lucybox | whatever

whatever

EPISODE 1: meeting
EPISODE 2: the latvian mob
EPISODE 3: a concussion
EPISODE 4: bench talk
EPISODE 5: break-in

[ what would someone following the number connected to dave strider notice during recon? well.

dave strider, thirteen, gangly and edging on getting taller but way too skinny, angular and bony in a way that says he could stand to eat more food more often. he constantly wears shades. he equally constantly wears long-sleeved shirts and jeans in the houston heat. dave is too careful to ever let that shirt ride up enough to show what's underneath, and he never lets his shades get jostled off his face in public.

the kid has more of an online presence than his brother. he runs a webcomic with an avant garde sense of style and some truly disturbing strips that occasionally seem to correspond with times his number has come up; he sells shit on the site sometimes, t-shirts or book compilations or keychains. the money isn't saved but tends to get spent on groceries. he trolls internet forms at random but does seem to speak regularly to at least three other kids, and has for at least three years. these conversations are all mostly superficial even though the kids are close. the deepest he ever gets in them is with rose lalonde, who lives in new york. sometimes they talk about his dreams.

to each of them he only has positive things to say about his brother, whom he idolizes.

the other half of his computer use seems to go to online school, which dave does all right on. he only occasionally misses deadlines, but more frequently turns shit in ahead of time. he participates haphazardly on the forums as required, but aside from an odd sense of humor and a decent grasp on the subjects, he doesn't say anything worth reading.

following dave in person is harder. he doesn't leave the apartment often except to go to the store, or occasionally the library. he has hung out in the park once or twice but always goes home the second his cellphone buzzes with a text. his interactions with other people are limited; he's polite and casually friendly and charming to the grocery store employees and the librarian, and he doesn't turn people away when they talk to him exactly, but he never discusses anything of note and always excuses himself pretty quickly. dave doesn't like to be touched and doesn't let it happen, never needing to flinch back because he moves faster than that, and doesn't let himself get in the position where someone will try to touch him.

at the store he gets apple juice and bread and peanut butter. or junk food that keeps longer, kept at the back of his closet. nothing he has to refrigerate or heat up. at the library he gets art and film books or photography collections or comics or shit like my teacher is an alien or animorphs or pretty much anything. he doesn't usually check them out to go back home, unless it's a thing for school. when he signs his name on anything it's a careful angular scrawl and he likes to do it in red - dave always keeps a red pen in his pockets. at the park he tends to sit on a bench with good sightlines and sometimes he'll feed birds bits of torn bread and sometimes he'll scroll through shit on his phone (tumblr, random sites, pesterchum) but mostly he just kind of sits there and listens to music.

he downloads a lot of music. sometimes he mixes up new shit and uploads it, sending it to his friends or occasionally just keeping it to himself. dave maintains some social media accounts but is weird about them. there are disjointed quotes or phrases and oddly angled pictures and he seems to treat them like some sort of joke only he gets, but he's almost dedicated to them like he doesn't seem to be to a lot of shit. there's a blog he used to update but doesn't any longer about tony hawk and other things and every glimpse into his mind through his words is unclear and a little off.

a lot of the time he seems to be in the apartment alone. he isn't always, despite appearances, and he knows it. there's a ton of surveillance equipment inside the apartment and dave treats the cameras and recording devices with a casual weariness and wariness. his brother is constantly monitoring both dave and the equipment; fucking with that would probably be a bad idea for anyone paying attention, but it might be possible to jack some of those frequencies, if you're careful.

inside the apartment he mostly stays in his room. when he comes out he's nervous and cautious but nothing ever shows on his face. even in the sanctity of his own room this is true; dave doesn't emote when he can help it and even when he jumps when a trap goes off, his expression doesn't change an iota. when he speaks his voice is low and too-texan, but he doesn't usually unless he's outside of the apartment and has to. there is no point, since his brother seems disinterested in speaking to the kid. he rambles in his interactions with other people online but in person always cuts them short, seemingly uncomfortable with talking for too long.

the one activity that takes up most of his time, however, is training. at any hour of the day or night dave might be called to the roof. bro owns the entire building, and no one has ever called in anything about the striders. if they have, it was taken care of quickly and quietly and nothing ever got to the people who might have done something with it. bro watches everything and this is how things go: dave goes up the stairs with a sword in hand and once he's at the top it starts and then it keeps going until it's over. sometimes it goes on past that. it can take hours on end or only a few minutes, and there isn't any way to predict which it's going to be. eventually dave's left alone and he lies on the roof for a bit until he picks himself up and goes back inside the apartment. he patches himself up quickly and efficiently and doesn't complain at all. the most he has ever done is inform john egbert he got his ass kicked, and john assumed dave was exaggerating like dave always does.

here's another thing to notice: dave strider is used to being watched. he's paranoid about it, trying to read from every tiny clue in his life what will happen next and coming up blank. so when there's an extra pair of eyes he notices after a few hours, and he doesn't like the feeling. he picks himself up off the roof and ignores a broken wrist and too many cuts to count and probably a few cracked ribs in order to lean over the edge of the railing, eyes scanning surrounding buildings with a tense little frown.

it's pointless to tell bro. it might be bro. is he supposed to confront the change or ignore it? it's impossible to tell when bro wants him to roll with something or dig his heels in, and if he can't figure it out quick before the inscrutable time limit runs out, bro will probably be disappointed. and also maybe mad? it's hard to tell if bro ever gets mad or anything else at all, but dave would like to avoid that eventuality and measure up, so...

so.

right.

he can't spot who might be watching him but he didn't expect to. he can never spot bro in the apartment, either. so maybe he needs to change the location? maybe this is counter-surveillance training. it's not the usual so it has to be something else, after all. he's too tired to think it through but that doesn't really matter because there's probably a time limit and he shouldn't be too tired for it so he can't be.

the next day dave will completely disregard his usual daily schedule and leave the apartment. his injuries are taken care of even if he's oddly careful about his wrist, a makeshift brace involving a wrist watch making it casual. dave can always make his walk seem easy and relaxed no matter what he's hiding. he doesn't go to any of his usual locations. instead he goes to the movie theater, wastes precious grocery money on a ticket for a random action movie, and immediately ditches through an emergency exit in the theater once he's zipped in.

he loiters around out of sight to see if he can catch anyone coming out after him.

there are a dozen other little trips and traps like that planned if his simple first-ditch effort doesn't work as he zigzags around the city with absolutely no gameplan, testing the waters to see what comes up. there's no possibility of waiting for probably-bro to explain himself, because bro doesn't do explanations. so. time to figure out the rules as best he can and hope it's what he's supposed to be doing.

the lack of any ominous texts to his phone is either encouraging or terrifying. dave can't be fucked to figure out which it is, exactly. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Those are both good tips. We'll check it out.

[That. Said. He turns to look at Dave.]

Did they invite you because you're just so friendly and personable?

I'm extremely charmin' and everyone wants a piece of me, what can I say?

[ also: ]

It's just general nerd rage invites for me to like get my ass kicked. I'm unconvinced most of 'em would know what to do if I showed up.

[ was his number up for this or talking to dirk or some other dangerous behavior yet unseen? ]

Not that they know my name or what I look like or anythin' else.

We'll check out the lameass sensationalist first. [A pause. Dirk's eyes focus on Dave like he isn't quite sure what Dave will get up to.] Are you going to show up to that meeting? [Dirk thought Dave's number was up for the Latvian mob thing. Now he feels like Dave's number is up because Dave is Dave.]

If you want to? [ that's such. a casual reaction to the question, but he hadn't had any specific plans. mostly he's doing whatever. ] I just mentioned it 'cause the dude might show up there.

[ so. ]

We're about a section over from the booth we wanna be at, but if we go...that way. We should get there?

[ according to his phone map. ]

Lead the way. [As Dirk reassumes that protective position because hahah he will definitely kill people in this room to protect Dave.]

[ dirk don't kill people? ]

What are your people sayin'.

[ he will lead the way and yeah he's. still weird about surveillance. ]

Nothing, at the moment. [He reaches into his pocket to dial up his phone and put in the call.] English, where are we at? [a pause as he listens. Then he glances back at Dave.] English is doing the digital forensics. Sometimes Lalonde's job, but she's apparently in line for her pass. Our friend on the force... is also heading towards the event to yell at me for draggin' you into this.

Is there anything you want to ask them?

I don't want to talk to a cop. [ WHOA? that's what he got from "friend on the force".

also, he shakes his head. ]

No. [ JUST...WANTED TO KNOW WHAT THE SURVEILLANCE PEOPLE WERE SAYING HAHA yeah he isn't a fan. ] The passes you got should get us through the fast lines, btw.

Then I'm hangin' up now.

[He reaches back into his pocket to turn off the phone.]

You'll have to hide for a bit when she shows up. Crocker, the cop we know, is... a force of her own. [He says it fondly but?? He is pretty sure Jane is going to chew him out.] But I can redirect her if it comes to it, and I'll give you a heads up to slip away. As good as she is, she is not going to manage to get the drop on me. You and Lalonde pretty much have the monopoly on that.

[And he is taking Dave's advice to get into the fast line now.]

I can disappear when you say to.

[ he's good at that though not good enough to slip the combined resources of the machine and the team, to dave's continued dismay. ]

So are you gonna creep on the dude at the booth, or how do you generally do your shit?

[ like. just trying to understand dirk's methodology here. ]

Also why do you know a cop, aren't you bein' super illegal?

I know a cop because she has repeatedly tried to arrest me. [He sounds fond again?? Also he is on his phone searching through some information as he talks.] She has opted to stop trying this and start helping us after she found out that if I were arrested, I'd be killed extrajudicially by the CIA. The thing is, Crocker is a good person, the kind that won't tolerate the corruption in the system she works for. She couldn't tolerate assisting that kind of thing, so she helps us instead.

[Looking through phone, looking through phone.]

Normally, I'd talk to him to see if he's had any suspicious encounters. I have a cop badge I could use for that but I'd prefer a more discreet method at the moment, so I'd feign an interest or antagonism in his plotline to get information out of him. [He shows Dave what was on his phone: information on the stupid plot twist. Dirk has been covering a lot of it so he could argue. But.]

In this case, though, I think you'd have a better shot. Do you want to have a go?

Wait. CIA?

[ what the Fuck ]

...Also, are you askin' me to deliberately piss off the author so you can try to see if he's up to shit?

[ BECAUSE. HE CAN TOTALLY BE DOWN FOR THAT. ]

Sorry. [There's a flicker of amusement.] I forgot to be ominously vague about my superhero backstory.

[hello dave he is ex-CIA ANYWAY]

You could take a friendly approach, if you would prefer it. [But yes Dirk is assuming that Dave will annoy the dude and bait him into giving info.]

Not a superhero backstory until you dress better. Supervillains are the ones with bad fashion.

[ obviously. bro aside. ]

Also: where would the fun in that be? [ he is 2 people away from driving someone who isn't dirk up the wall. rip person at the booth. ]

You were fairly adamant that Batman dresses poorly.

[And he is pretty sure he was Batman. therefore, he's a superhero.]

Making friends and influencing people? [look Dirk thinks it'd be funny to watch, honestly?]

The real one doesn't.

[ dave flaps a hand at dirk. ]

I influence people just by existin'. I have blog followers, you know. Can barely walk out the door without runnin' into one of them. [ he's running his mouth to waste time, but as soon as they hit the front of the line dave will let dirk buy a comic issue to get signed or whatever and start in on the mark-adjacent.

he is. really good at pissing people off. ]

[like.

Dirk was right?

this IS hilarious.

He doesn't even have sympathy, that plot twist was really bad. But he watches mark-adjacent dude to register any hints of likelihood to commit murder, but also to attend for any slips about their Number and whether said number has had interactions (victim or perpetrator) with this dude. Now and then he interjects, subtly, to try to lure out the info while Dave does the pissing off.]

[ dave just works around dirk's interjections and works with them, figuring dirk knows what's important more than he does. he also, however, follows any leads dirk throws down without missing a beat, slipping fulling into Bratty Teenage Kid territory entirely. he mentions at some point he's putting this on his blog? like?

stop dave strider tbh.

he's not sure how likely the dude is to commit murder. he's on edge but not sure why, but it could just be, you know, the latvian mob Existing. ]

[Fortunately, there is a little thing called stealing phones, and Dirk just finished doing it. Dave is a really good distraction so of course the dude doesn't notice. He nods to the exit for Dave.]

Okay, dude, think you've put Herr Hydra through enough. Come on.

[When he has Dave pulled away:]

That was really well done. I almost felt sorry for the dude. What's your take on him so far?

[ yeah dave has Questions about what dirk was doing but wasn't gonna ask. he flips through the comic that was signed and purchased, frowning as he's pulled away. ]

Seems like a standard dick. Not super great with crit, which makes comin' to this kinda thing and doin' meet-and-greets a stupid as fuck choice. [ a shrug. ] I feel like it'd pay to be careful around him, but I don't have a reason for that.

I got the same impression, so I decided to see if there was anything to back it up.

[Dirk takes out the phone and starts flipping through emails and texts. And there it is: actual information.]

We've got a few threatening messages, and a lot of angry threats right back. If this is why we got our mob guy's number, then it won't be easy to make a call between victim or perpetrator.

[He stops at an information desk and says he found this phone: hands it over. Dude will recover it if he asks someone where it is.]

Are you up for the meeting?

I don't know if "he makes me wary" is somethin' to back up your impression. It's not like I talk to a shit ton of people offline.

[ granted, he spends 99% of his time around a guy who makes killing intent laughably normal. ]

I'm up for the meetin'. There's nothin' connectin' me to the troll on the forums, for the record, unless they do your shit but I dunno what that'd give 'em. And it's a general meetin' so just. Act like you really like the Green Lantern, I guess. What do you mean it wouldn't be easy to make a call?

You have good intuition about people.

[He declares that with easy confidence. Dave has proved it throughout their time together readily. And it fits the scientific literature regarding children who grow up in situations like Dave: while many of them can't specifically identify the cues they use, a number are phenomenal at reading micro-expressions out of sheer survival habits. Dave, a smart, wary kid, deliberately abused to develop hyperawareness and attentiveness to small details, has been trained on a level that all his years Langley couldn't give him. Dave learned to read whatever cues he could with the same necessity that Dirk learned to read desert terrain and a crowd of strangers. And Dave has been learning it from the start.]

I mean I don't know if he'll kill our number, or if our number will kill him.

Why not both at once? That ever happen?

[ dave takes over the direction they're going in, rerouting them towards the forum meetup. ]

Why do you do this, anyway?

It has once or twice, but usually in cases like that, we'll get their numbers together. Either they're both targets of the same crime, they're working together on the murder, or they're going to kill each other. Although if one of them started planning the murder after the other, we likely would only get the one.

[Dirk follows along Dave, taking the same protective stance as before.]

Why do I stop bad things from happening when given the opportunity to be there in time?

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