Don't Cry Out - Act 1 - Part 7
When John finally managed to shove Dave off of him, he started explaining. Well, trying to explain. The words came slowly at parts, and he was pretty sure about half of what he was saying didn't make any sense in the first place, but he still tried to explain the best he could.
"So you're saying," Dave paused, sitting in the windowsill like this was some movie and he needed the dramatic effect, "That the girl I was talking to back there was Terezi. But she doesn't know she's Terezi. But there's a Sollux inside, who knows he's Sollux, who's been assigned to torture his best friend, and is gonna help us get him out."
John ran over the details in his head to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. "Yeah, basically."
"And along with that, if we don't pull of this heroic rescue tonight, they're going to kill him under the pretense of human contact." Dave whistled to the air. "Egbert, you are on all of the drugs. All of them." John opened his mouth to deny it, but Dave shushed him with a finger. "But I kinda like that."
"Well that's good because I need to use your phone." John reached for the device on the end table next to him, but Dave swept it up before he could get a hold of it.
"What for?"
"I gave mine to Karkat so I could talk to him. What's the big deal?"
Dave groaned through his teeth, then scrolled through and deleted something before handing the phone to John. "There. Don't go absentmindedly reaching for my shit, there could be...sensitive information on there."
John tried to cock an eyebrow before he remembered that he couldn't. "Sensitive information?"
"Strider business. Very important."
John rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say~"
"Oh shut up and just message the damn kid already."
John didn't need to be asked twice. It took a second of struggling with the unfamiliar interface to bring up the keyboard, but he smiled when he saw himself online.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 23:16 --
TG: hey karkat! everything okay over there?
EB: i don't hear anyone, so i guess so, yeah.
EB: actually no, i just heard something.
John felt his heart jump.
TG: shit.
EB: okay, i'm under the bed now. Don't say anything, i can't make this fucking thing stop beeping.
The profanity was comforting in a way only profanity from Karkat could be, but John still found the lowercase unnerving as he pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. With any luck, this would be the last night run before they shut most of the lights off.
EB: okay he's gone.
TG: alright. hold on, we're coming to get you.
EB: hurry. i don't know how long it'll be before they realize i'm gone.
TG: we'll be there soon, just hold on.
EB: oh, and john?
TG: yeah?
EB: thanks. and i'm sorry for being such a massive pain in the ass.
TG: you're not a pain in the ass at all. i'm just glad you're alive.
TG: see you soon!
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 23:30 --
"Okay, last night watch went by. Let's go." John's tossed Dave's phone back at him as he rounded the corner, and he caught it with contacts out and sunglasses safely back on his face.
"You still need to change."
John looked disdainfully down at his now-incredibly-wrinkled tuxedo, and started struggling with the bowtie again, fiddling around uselessly until Dave decided to have pity and get it off for him. The rest of the suit was easy enough from there. He still didn't put too much of an effort into dressing himself (unlike Dave, who was adjusting the cuff buttons of his 'ironic' blazer while he waited), but the sweatshirt he pulled over his head was probably better for breaking into pretty much anywhere than Dave's well-dressed ass ever could be.
But despite that revelation, the fact that John and Dave were about to do something completely and totally illegal on several levels didn't hit the goober until about halfway down the elevator ride.
Dave seemed to sense his sudden switch into poorly-repressed panic and ruffled his hair. "What is it loverboy, got cold feet?"
John opened his mouth to reconsider their motivation aloud, but then he remembered how skinny Karkat was, and all the tubes and all the scars and Sollux, who had already accepted his (second?) death for this cause, and he forced himself to stop thinking about himself for a minute and think about all the other people who were depending on him to pull through. "No. I'm ready."
Dave nodded and started to type something.
"More sensitive Strider business?" John didn't expect an answer, but he felt compelled to ask anyways.
"Arranging our ride out of here. Jade's grandpa had a private jet."
"Of course he did." John didn't even try to resist the urge to face-palm. "So what's the problem?"
"We need someone to fly it. It's not necessarily hard to find people willing to fly illegal goods, but we need someone who won't try to sell us off and steal the plane." He phone beeped, and he made an impressed whistle at it. "Or she could fly it, apparently."
"Jade can what now?" It wasn't that hard to believe once John tossed it around a bit in his head, but the image of his little sister (and he'd always think of her as his little sister, even if they were the same age) flying a plane was still slightly boggling.
Dave typed something back. "But it's only got room for two people plus her." He took a look over at John and nodded to something he'd said in his head as they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. "So you and Karkat then."
"Wait what you can't just decide that."
"Yes I can." Dave typed it over to Jade as his final act of confirmation while John hailed a cab. "He wouldn't let anybody else anywhere near him, you know what he's like. And besides, I live in an actual city. My apartment's small enough without another tenant. And it's not like I can go around showing him off."
"O-okay, yeah, all valid points, but could you at least have asked?" John slid into the far seat and gave the driver a street corner close enough to where they were headed without being overly suspicious.
Dave rolled his eyes behind the sunglasses, giving an exasperated sigh like this was the most obvious thing in the universe. "What would you have said if I asked?"
John figured it was long past the time for hesitation. "Yes."
"See? I just skipped a wholly unnecessary step. I must be some kind of incredibly efficient Strider-machine. You're overriding my programming by questioning me, silly human."
John's laugh relaxed the air of the entire cab, and kept him smiling even when he got out, giving the driver a large tip he probably didn't deserve, and wished him a good night he wasn't going to have. But the way he smiled when he did so was contagious, and the cabbie caught himself grinning a few times before he remembered he was supposed to be a gritty New York cabbie and hardened his mouth back into a line.
Dave affectionately batted John for giving the driver way too much before looking up to find that the girl was still waiting there.
[-=+=-]
"You're pretty determined, aren't you?" He slid in next to her on the fence, almost hitting his cigarette butt from earlier. Goosebumps stood up from her skin and her fingers were blue, but she hadn't moved an inch. The stars had come out since Dave had gone, and her red and teal necklace seemed to sparkle all the brighter because of it.
Yeah. Dave saw how this could be Terezi.
She sniffed the air. "Seems like the excitement's here."
Dave couldn't resist. "Now little lady, while that's very flattering, I don't like you that way-"
He was cut off by a curt smack. "You just assume everyone's in love with you, don't you coolkid?"
Dave put a hand to the offended cheek. Okay, he may have deserved that one. And he was probably about to deserve another. "Well, everyone is."
He braced his face for a hit that didn't come, but found her giggling at him instead. "Alright coolkid, whatever you say." Her head motioned over to John, who seemed to be making signs into midair. "What's he up to?"
"Getting the excitement rolling." John nodded as if to agree, and grabbed Dave by the blazer sleeve and started to pull him inside. "Whoah, Egbert, is she coming with?"
John nodded. "Yeah. He's gonna open the doors, let's go."
"Now hold on." Dave wriggled free of John's grasp, which admittedly wasn't all that tight in the first place, and took one of Tiffany's hands in his, kissing the knuckles.
"Now, my dear, this is going to seem awfully forward of me, but you said you wanted excitement, and here excitement is. My compatriot and I are about to go into that room and break out an alien that the public doesn't know about, which makes the stakes all the higher if we get caught. We have cooperation from someone on the inside, but he can't help us once we're out there again. My question to you is." He took a breath, and John was almost forced to roll his eyes at the complete and unadulterated cheesiness of it all. It sounded like he'd rehearsed, which of course he hadn't, but Dave always had a sense for these sorts of things. "Pretty lady, are you ready to help an attractive stranger and his friend do something incredibly illegal?"
Tiffany, Terezi, fuck he didn't know what to call her anymore, pulled her hand aside and planted a kiss on him. "Up the ante. If you get me in and out alive, we're going on a date."
"I do believe we have an agreement."
John was trying to yank Dave away by the collar again. "And if you're done."
"Of course." Dave offered up an arm for Tiffany, which she took, and they walked behind a running John until she got sick of that, pulled up her hem, kicked off her heels, and ran too, fast enough to lead them around the back and to the door Solomon had 'accidentally' left open and that John would have to blow off its hinges later.
"See?" John whispered, although Dave wasn't sure if it was from conscious effort or from pure lack of breath. "Still not quite human."
Dave pushed his sunglasses back up. "Alright, I believe you."
"Come ON!" She shouted down from upstairs, "Don't tell me the coolkid's tired already!" Her cackle rang through the metallic halls in a way that would have been haunting if it wasn't so damn familiar. In fact, this entire place looked like the veil had, before it got covered in...well...John didn't want to think about that.
He had almost run into Solomon in his determination not to think about it.
"Figureth you'd take her with you."
Dave shrugged. "What can I say?"
"Nothing, that'th what you can thay."
"Aww, Solomon, come on, you know me." Tiffany didn't look or sound particularly apologetic, but Solomon seemed shockingly okay with that.
"Yeth I do. All too well." He looked down at John, who had almost faceplanted on the floor save for the incredible fluff of Tiffany's skirt. "Where ith he?"
"Hospital wing." John sat up again, silently thanking whatever was in charge of them at this point that his glasses weren't broken. "He's got my phone. Dave should be able to find him if he's moved at all."
Sollux seemed to chuckle through his teeth. "He'th not that thupid, I hope."
Dave held up his phone. "Got it."
Sollux squinted at it for a minute in the darkness. "Alright. Thith place ith pretty much abandoned right now, thince they think they're killing him tomorrow."
Tiffany smiled, letting her painfully white teeth gleam against the darkness. "Okay boys, I don't even have half of an idea about what's going on here, but I love it already."
"Good." Dave reached out a hand which John took, pulling him up and off the floor. "Because you're neck-deep in it now."
Her smile grew a little wider and a little more unnerving. "I kind of like that."
Sollux rolled his eyes. "Are they going to conthtantly be like that?"
John shrugged. "I'm not sure. I hope not. They haven't let up yet."
"Egbert you're just jealous because you don't get-"
"Not the time."
"Fine then." Tiffany adjusted her leaf-filled hem while Dave talked. "Then how do we get from here," he pointed at the ground, then at the phone, "to here?"
Sollux smiled. "Follow me."