anyone else up. Mrs. Peixes has the master bedroom on the other side of the floor, but Jade worries that she doesn't sleep. And she doesn't want her to know Jade's sneaking around, so she's gonna be as quiet as she can be.

Feferi carefully opens the door a couple moments later, just when Jade had been getting impatient. Feferi's hair is up, all of her braids twisted up on top of her head, and she rubs her eyes while she stares blankly at Jade. She's not wearing any of the gold jewelry that usually covers any available surface, and that includes her tiara. Jade swallows, caught off guard.

"Um, Feferi, can I talk to you?" she asks quietly. Feferi blinks at her, and nods, holding open the door a little wider and gesturing her to come in. She shuts the door behind Jade, and then sits down on her bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

"What's up?" she asks.

"Well," Jade starts, sitting carefully down next to her. "I was sort of wondering about your tiaratop. What do you use it for?"

Feferi's eyes drift to where it sits on her nightstand. "Oh, I should be wearing that," she says, leaning over. Jade catches her shoulder and pulls her back.

"No, you don't need it right now," she says. "Or, I'd rather you didn't." Feferi gives her a sleepy, confused look. "Um, does your mom use it to, um, talk to you?"

"Sure, that's what it's for," she shrugs. Then she blinks a couple of times, slowly waking up. "But between you and me, I think it's for a lot more than that!"

"Oh?" Jade says, leaning towards her and giving her full attention.

"Yeah," she says, then slumps her shoulders. "I can't communicate with my cluster anymore." And whatever Jade was expecting, it wasn't that!

"What? Why not?" she asks in shock. "I didn't know that was possible!"

"Me neither! I… think my mom did it. It's funny, my head feels really clear right now," Feferi says, still frowning. She casts a nervous glance back at the tiara. "Um, why are we talking about this right now?"

"Oh! Right!" Jade says, remembering Dave. "One of my cluster got attacked a few days ago! They're saying that your mom might have had something to do with it, and now another one in my cluster is being stalked by the same people. So I was wondering if you knew anything?"

"Hmm. Um. I think the same thing happened with my cluster?" Feferi winces and puts a hand to the side of her head. "Yeah, I remember something about people going missing… and then I tried to run away…" Her frown deepens, then her eyes widen with a flash of anxiety. "Wait, you might be in danger! Jane might be in danger!"

"Jane," Jade remembers. "Oh no." She bites her lip and tries to come up with a way to fix this. There aren't any easy solutions, not if Mrs. Peixes has some kind of secret task force or whatever they are…

"What happened to your clustermates?" Feferi asks after a moment. She looks a little guilty, like she had something to do with it, guilt Jade is sure is misplaced.

"Jake's fine, he got away. And I think Dave's alright? A short and angry kid showed up and said he wanted to help, so Dave's with him…" Jade wonders if she should probably check in on that!

"With who?" Feferi asks, jerking her head up and looking directly at Jade. "Who's Dave with?"

"Short and angry guy? Latino, maybe, or Filipino? Bit of both? Um, probably a little older than us. Than Dave and I, I mean," Jade says, trying to remember details. "Maybe your age."

Feferi grabs Jade's hands, looking excited. "I think that was Karkat! He's Filipino on his mom's side I think. But he's in my cluster, I haven't talked to him in forever! I'm glad he's okay! Could you pass on a hello for me, pretty please?"

"Oh! Yeah!" Jade nods, and stands up. "Um, thank you for the honesty! I'll let you sleep now, so I can deal with this…"

"Okay! Any time!" Feferi says, still smiling. "And let me know if you find more of my cluster! I'd love to see them again!"

"Of course!" Jade agrees, and gives a little wave as she walks out. She goes back into Jane's room, tiptoeing past her, and slips out the sliding glass door onto the balcony. She sits in one of the reclined lawn chairs, looking at the sun barely beginning to lighten the sky, and closes her eyes.

She opens them in Houston, and sees Dave flinging around with his sword, dodging actual gunfire. Alarmed, she takes another moment to let her eyes flicker around, taking in the scene. Dave and his brother are both fighting with swords, against three men with guns that are kind of useless in these close quarters. But one of the men also has a knife that he wields with obviously trained skill, one is swinging a sniper rifle at them as if it's a sword, and the third is very short but is also holding a bat. She doesn't see Karkat.

They're fighting in an alleyway, and Jade thinks she can place it as the one behind the apartment building. She's definitely missing some context here! But if she were to guess, she'd say that Dave and Karkat tried to escape, but then Dave, at least, got caught up in fighting down here. Okay, it's not that complicated, as it turns out.

"Dave! I got info!" she shouts. Apparently these guys aren't that hard to fight, because Dave can spare her a glance and a thumbs up without missing a beat. Dave's brother knocks the knife out of the angry man's hand, and then he pulls out another knife with a scowl. There's a littering of knives on the ground already, and this dude has a problem.

Lacking a way to actually help, Jade pokes her head out from the wall and looks down the street, to do some more reconnaissance. She can see the van parked on the street, and now there's a really big guy kneeling down next to the tires, attaching a new one with two slashed open tires piled on the ground next to him. She can see him mouthing swear words under his breath, grumbling while he goes about readying the getaway vehicle.

"Jake!" she calls. She waits a second, tapping her foot and looking over her shoulder at the continuing fight, and then pops into Jake's room. "Jake!" she repeats. He's in bed, which she supposes makes sense, but everyone's getting woken up today! Jade shakes his shoulder, and slowly he starts to grumble and stir.

"...Jade…?" he asks, rubbing his hand down his face. He starts to sit up. "Blimey, it's early, what's going on?"

"You don't have to get up!" Jade pushes his shoulder and lays him back down. "Just, are these the guys that attacked you?" She keeps her voice low, because she hopes he can just check and then get back to sleep. She's not a total asshole! She can recognize that some people actually enjoy sleeping past six in the morning! She can't understand it, but she can recognize it!

She's still peering around the corner in Houston, and when Jake appears next to her Dave shoots her an exasperated look. Well, she can't really see his expressions all that clearly, but that's definitely the vibe she gets from him, and he maybe grits his teeth a bit.

"Er… let's see," Jake says, frowning, looking between the big guy fixing the car and the other three fighting with Dave and his brother. Dave keeps knocking away the short one when he tries to swipe at Dave with his bat, while he also strifes with the angry one with the infinite amount of knives. His brother fights the tall one with the rifle using a sword and a puppet somehow? It keeps trying to strangle the tall guy with its weird gangly puppet arms, and Jade really hates it on sight! Dave's brother is weird, and she doesn't think she likes him one bit!

"Jake?" she prods.

He starts to nod. "Yes, well, it sure does look to be the case! A bit hard to recognize them from the security tapes, but they are quite distinctly shaped!"

"Okay! Thanks, you can go back to sleep!" She starts pushing him back into his room.

"Well, hold on, that all looks rather interesting! What's Dave up to?" he resists, gesturing back over to Dave's fight.

"Um," Jade says, "I don't really know! I missed a bit of context. But I should probably be looking for Karkat! Let me know if you see a short Latino and-or Filipino dude walking around here!"

"On top of it!" Jake nods, determined, and splits off in another direction. He has the posture of an adventurer, sure, but he's still in his grandpa pajamas. Almost all of his legs are exposed and his feet are bare, which apparently aren't burning on the hot cement. Which is another good thing to know! Like, she can tell that it's hot, she's aware of the humid Texas air, but at the same time, she's taking none of the effects!

Jade starts snooping around while Dave hits the short one over the head with the handle of his katana. The tall one starts shooting again, but Dave's brother redirects the gun to fire straight up into the air with his own sword, and they seem to be holding their own okay. But she can tell that Dave, at least, is getting tired. Jade worries her lip as she carefully circles outside of the combat zone, looking to where Jake went. He's looking around the dumpsters next to the wall of the apartment building, and next to those she can see a door that doesn't look like it opens from this side. It's marked with an exit sign, so maybe it's where they all came out of?

As she peers at it, she sees a flash of dark hair pop into the little window and then duck back down again. Oh, is Karkat hiding? She goes over closer and uses her height to look down through the window, where she can see Karkat standing with his back to the door, keeping tabs on the situation by leaning over and looking out every couple minutes or so. He looks anxious, fidgeting and clenching his jaw, grumbling to himself words that Jade can't hear.

"Jake! Found him!" she calls. Jake lets out a whoop, and comes back over to see. Jake sees Karkat poke his head up again, and then the door slowly opens and Karkat slips out. She turns and sees that none of the attackers are looking this direction. Dave spares him a glance, but then goes back to ducking and dodging bats and knives. He's getting slower. Karkat waits behind the dumpster, moving so that he's still out of sight, and then picks up a rock on the ground and throws it. It pegs the tall one with a gun directly on the head, and he turns around in a rage, which allows Dave's brother to land a solid hit.

"Dammit!" the tall guy yells, turning back to Dave's brother and opening fire again, but none of the bullets strike a target. The gun starts to click, and Jade knows that it's out of ammo. She could identify that noise in her sleep! "Fine! You win this time, assholes." His two compatriots pause their fighting, and back away from Dave, who's breathing harder. His brother looks perfectly fine.

"Is Hearts finished with the car?" the angry knife one asks. Jade thinks that maybe Hearts is the name, or codename, rather, of the big one who was fixing the tires.

"He better be," the tall one grumbles. The shortest one with the bat doesn't say anything, but looks much more worried than menacing. "We'll be back for you though, don't worry," he says to Dave with a grimace before he turns and walks away, resting the gun on his shoulder. Dave glances to his brother, who just watches them go with a blank face, so Dave does the same.

Once the three have left the alleyway, Dave's brother gives him a single look and then pulls out some keys and unlocks the exit door Karkat had been hiding in. He also passes Karkat, who's standing up now looking unsure, but he doesn't pay him any mind.

Dave follows his brother, and gestures for Karkat to come with him. Karkat follows them inside in silence. Jade follows, too, but Jake's disappeared. She gently tugs on their connection, mentally, and finds that he's asleep again. Which is probably a good thing!

It's a long trek up the stairs back to their apartment. Once Karkat and Dave are inside, Jade tagging along, his brother closes the door behind them.

"Explain," he says, crossing his arms at Karkat, who kind of shrinks in on himself.

"It's not his fault," Dave argues, stepping a little closer defensively. Jade stands next to Dave too, in solidarity, even though she's invisible.

"You're right, it's your fault." His brother takes a step towards them, and Dave tenses his grip on his sword. Jade and Karkat both notice this, and Jade puts a hand on Dave's shoulder in support. He twitches just a bit at the action, but otherwise doesn't react. "You got yourself into a mess, and led those criminals to our door."

"He didn't fucking ask for that!" Karkat defends, his hands curling into fists, and that's not going to diffuse the situation!

"And you let strangers into the apartment. Potential dangers." He's still only addressing Dave. "Might have to strife this one out, little man." He gives Dave a half second to get into a defensive position before he lunges at him, and no!

Jade grabs a fistful of Dave's shirt and yanks him to the right, out of range, while Karkat steps forward and holds out a hand. Dave's brother stops, looking at Karkat in a calculating sort of way.

"No! No, what the fuck! I thought my home life was bad, but this is fucked! You can't just attack people who didn't do anything wrong!" Karkat rants, his voice steadily growing louder until he's shouting. "He's your little brother for fuck's sake!"

"Hey, you don't-" Dave starts, but Jade claps a hand over his mouth.

"Um, yeah, we do!" she says, her grip still tight on his sleeve. "He's right, this isn't okay!"

Dave's brother moves out of a fighting stance, relaxing but clearly still ready to fight at a moment's notice. He gives Karkat a long look, who meets it with defiance, and then turns and hangs up the sword on the wall. He says, "I want you out of my house."

"Good, I was just leaving," Karkat glares, and glances at Dave. "You can still come if you want," he says to him.

Jade takes her hand off his mouth, and Dave says, "You should probably just go."

Karkat's glower doesn't waver, but he concedes with a final glare in Bro's direction. "Fine. But you know how to reach me." He slams the door on his way out. Dave looks at his brother for some direction, but when all he gets is a cold stare, he slips off back to his room.

Jade sticks her tongue out at Bro, flipping him off, and then follows Dave again. "So Dave!" she says as soon as they're in his room. He collapses dramatically face down on his bed.

"Yeah?" he asks, voice muffled by his bright red comforter.

"We're gonna have to do something about that!"

Part 5: Jane

Jane's been having an excellent week. Her family bonds have strengthened, and she feels closer to her step mother and sister than ever. She hasn't seen much of her father, but she knows that he goes to important board meetings that she isn't yet equipped to participate in. She does like Jade, as well, she's very pleasant company. Her grandfather is very kind too, and he can hold his own against Meenah, so she respects that.

She sits at a table with Jade's grandfather and Meenah at the moment. She sits next to Feferi, and Jade is still asleep upstairs. Jane had awoken when Jade came back into the room from her business outside on the balcony, and had then found Jade tinkering with her tiaratop. She had reprimanded her, put the accessory someplace safe, and bid Jade to go back to sleep. It was quite betraying that someone of her own cluster would mess with her things like that, especially something that important.

Jade is still asleep, she can feel. That is probably better, as she would have no business in a meeting such as this, no matter how connected to the participants or the subject matter she is. They've just had an early breakfast, and the dining ware has all been cleared away.

"The upgrades appear to be working quite well!" Harley says, pointing with his bushy eyebrows in the direction of Feferi and Jane. "Is it really working the way you wanted it to?"

"Yeah, for sure. Wish my other plans would go this well all the time, ugh," Meenah rolls her eyes and huffs. "Need ta keep you around all the time. Get a lot more shit done that way."

Harley chortles. "I don't doubt it, but alas, I have business elsewhere to attend to."

"Oh, still in the weapons business, huh?" Meenah perches her chin on top of one hand.

"Never stopped! As long as people are willing to buy, I'll make whatever they ask."

"See girls! This is the kind of dedication to craft that I admire!" She redirects her attention to Jane and Feferi, expecting a response.

"Of course," Jane nods.

"That's business!" Feferi agrees.

"Good," Meenah smiles widely. "Proud of you girls. Learning from the best!" She turns back to Harley. "Now about the kid. I think she would be a lot more useful to me if she stayed here, and in exchange, I could teach her more of her abilities as a Sensate."

At the word 'Sensate' Harley's eyes twinkle. "But of course! She should know how to use her abilities, and who better to learn from? But, I do enjoy her company, she's a bright girl, and doubt she would want to stay behind. Perhaps we could set up some kind of correspondence, because I really don't think-"

"Nah, my man, trust me, she'll be better off here. Haven't you heard about all that shady business going on in the larger Sensate community? She's probably talked to you about it, right? Jane here 's told me it's happened to a couple in her cluster already."

Jane has told her nothing of the sort, unless Meenah was eavesdropping on one of her conversations with Feferi and Jade, but the sharp look Meenah sends her tells her not to argue. She's telling the truth, after all.

Henry frowns, stroking his mustache and humming to himself. "I didn't realize it was getting this dangerous… But I should consult her first, before we make any decisions."

"Oh, Henry, that's not necessary. Your flight leaves soon! Let her get some sleep, she's had a long week. I promise she'll be alright here with us. Right?"

"Of course! I love Jade!" Feferi agrees. Jane nods as well. She does like Jade. And Jade really would probably be safer here than anywhere else. Anywhere else, Meenah would still be hunting her down, so if she's here, that part's already over.

Harley grumbles some more and then sighs. "I… suppose."

"Great!" Meenah says, clapping her hands together. "Then we've gotta get you on a plane, buddy boy!" She stands up abruptly, and with the movement her chair scrapes the tile behind her. Harley looks startled, but moves to stand up as well. Jane slips out of her chair gracefully, while Feferi uses some of the same enthusiasm as her mother.

Henry Harley leaves without a goodbye to Jade, who still sleeps. Jane is fairly impressed, she's learned that Jade can fall into a deep sleep almost on command, at any time of the day.

Now, after Harley has left, she goes back to her room. She left the door open just a little bit, so through the crack she sees Jade is awake, and is having a hushed conversation with Rose, both of them sitting cross legged on the floor in Jade's pile of blankets. (Jane had offered her a guest room, but Jade had insisted on having a "sleepover." She's a really good hostess, promise.) Jane waits a moment before making her presence known, just to see what they are discussing.

"No, I'm worried as well, and I do think we need to do something," Rose is saying, a frown on her face. "I can ask Kanaya for more information, and see what we can do, but from New York there isn't much I can do, unfortunately."

Jade sighs. "Yeah, I thought that would be the case… You say she can't reach Feferi?" Rose shakes her head. "Ugh. Then maybe she should talk to Karkat. Maybe he has some ideas to help Dave? He seemed like he'd be willing to help!"

Finally Jane pushes open the door and reveals herself. "Are you talking about Dave?" she asks.

Jade jumps, her hair flying around her head as she quickly turns to see Jane. "Jane! Yeah! We want to help him somehow, because even before the attempted kidnapping or whatever we didn't like his brother. But now everything's worse!"

"Oh, is that what was happening last night?" Jane asks, carefully folding her legs under herself and sitting down with them.

"Yes," Rose says. "There was an incident." She looks at Jane like she's calculating, which seems to be Rose's default, and then continues, "We've now met two other members of Feferi's cluster. I have met Kanaya, and now Dave has met Karkat. Have you heard of them?"

Ask where they are.

"Feferi may have mentioned something. Where are they now, what happened to them?" Jane asks, offhandedly, not paying close attention to the conversation any more. Sensate talk tends to go over her head sometimes, on account of her ignoring any mention of it for several years now.

Rose raises an eyebrow, and Jade bites her lip. She tends to do that a lot, Jane's noticed. A quirk of anxiety most likely. She wonders if Jade is always this nervous, or if it's a recent development. "We aren't sure what happened, actually," Rose says. "I would love to see what Feferi has to say on the matter."

"But we were worried about Dave!" Jade interjects.

"He could come here, he would be safe," Jane says. That's why Jade is here. That's why Feferi is here. As times get more dangerous, Sensates need to stick closer together, so her step mother says.

"That's a bit… extreme," Rose says gently. "We won't dismiss it, but that should be a worse case scenario." Jane knows enough of business deals to take that as a hard 'no.'

"Well, then, what have you proposed?" Jane asks diplomatically.

"We were going to try and reach out to other Sensates. Karkat and Kanaya are willing to lend a hand, but we're not sure if there's much to do from our end. And I don't trust Karkat nearly enough to rely solely on him for something this important," Rose explains.

"And it's hard to help someone who doesn't really want to be helped!" Jade adds. "Dave can be pretty stubborn, apparently, and I don't know if he's entirely figured out how shitty his brother is!"

"Family can be complicated," Jane shrugs. "After all, we all have something, don't we? For Dave, this might be normal."

"But that doesn't mean it's good!" Jade argues.

"I'll talk to Dave more about it," Rose concedes, putting a hand on Jade's shoulder and making her relax. "And I can let you know if we figure out something more solid." She gives each of them a nod and then disappears.

Jade grumbles to herself, the same mutterings that her grandfather did when he didn't like something. It's an obvious family resemblance, and it reminds Jane to break the news. "Jade. Your grandfather, and my step mother, decided it would be best if you stayed here."

"Huh?" Jade asks, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Your grandfather already left. We're going to help you with Sensate training here, since there's three more of us," she explains.

"Oh. Oh, boy," Jade's eyes widen and she runs a hand through her hair. "Okay, um… Okay. This was your step-mom's idea?"

"Yes."

"And Grandpa just went along with it?" she frowns.

"Yep."

She sighs again, "Oh boy." Jade stands up, and Jane looks up at her calmly. "Well, at least I have more time to talk to Feferi now… We wanted to know what happened with her cluster."

"We can do that," Jane nods, standing as well. "I've been curious too."

Feferi's more than happy to help. Jane's barely sent the thought through her tiaratop and Feferi makes a grand entrance into the room, a grin on her face. "What did you wanna know?" she asks, plopping onto the bed.

Jane and Jade readjust themselves onto the bed. Jade starts, "I wanted to know what happened with your cluster! You said that some of them had started going missing, when I asked you last night?"

"Anything helps, since the same thing might be happening with ours," Jane adds. Jade glances at her with a touch of confusion, which is silly, because of course they're on the same side. "We've got to know what's going on to defend ourselves."

"Of course! Though, I don't know if I said people went missing… I know that when we were all freaking out some of us started taking blockers. A lot of us still are! We don't really keep in touch anymore," Feferi explains.

"Blockers?" Jane asks.

"Pills that turn off your powers, basically," Jade supplies, looking worried.

"Yeah! So some people were being attacked, like your cluster, and I guess we went into hiding. Um..." Feferi taps a finger on her cheek, looking up while she thinks. She gasps like she's thought of something, opens her mouth, and then closes it again, shaking her head. She does this a couple of times.

"Can you not… remember?" Jade asks hesitantly.

"No, no, it's all there! I just can't think of anything that's relevant!" Feferi reassures her.

Jane readjusts her skirt, settling into her sitting position. They could be there for a while. "That's fine, just start from the beginning."

"The beginning! Okay, well… So we had our rebirth a couple years before my mom married your dad," Feferi gestures to Jane, who struggles to not interrupt. She was right, this wasn't relevant. But if Jane can be quiet and let her speak, they might be able to get somewhere. Eventually. "There was some relationship drama I think, I was dating two people at once? Yeah, it was Sollux and Aradia. It didn't work out for some reason, I think they were the first few to start taking blockers. Or they went missing, there's no way to say for sure!" she shrugs.

"Are you sure there's no way to tell?" Jade asks.

"I certainly can't contact either of them anymore!" Feferi giggles. "So I don't know, something happened with them. Um… next… I think that's when Gamzee went crazy. Karkat talked him down, isn't he the one that's with Dave now?" she asks, and Jade nods. "Yeah! He's good for mediating, I guess. Anyways, then Gamzee disappeared. He'd been taking blockers before that, though. He just came back long enough to do… Something? To Equius and Nepeta. I don't know what happened there! I think they're okay, but… Yeah. I haven't talked to anybody in a while."

"Why not?" Jade asks.

"Like I said, I think they're all on blockers because they're scared now! Maybe that's just what you guys need to do, so that nobody can find you anymore," Feferi shrugs.

Jane clears her throat, and both girls look to her. "I'm waiting for you to explain why you ran away. It has to be more complicated than a fit of teenage rebellion, don't you think?"

"Oh…" Feferi trails off, her eyes going unfocused for a moment. "Yeah… Honestly, that was most of it! I did that thing most teens do, and hated my mom for no good reason at all. Eventually my boyfriend, Eridan, talked me into going back, because I was just being stupid." She looks at Jade. "You know, Karkat's the one who convinced me to leave in the first place! Maybe you should keep an eye on him and Dave and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid like run away from home."

Jade shifts, obviously uncomfortable. "Sure."

"It wasn't Sensate related at all?" Jane asks, still not buying it. There's a part of her that just wants to let it go and accept what Feferi says completely, but there's still a bit of detective in her that's been trying to crack this case for months now.

Feferi thinks again for a moment, conflicted. "I don't think so! That might have been stressing me out and made me more emotionally volatile, but not really!"

"Enlightening," Jane says.

"Okay there's still one more thing that's bothering me!" Jade cuts in. "Why would your cluster be taking blockers anyways!? The only reason to do that was if someone in the group was compromised. Or working against the rest of the group. Right?"

"Maybe!" Feferi shrugs. "A lot of them were just assholes, though. Especially Vriska. She tried to kill Aradia once! I don't know why, and it didn't work… I think… And Gamzee, too, he was crazy. I think Equius was just really overprotective and didn't like being a Sensate at all, and he would have convinced Nepeta to do it too. I think it was better for a lot of us to cut off contact!"

Jane's trying to catalogue all the names that Feferi says, but she can't really make any of them stick in her mind. But with her mind, and the tiaratop's help, she opens up a little mental memo note, and starts putting the names she remembers in. Nepeta, Equius, Gamzee, Aradia, Vriska, Karkat, Eridan… Well. She knows that's not all of them. She can ask again later, though.

Jade hums to herself, frowning. "Mmm… Okay, well, thanks Feferi! I'll pass on what I can, and maybe we can come up with some kind of plan! Right, um, Jane?"

"Right," Jane nods. "Thank you, Feferi."

"No problem!" Feferi smiles, standing from the bed. "Jade, I'm really excited that you're staying for longer! I feel like I haven't gotten to know you yet! And I know she's stiff sometimes but I think Jane's excited too!"

"Yeah," Jade says, smiling but not with her usual enthusiasm. "It'll be fun."

Part 6: Jake

In the wake of the attack on the estate, and the subsequent attack on Dave's home, Jake has a lot of added security around him at all times, which he's finding to be quite suffocating! It's very hard to get anything done while being watched, so he's not getting as much work done, and furthermore he can't go out and explore the preserve as he would like to. It's hard to even talk to his own cluster under the constant scrutiny.

The face of Jake English is a relaxed and ready for adventure one, not at all plagued by anxiety. He is supposed to be fearless and courageous, which mean the same thing, and he's supposed to do it all with a smile.

His photographer, a woman named Stella Iverson, is frowning at him. She lowers the camera and gestures to a girl next to her holding a makeup brush. "Could you get under his eyes?" she asks. The girl quickly nods and rushes over to Jake, and he lets her brush some powder on his face. "Jake. You need to get a solid eight hours of sleep every night to keep yourself at your best."

He nods. "I know! I'm terribly sorry, I've just had a lot on my mind recently!" he apologizes. He does not add the fact that he gets woken up fairly regularly by the antics of his cluster. None of them will have a regular sleep schedule by the end of this.

The touch-up girl backs away and Jake smiles again for Stella, posing with one leg up on a fake rock that does look convincingly real, especially in post. He's got his hands fisted on his hips, and he looks to the upper left distance, away from the camera. The ground and the wall behind him are a bright green, he thinks that this week they are putting him on the rocky shores of New Zealand, something to appeal to the local crowd. There's a fan in front of him simulating a gentle breeze through his hair and clothes.

"This must be a stressful time for you," Stella comments. At every door in the room there's a security guard posted keeping a careful eye on all of them.

"It's alright!" Jake says, smiling. It's not. It is stressful and he does not need this target on his back from business competitors that disagree with his psychic powers. Or whyever they felt the need to stage a home invasion.

She snaps a few more photos with his head turned different ways, and then pauses. "Alright, let's take a quick break, then we can move on to filming. Back in ten!" The makeup girl, the wardrobe consultants, the backup photographers, the set workers, the contractors, a couple security members, and Serenity all break apart and go to their own desks and areas to grab a snack or some water, or make phone calls, or text, email, whatever they need to do. Jake drifts over to Serenity, and sits down in his chair in front of a large mirror. Sometimes he pretends he's Marilyn Monroe, or someone of her caliber. He feels a bit too tired to do that today.

"Oh, wow. Is this where it all happens?" This time, it's Jane paying him a visit. The procedure has become routine, people appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye, but each time Jake can still feel the excitement at the reminder that he has superpowers. It's still really neat!

"Hello Jane!" he greets. "This is where it may all happen indeed, depending on what you mean by that!" She's looking around the room with apparent curiosity, wide-eyed and somehow looking a touch younger than how he's seen her before. It's a nice look on her!

"All the posters and commercials! I've got a few up in my room at home," she says, looking not at all ashamed. Not that she should be! But Jake has met a few fans before.

"Posters for the wildlife preserve?" Jake asks, and she nods. "Well! Perhaps you can answer some questions I have, in that case! I can't imagine that all these people care so much about the preserve, or else we would get lots more donations. So what makes our merchandise sell so well?"

Jane laughs, which he wasn't quite expecting, and it only confuses him more. "Jake, look at this." She takes him to her room, and points to a poster of himself hanging on her wall. It's one of the best-selling ones, showing him hanging off a tree with one hand facing away from the camera, looking off into the forest below him. They had taken that promotional series in South America, so the tips of old ruins could be seen poking out of the trees. It's entirely one of his favorites, as it paid some homage to Indiana Jones, all his idea of course. The logo for English Wildlife Preserves was printed at the top.

"That is my favorite, but I fail to see your point."

Jane pauses and sizes him up for a moment. "Jake, I'm just going to be honest with you. You're hot. You're eye candy. Teenage girls are obsessed with you. You're almost boyband status, Jake."

"...What? Really?" he frowns, turning over in his head all the other promotional products he's made. He's given autographs before, and while he didn't think much of it at the time, he does suppose the majority of his fans are in fact teenage girls. He had been aware that that was somewhat out of the ordinary for something like his company, but he always chalked that up to a good marketing strategy. He didn't realize it was mostly because of… him.

"Jake?" Jane asks, lightly concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Oh, yes! I just hadn't realized," he explains. "But, um, Jane, just how bad is it? I mean, you're a company representative as well, does this sort of thing happen with you?"

"I've taken measures to ensure that it doesn't, actually," Jane says. She pulls out her phone and looks herself up, and shows Jake her most recent promotional advertisement. It shows her and Feferi sitting on fancy, throne-like chairs side by side, dressed only in shades of red and white. Feferi looks as she usually does, with a bright smile, but Jane's bright blue eyes look sharp and uninviting, and her face is blank, calculating. "It may invite criticism from the media, sometimes, but I'm generally seen as too intimidating to garner that sort of attention," she smiles.

"Oh! I see what you mean," Jake says. He looks back at his own poster. Have his shorts always been so small? He's fairly certain that he's always picked his own wardrobe, but he supposes he did let the photographers and consultants direct him. South America was definitely his own idea, that he's sure of. Though, does he really look like Indiana Jones, or more like… Marion Ravenwood?

Stella's voice carries over to him. "Break's up!" she calls. Jake's pulled back into his own present. He takes a swig of water and stands up.

"You can stay, if you want," he says, still frowning.

"I'd love to, I really would, but I have business of my own to take care of." He nods to her and she gives a little wave before disappearing. If not for his new existential crisis, he'd say that was probably the nicest interaction with Jane that he's ever had. She seemed much more… personable, than normal. She was wearing the tiaratop, he noticed, but perhaps she wasn't quite as under her step-mother's sway for whatever reason. Or perhaps Mrs. Peixes hadn't deemed this worthy of her attention. Regardless of the causes, talking to Jane felt like talking to an actual sixteen-year-old, for once, rather than an adult-like figure heading an empire. It was nice.

But back to business. The makeup girl meets him as he goes back over to the set, taking his chin in her hand and examining his face, and brushing a few products over his cheeks. This is routine, Jake has done this countless times, but this is the first time since he started when he actually feels uncomfortable. The wardrobe consultant comes over when she's done, and pokes and pulls at Jake's clothes to ensure that they fall right.

The set has been changed around a bit, but it's still mostly greenscreen. "You know your lines?" Stella asks. Jake nods. They've got to release a statement about the invasion of the preserve, since it somehow got leaked to the press. He had looked over the lines earlier, they weren't difficult to memorize.

But now that he's got so much else on his mind… He takes his place with Serenity at one shoulder and one of the security guards at the other. Stella nods to the man on the film camera, and then to Jake. He takes a breath.

There's a beat of silence, and then Jake exhales. "Could I by chance have another minute?" he asks, embarrassed. Stella looks surprised, and then irritated. He can see what the camera is picking up on the screen next to her, and so he sees Serenity give her a harsh look from over his shoulder. So Stella relents, and waves him off.

Jake decides to go outside, and breathe in real fresh air, rather than the studio's simulated environment. He pushes past the guard at the exit, and takes a left to the little grouping of trees that were mostly added for aesthetic purposes. But the grass is still mostly green, and the trees are lovely shades of oranges and yellows at this time of year. He sits down and rests his back against the trunk of one of the trees.

When he looks back to the studio, he sees one of the security guards stepping out to most likely chase after him, but they're quickly followed by Serenity who says something Jake can't hear, and then the guard nods and stays at the door. Still in eyesight, still in earshot, but far enough away for some privacy. Splendid.

Even in the open air, even if he's not in a real forest or anywhere near the preserve he grew up in, he feels a little less overwhelmed. Well, everything is still a lot and is quite stressful to think about, but at the very least he's escaped from all the poking and prodding. Even so, he can't put his finger on exactly what bothers him about what Jane said.

"Jake?"

"I'd prefer to be left alone, thanks," he responds on impulse. Then he looks up at the girl standing over him. "Oh, hello, Roxy. I didn't realize it was you." She looks tired, hair messy and just wearing a t-shirt that's large enough to drape over her figure and hang off one shoulder.

"Yeah!" she says, and sits down next to him. "If you really want to be alone, I can leave."

"Er, no, you're fine," Jake says awkwardly.

"Okay," she agrees.

There's a beat of silence. Then Jake asks, "...Did I wake you?"

"Oh, no, I couldn't sleep," Roxy shrugs. "Why, are you up to some shenanigans? Is it that suspicious fella over there watching you?" she points to the security guard.

"Well, partly, I suppose. But he's just part of the security team. He works for me. Since last Wednesday I'm not really supposed to be left alone, so I've got to put up with it for the time being."

"That sucks!" Roxy exclaims. "How have you not gone nuts yet?"

"It's not so bad! It's just a tad bit of a step further from normal," he explains.

"Ah, alright. Then what's really bothering you?"

"Hmm…" Jake frowns, thinking. The question catches him off guard. "I'm not quite sure of the answer to that, to be quite honest. Today has been routine, just a shoot. ...I suppose I found out that Jane finds me attractive," he shrugs.

Roxy laughs, "Does that bother you?"

"Not… particularly? But it's not just her, and teenage girls aren't really the target audience of a wildlife preserve, right? I don't quite understand what's keeping them interested."

"...You, right?" she asks, uncertain. Jake shrugs. "Listen m'dude, girls will latch onto any weird cultural icons, and they get pretty weird about it."

"Jane said I was boyband status. I don't want to be One Direction!"

"You don't really sing or dance, so I don't think you need to be worried about that, Jake," Roxy laughs again. "Listen. You're famous! You like movies, right? And you like doing promotional stuff for the preserve? Does it really matter who likes you and who doesn't?"

"I'm not sure. I'm just afraid of ruining my grandmother's image for her life's work, is all. I didn't ask for this sort of attention, and if I'm being entirely truthful, it's making me quite uncomfortable! Do other men regularly wear shorts this short in France, Roxy?" Jake pulls at the hem of his shorts, frowning.

"I mean, it's France, so sort of, but I guess I see what you mean. Honestly, I think you just need to have a little more confidence in yourself. You're doing a great job, from what I can tell. I'm sure that your grandmother would be proud! You're doing all of this by yourself! Even if you needed the help, you've got us now. So. Don't worry about anything, and if you've got a problem, I can literally punch it away with my fists," Roxy finishes, leaning back again with a satisfied smile on her face. Jake guesses that the whole cluster knows by now that his Gran is gone, even if the rest of the world doesn't.

"Yeah, you're right," Jake says, feeling a lot better already. "Not a lot has to change, even, but I will talk to Serenity a bit I think! Just to double check that the team is taking my image a little more seriously."

"There we go!" Roxy says, and gives him a fistbump.

"Okay, thank you for the support, Roxy, but I should get back before I delay any longer! And you should get to sleep," he says, standing up. The security guard is looking impatient, and Jake guesses he would have less than five minutes until he was called back anyway.

"Mmm, I guess you're right," she sighs. "I'll walk back with you though, I've never seen a professional photoshoot. Must be pretty cool, right?"

"I suppose!" Jake leads them back to the studio, giving a nod to the grumpy looking security man. Roxy salutes him and sticks out her tongue. Inside, Stella looks to have been arguing with Serenity, but both look visibly relieved to see Jake, looking refreshed and ready.

"Jake! Thank goodness. Okay, time is of the essence, so onto your mark, please!" Stella commands, pointing to the stage.

It goes much better this time. It goes so much better, that when he's all done and Roxy's satisfied enough to have left to go to bed, he gets a one-armed hug around the shoulders from Serenity. "Keep it up, Jake, wherever you get your motivation from seems to be working. Don't lose your mojo, don't let anything rattle you. Everything's about the press right now, understand?"

"Yes, Serenity," he nods. She nods back, satisfied, and pulls out her phone.

"Now, we should get back to negotiating contracts. It looks like you're good to go for that movie deal, which is fantastic, and you've also got a new offer for a business meeting." She frowns. "There could be a problem, though. It's from one… Jane Crocker, representing both CrockerCorp and SkaiaNet."

Jake's face drops, and he lowers his voice a significant amount. "Is that the best course of action?" Privately, he wonders, why didn't Jane just approach him herself? They could have meetings whenever they wanted. He was just talking to her!

She raises her eyebrows and shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. A compromise could be a good thing, but I have a feeling you'll be getting the short end of the bargain no matter what we do. It might be wisest to just decline."

"...I'll think on it." After all, if he could convince Jane to come here, to him, then he might be able to solve some of their problems, right? What if he could single handedly save the day, and free her from the clutches of her wicked step-mother? Fuck the movie deal, this sounded leagues more action-packed and interesting. ...Well, he still very much wants to be in a movie. But perhaps they'll make movies about this someday, is the point! Even so, he thinks it's best not to act too rash. All the best spies do a little reconnaissance before a secret mission, obviously. And he'll be sure to emphasize secret.

Part 7: Roxy

Roxy won't lie, she's been just a bit touchy recently. With Dave and Calliope both so on board with helping her drink a little less, she's got some good chaperones that do their jobs really well, which is sometimes annoying, but mostly a good thing probably. If Calliope isn't with her, she can feel Dave keeping an eye on her. But she and Dave are doing the same thing for Rose, because she'll be damned if she's going on this sobriety journey by herself. It's just boring as all hell.

But speaking of boring as all hell, Calliope's mentioned that her family might like to meet Roxy. "We discussed it on the phone the other night, my dad wants to know who I've been spending my time with at school," she says, nervous as ever and tapping her fingers together.

"But you don't like your dad," Roxy points out. "Or your brother."

"So if you were there, it might go better?" Callie suggests. Ah. Her true motive reveals itself. She sighs.

"Oh, Callie, how could I say no now? You've trapped me in social conventions," Roxy says, throwing a hand across her forehead. "You fiend!"

Callie smiles. "So you'll go?"

"I have to," she smiles back. "It's gonna suck, huh?" Callie shrugs, but apologetically, so Roxy understands that yes, it's gonna suck. She huffs, sending a piece of her hair flying away. "Okay! In exchange for one glass of wine, because I think that's fair," she holds up a finger.

Callie looks uncomfortable. "Roxy… I don't know about that."

"If I'm sober I might die though!" she complains. But Callie looks firm. "Ugh, okay. I'll just suffer then, I guess." She heaves a big sigh. "Six, right?"

"Yes! See you in a few hours," Callie waves, still looking a little guilty. It's sweet that she feels bad, but Roxy can respect that she's staying strong in the face of her unbeatable charisma. She pulls her into a quick hug, kisses her on the cheeks, and sends her away.

At six o'clock, large, pink, heart-shaped sunglasses cover Roxy's face as she waits for Callie outside of the dorms. She's also wearing a long pink knit cardigan draped over her shoulders, with a white skirt and black skinny jeans under it. It's too cold for her usual fashion sensibilities, but she can definitely work with cardigans. They're very cozy.

Callie runs over to her, probably worried about being late. "Oh! I can't see anything at all behind those glasses!" she comments, coming to a stop.

"Yeah, that's the point," Roxy admits. "Cool, right? I wanna make a good first impression."

She grimaces. "...Roxy. You know that my dad is very traditional, right? He might prefer more… normal, rather than cool."

Roxy laughs. "Nah, listen, trust me, I'm really good with parents! Don't worry about it! He'll think I'm super cool and got that great French fashion, but I can be cool in a, like, normal way, too. If you want. Plus…" she taps her forehead, "I've got backup, in the incredibly small chance I do screw something up. It's literally impossible for something to go wrong."

"Oh, boy, that was quite possibly the worst thing you could have said," Callie mutters, shaking her head. "Alright, let's go try to… make it through this, I suppose."

They make a short walk through campus, and Roxy starts to get more and more anxious about it. Maybe the sunglasses were a bad idea? No, now she's committed, and Callie wouldn't ever let her live it down if she backed out now. They've probably already seen her wearing them anyway, as they approach to where a classy car painted a teal color dark enough to basically be green sits waiting for them. The front window is rolled down and through it Roxy can see Callie's brother, Caliborn, playing on a handheld game and looking irritated. He looks really eerily similar to Callie, with short cropped stark white hair and skin not much different, even though on a technicality they're only half siblings. Callie herself is also andrydgenous enough that Roxy's not sure that she'd be able to tell them apart if she had enough alcohol in her system. Man, she wishes she had more alcohol in her system.

She beats that thought back with a mental brain stick. They get closer to the car, with Callie shooting her nervous glances, until her brother sees them and loudly says to his left, "She's here, finally!" They're close enough that Roxy can see the one difference between the two, in their eyes. Callie's are a mellow green, while Caliborn's are bright red. She wonders why Callie didn't get that quirk of albinism, that would have been cool as fuck.

Caliborn rolls his eyes and gets out of the car, and from the other side appears a man that's only a few inches taller than the twins, and several inches shorter than Roxy. He's wearing a bespoke white suit, and he carries himself in a way that makes Roxy panic a bit. Shit, Callie wasn't kidding. What if he thinks she's weird?

"Hello Calliope. You must be Roxanne," the man says, extending a hand. Oh, power move right from the start. Okay. "Andrew Scratch. But please, call me Andrew."

Roxy shakes his hand, worrying about whether her grip was too tight or too loose. She can't really tell. His was firm. Why are handshakes so complicated? It takes her a second to respond. "Oh, yes! Nice to meet you Monsieur Andrew." She looks at Caliborn, wondering if he'll also want an introduction, but his arms are crossed and he's not looking at her, and he looks prickly enough that she's not going to push it.

M. Andrew smiles, but it doesn't look sincere. It looks almost… smug? That's a weird reaction. Maybe Roxy's the one being weird. "Just Andrew, thanks. Should we get going?" She quickly nods and he gestures at the car before going back around to the driver's side. Roxy opens the door and scooches to the other side, Callie climbing in after her.

Callie gives her a shaky grin and a little thumbs up, but Roxy knows her well enough to see that she's really nervous about this. More so than usual, even. Okay, so operation Act Normal isn't going super great. But that's why she has backup. She tries to think about who might be the most normal of her group, and John comes to mind first. She reaches out.

John's in some kind of maths class. Roxy doesn't really care. She just appears at his desk and taps him on the shoulder, leaning down to whisper, "Hey, can you help me act normal in front of my best friend's family?"

John looks around at his class before nodding discreetly. He then shows up in the car, sitting between her and Callie. "What's happening?"

"Going to dinner," Roxy says.

"What was that?" M. Andrew asks. Shit.

"Um, nothing," she says, unable to think of literally any excuse.

"I'm sorry, my French isn't great yet, so you'll have to speak clearly," he says.

"It's okay, I'm fluent in English!" John says, in English. At least, Roxy assumes that he says it in English? It still sounds like French to her, but Callie and M. Andrew both look surprised.

"You are?" Callie mouths to Roxy, who nods. Luckily, she doesn't press it. She's smart, she probably figured out exactly what's going on.

"Oh? It's not often you meet French youths who know it, I'm impressed." Roxy can tell that he's speaking English now, just because it feels like her brain needs to take an extra step to understand it. She guesses that her being linked to John translates it? Since apparently John and probably everyone else in her cluster haven't actually been speaking French this entire time. "You do have a distinct American accent, though, which is even more impressive." He's not smiling, and that makes Roxy nervous.

John covers, "Thanks! I learned from an American." Roxy realizes that she's doomed John to talking for her the entire night. She doesn't know English for shit. No more than basics, anyway.

"I've been helping her English, and she's been helping my French," Callie supplies.

For the rest of the drive Roxy has to tell John what to say from inside of his school classroom, and then he'll say it out loud for her. Callie is a super great team player, she backs up and helps her out with any claim that she makes, warding off numerous questions that are honestly kind of weird for a friend's dad to be asking. Does he really need to know her entire backstory to understand why, exactly, a French girl who's never lived anywhere else might deign to learn some English? It's making both Roxy and John uncomfortable and stressed.

She doesn't tell him a lot.

It feels like an eternity later that they're being seated at a nice but not extremely fancy restaurant, in the outdoor seating area. It's probably been like twelve minutes, max. Caliborn hasn't said a word, completely absorbed into his video games, but Roxy is honestly really jealous. She'd kill for her DS right now, and the new Super Mario game her foster moms had sent for her birthday. If she finds out that's what Caliborn's been playing this whole time, she's gonna flip. With all the chaos going on she's barely had time to even start it.

Roxy doesn't take off her cardigan when she sits down, feeling like she'd be too exposed. Plus it's just really cozy and that's the kind of comfort she needs right now. M. Andrew takes off his suit jacket, revealing a bright green shirt underneath it. "Caliborn, would you put that away while we eat?" he requests.

"Why?" Caliborn asks, only looking up for a second.

"Because it would be rude to ignore everyone at dinner," M. Andrew reprimands calmly. Caliborn grumbles, but slides it into the pocket of his pullover hoodie. "And Roxanne, would you mind taking off your sunglasses indoors?"

Roxy blinks, and tells John, "I can't do that. Tell him my eyes are sensitive to light?" That's the excuse she heard Dave say, once.

"Um, no thank you, my eyes are sensitive to the light," John says, and then aside to Roxy, "Why can't you take them off?"

"Oh, we can request to be moved inside, if the light is bothering you that much," M. Andrew says, standing. John reacts faster than Roxy.

"No, it's such a nice day outside, the sun's going down anyway," he says quickly. M. Andrew gives Roxy a slightly annoyed look, but sits down. John sighs in relief, and Roxy appreciates that! He's a team player! He deserves to know what's up.

"I'm literally just trying to prove a point to Calliope, lmao," she whispers to him. Not that anyone can hear her in his world, but it feels like the kind of thing she should whisper about. "I thought it would make me seem cooler, and maybe like, less anxious, but now I've gone too far. And also I am… totally not high. At all. Not even a little bit, so... Just help me out on this one."

"Roxy, that's absolutely ridiculous," John rolls his eyes. She tilts down her sunglasses and bats her eyelashes at him. "That's even stupider!"

"Well I can't back down now, so," she shrugs, pushing them back up. She's also a bit paranoid, now.

John huffs, but after he sits with it for a moment he cracks a smile. "So it's like a prank?"

"Mm-hmm! Yes! Exactly like that. You down to participate now?" she asks. He shrugs, and she brings her attention back to dinner.

She realizes there's been a bit of a lull in the conversation, while she was tuned out. Callie's saying, "No, I really am enjoying my studies! Art is my favorite, of course, but my literature classes are interesting as well! Even if they're in French."

"And Caliborn? How is your school?" M. Andrew asks.

"I hate it. It sucks," Caliborn shrugs. In the awkward pause that follows a waiter approaches, and asks for their drink orders. Roxy thanks whatever higher powers there may be that she can just speak French to her, and Callie does as well. Caliborn can speak some French, too, apparently he goes to a different boarding school than the two of them, a male-exclusive one. But he speaks English just to be difficult, is what Roxy gathers. Even M. Andrew uses the limited French that he knows.

M. Andrew chooses this transitional stage to drop a bomb. "Well, Roxanne, or whomever I'm speaking to, would you do me the favor of passing on a message to one miss Rose Lalonde?"

He's smiling, which catches her completely off guard. It takes a moment for his words to register, when Roxy physically reels back in shock, and her heart palpitations make her cough before she can try to force any words out. Again, John recovers from the shock faster.

"I don't know what you're talking about," John says.

He rolls his eyes. "Come, now. Have I gotten her attention yet?"

"Yes." Roxy turns her head and sees Rose next to her, her hands balled into fists, though Rose might not be aware of that bit. Dirk is also there, offering a silent and stiff support. They must have been summoned by her unbridled panic flaring up. Rose is the one who spoke. Her tone is cautious, but curious. "What did you want to say?"

"I only wanted to request that she stop trying to contact me. I'm a very busy man, and I do not have time to humor her." Both Caliborn and Callie are watching with rapt interest, though Roxy has no idea how much context Caliborn may or may not have.

"Rose?" Roxy asks, popping into Rose's own school, where she's sitting with Kanaya in a little table with an umbrella outside. The sun shines directly overhead. "Who is this guy?"

Rose huffs. "He's the one who first awakened our cluster. What is he doing with you?"

"He's Callie's dad," Roxy shrugs. "I had no idea!"

"You should be very careful, Roxy. We don't know his motivations," Dirk says, also sitting with her and Rose. John's still there as well.

"He's like four feet tall," John points out. "I don't think he can be that scary."

"We don't know that," Dirk repeats, turning to him.

"Roxanne?" She's snapped back to dinner with the Scratches. "Does she have a response, or shall we continue this dinner?"

"Umm," Roxy says, looking back at Rose. She's staring at Scratch with an unreadable expression, brow furrowed. "Un moment," she says.

Rose huffs. "I don't know." She raises her voice, "Everyone, this is the man I told you to keep an eye out for. The one who triggered our rebirth." With that statement, the rest of their cluster appears, in varying states of awareness. Jane and Jake look like they were just woken up, Jane merely gives a nod before she disappears again. Jade appears on Roxy's other side, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, good job wearing those sunglasses, Roxy! How did you know?" Jade asks. She just gives her a baffled look, and then Jade looks even more impressed. "Oh! You didn't? Um, well, Sensates can make bonds by eye contact, and then they can visit even if they're not in the same cluster. Since this man is obviously a Sensate, he would have been able to visit with you if he ever made eye contact. But I don't think he can, with those in the way. So. Good work team!"

"Good thing you didn't take them off," John laughs nervously.

"Yeah, actually, I'm the smartest girl in the world," Roxy covers. "I totally knew the whole time. Instincts, ya know?"

Rose ignores this whole conversation, taking the initiative and speaking to Scratch directly, borrowing Roxy's voice. So, correction, indirectly. "I would appreciate at least one more question and answer session, and then I would be happy to do what you have asked. Knowledge is power, and it is the only thing keeping my cluster safe at the moment. You have to understand."

M. Andrew sighs. "That isn't the answer I hoped for, but very well. One more. I will contact you at a later date, then, miss Lalonde."

Rose gives a firm nod, and then vanishes again, as does the rest of the cluster. Except for John. Dinner soon follows as first expected, awkward as hell, but now tense in a way that's almost terrifying. It's not that he's done anything particularly villainous (yet, Dirk's voice in her head reminds her), but he's also extremely off putting even during small talk. Roxy sees why Callie hates talking about her family so much.

Part 8: Dirk

Dirk's mental assessments of his cluster are coming along nicely. Assessments, profiles, studies, whatever. In order to most effectively use his abilities, he has to understand the people he shares them with. He's got to ensure that they're all trustworthy, or that none of them are going to turn on each other. His main concern at the moment is Jane.

From what Dirk has pieced together so far, Jane's been prepped to be an heiress her entire life. She was a lighthearted child, but once her stepmother came into her life that had to be suppressed. There's still clear remnants of her old sense of humor, poking through every now and then, but for the most part she forces herself to stay serious and on task. He actually admires that a lot. However, it's currently being used in favour of the opposition. But he's got Jade on the case, and even though their first attempt to mess with the tiaratop failed it doesn't mean their second attempt will too.

Jade seems to have never had to suppress anything in her life, to contrast Jane. She's got endless energy and actual smarts to back it up. In all seriousness, she's definitely the smartest in their cluster, especially in the realm of science and math. He would be jealous but even if neither of them had a proper high school education, at least she had her grandpa, who as far as Dirk has deduced is some kind of literal rocket scientist. So he can remain confident that he's done to the best of his abilities, and still be duly impressed with Jade. She's proven to be a trustworthy partner, a little bit more so than Jake has.

It's not that Jake is incapable of handling a crisis. It's just that he doesn't have the right experience, and he doesn't take it seriously. The way he treats it like some kind of movie action adventure is equal parts aggravating and weirdly really endearing. It's fine that he has passions. And after all, Dirk does know that he could trust Jake to wield a gun, and if all else fails he can use his celebrity status and good looks to get past any particularly tricky predicaments. But before he passes any real final judgements on Jake, he should get to know him a little better. Seeing someone at their worst makes for an inaccurate-

"Dirk? It's about time to close dear, would you start picking up chairs?" The woman addressing him is tall, with long wavy black hair, no less than seven piercings in her face, and tattoos running up and down her arms that are exposed by the black halter top she wears.

"Sure," Dirk nods. Porrim wipes down the bar while Dirk goes around and wipes tables before putting the chairs on top of them. The bouncer of the bar, Cronus, escorts the last few guests outside and flips the sign to 'Closed'. Dirk wipes his hands on his apron, and gets the broom from the back room of the bar. Where was he?

Right, Jake. Well, he thinks that he's said everything there is to say on that matter. Roxy looks to be much more reliable than Jake from what he's seen, but more on personal or emotional matters than anything else. He can tell that there's definitely more to her than meets the eye, and he imagines that once she's sobered up she will be an incredible asset. If he can be the details guy, she can be in charge of the emotional side to the rest of their group, because Dirk sure as hell can't do that himself. He can recognize that even if he's the most strategically useful member of the cluster that he does need to be balanced out sometimes, and she seems like the one for the job. And since she'd landed herself and John in the middle of whatever last night was, he'll find out soon what she's really made of. Hopefully she'll be more smart about it, unlike how Jake was. They'll have to play their cards right in that area.

He checks out with Porrim and exchanges a cordial nod with Cronus, then leaves to go home for the night. Home being a relative term.

He hasn't gotten a very good read of John yet. Like he said before, it's hard to get an accurate understanding of someone at their lows, but it is telling that this is the first real tragedy John has ever gone through. John seems the type to have led a completely normal and mundane life thus far, and Dirk would feel bad about messing that up however indirectly if he cared. Like Roxy, he has a good grip of people's emotions, and Dirk can admit that he can have a good sense of humor when he tries. They don't have to be close for him to decide John's a valuable member.

Next to Jane, Dave is also taking a priority in his headspace recently. His situation is tricky. Mostly because none of them can decide if something actually needs to be done or if passivity is permissible in this case. He does trust Dave to handle this sort of thing on his own, and he's found so far that he can trust Dave with most things. Dave has had enough reality to keep him grounded and make him stronger, similar to Dirk. If he's honest, Dave and Rose are the most similar to himself.

He likes Rose. She has some of the same sarcastic intellectual sense of humor as him. She can keep up with him, and he trusts her as he does Dave. So, they're making some plans together.

"Tell me, Dirk, do you live here?" Rose asks, looking around his room. It's just the one room, with a small kitchenette in the corner and a bathroom to the side of it.

"No, I'm just that secretive about my personal life," he deadpans. "Yes, I live in a motel. I didn't just get one for the night to talk to you. I'm not a prostitute."

"Clearly," she says. "By yourself?" He gives her a nod and she has the tact not to press more, which he can appreciate. He knows that certain others would have blundered into a conversation they were not prepared to have. "Alright, then. Let's go over the mess we've landed ourselves in."

In Rose's room a portion of the wall is covered by a large blackboard. She erases the little doodles and marks of symbols that he doesn't recognize, and uses plain white chalk to divide it into two columns, labeling them 'Problems' and 'Solutions.' He can already sense that the problems will number much more than the solutions, no matter how much thought they put into it.

"The biggest problem is clearly the Condescension," Dirk supplies. He takes the chalk and writes it at the top of the 'Problems' panel. Under it, in subcategories, he writes Jane and Feferi's names. He looks back to Rose.

She takes the chalk back. "Potential solutions include… Jade subverting the tiaratops without the Peixes or Jane noticing." She writes it under 'Solutions.' "But that will be difficult." She draws an arrow down from Condescension, notated with a question mark. "The… assailants. The same ones that went after Jake and Dave, who may or may not be connected with the Condescension."

"Solutions are that kid Dave and Jade met. He had some connection to them." Rose nods at him and writes 'Karkat' under their solutions. Dirk huffs and takes the chalk again, editing 'Solutions' to read 'Potential Solutions.' "That wasn't gonna work for me."

"Understandable," she nods again. "And though Jake seems safe and has his own underground bunker," she frowns, as the existence of said underground bunker took them all by surprise, "we might need to move Dave. For several reasons."

"So his brother goes under the problems," Dirk says, writing it down. "Anything we can conceivably do about that? Moving him would be difficult, as far as I know there isn't anyone near enough to help him."

"I am closest," Rose hums. "I've been speaking about this with Kanaya a bit. I would hate to ask anything of her, but she does have a car." Dirk silently writes 'Security Risks' on the problems board. She notices. "I promise we can trust her, don't give me that look. I can speak with her more, but we should decide what the best course of action is first."

"Does anything need to be done?" he asks. "Dave has been handling this on his own for years now. He might not be handling it well," he adds, remembering the fight he first met Dave in, "but surely he can last a while longer."

Rose raises an eyebrow. "But he doesn't have to, if we do something to help. I absolutely have the space and means to house him with me, and if Kanaya is alright with going on a road trip to Texas with me than by all means I think we should." Ah. It seems that by pushing back he's only made her more determined. He'll have to pay attention to that in the future.

He backs down and writes 'Kanaya's Car' under their potential solutions board with a stiff nod. "We should at least ask what he wants, first."

"Sure," she concedes. "It would be impolite not to." Rose holds her chin and looks at the board again. "Another big problem: Scratch."

"Exactly how much trouble do you estimate Roxy is in?" he asks while he writes it down. She frowns.

"Not completely sure, yet. Kanaya made it sound very serious, from what I gather he's a large part of the reason her cluster is so fragmented. I would prefer that we were overly cautious to our cluster being torn apart like that."

"So, a lot," he nods. "Especially because that loops around to our first problem of the Condescension." They consider this in silence for a few moments, neither coming up with a solution for that, or even a potential one.

Rose breaks the silence with a low groan. "And Jade is trapped in Japan." She falls back onto the bed dramatically in defeat. It doesn't matter whose bed, for all appearances she collapsed onto both of them. Dirk carefully sits down next to her.

"Jade is in the perfect place to help us, remember?" he reassures her, though his expression remains blank. He's only stating what they already know. "And Roxy might be too, Scratch didn't seem the type for direct confrontation. Roxy needs to be very cautious, and learn as much as she can. Worst case scenario I steal a car and go get her."

She looks over at him from under where her arms are draped across her face, "Write that down." Dirk gets up and takes the chalk, and goes to do as she says. However, no letters appear on the board where he marks them. "Well that's odd," Rose says, momentarily distracted as she sits up.

"Probably something to do with the fact that I am not actually here," Dirk shrugs, and looks back to her. "Come over here again." Rose pulls herself up and stands next to him once more, and he tries writing it again. This time, it works.

"Fascinating," Rose remarks dryly. "Does that mean that I am actually the one writing all of these, and your actions are merely a mental projection?"

"Sounds plausible," Dirk shrugs. "The handwriting is still different, though."

"Mmm," she hums. "I want to experiment with this more. But later. For now, I believe that it's about time my mother gets home from work. She's been insufferable recently, ever since she found out of my Sensate status." She absently writes 'my mother' on the Problems board.

"Your mother the scientist? Yeah, I'd imagine this is a huge discovery for her."

Rose rolls her eyes. "This is the most attention I've ever gotten in my life. It serves only as a painful reminder that she only cares about how useful I may be, rather than the unconditional love of a parent."

"Or maybe she's finally found a common interest," Dirk says, an annoyed frown slipping through. "It seems that you don't make it easy for her to spend time with you. All this," he gestures to her room, which is incredibly well decorated and clearly perfectly tailored to what he knows to be Rose's preferences, "doesn't seem like conditional love to me."

"You don't know her," Rose defends, but her face has gone softer, which Dirk takes to mean that he let something slip that he didn't intend to. Damn. She takes a quick glance around Dirk's motel room which he lives in by himself, and backs down. "But perhaps you have a point. At any rate, I'm sure she would take in Dave and any other Sensates who needed shelter, motives notwithstanding."

"You might even ask for her help with some of these," he gestures to the blackboard. "Well, go say hello to her or whatever you do when she gets home, and it's nearly three here, so I plan on getting some sleep."

"Right, I always forget about time differences," Rose smiles hesitantly. "Yes, you should go to sleep."

Dirk gives her a nod and a slight salute, and then he retreats back into himself. Alone, he ponders what new information he has.

Rose is smart, like Dirk, and also like Dirk, she's slightly lacking in emotional intelligence. She has an inability to accept love shown to her, which Dirk supposes is also true of himself, but he has more reason for it. A neglectful parent who is incapable of being open with her daughter and vice versa explains Rose, why she has problems with being told what she can and cannot do, and why she presents herself as an independent and mature adult at only sixteen. Dirk still sees her as a useful asset, of course. Still seemingly more useful to what their cluster needs to accomplish at the moment. That being said, he will have to leave the emotional sides of leadership to Roxy, as John is compromised in that area currently and Roxy will fit the role just as well. Yes, if Dirk and Roxy can direct the group with Rose and John as seconds in their respective areas, he is confident that they will be able to solve all of their problems and any new ones that come up, eventually. The situation at hand is delicate, and will need careful planning and careful management. If Jade can do her job, they will be set right on course, and once they understand who Karkat is and what he's capable of, and Kanaya as well for that matter, then that's more problems solved. But Rose and her impending meeting with Scratch… That could change a lot of things.

A/N: *opens third eye* Jake English Is Alex From Target

please please tell me what you think! specifically, if you think anything is off or out of character or if i'm just messing up their characterizations in general, let me know! is there too much exposition, not enough, are things confusing, that kinda thing. and i'm definitely not abandoning this anytime soon, it just takes an insanely long time to write. for comparison, chapter 1 was roughly 15,000 words, this chapter is about 21,000 words! that's a lot! and if you want some more background info, for a lot of the dialogue i format it like pesterlogs in a different document, that really helps with character voices, ESPECIALLY with dave and kanaya. still having a ton of fun writing jade and dirk, for some reason, while jake makes me wanna yell constantly. i always like how his sections turn out tho. this is rambly but i have two whole months worth of thoughts to put in here so

um... see you in another two months!