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

[ oh.

okay.

hm. ]

Am I still not allowed to fall asleep? [ dave has decided..............he is too concussed for this conversation after all. ]

Are you still not able to really focus on things?

[ ... ]

If I say I can focus on things do I get to go to sleep?

If you're telling the truth. Otherwise, you should be givin' me music recommendations and the like.

I'm havin' less trouble focusin'?

[ does that count ]

[...]

Recommend some music to me, Dave.

[ rude ]

I have some tracks on my phone my friends composed.

Sounds pretty cool. I'd love to hear 'em.

[ he...passes over his phone after doing the passcode by route. ]

They're in "fresh jamz". [ there are some tracks by dave in there, as well; they're all organized by symbol based on who worked on what. some of them are collaborations. ]

[Dirk pulls up the first song there. He then dumbs potpourri out of its bowl and onto the floor and puts the phone inside of it as he hits play. This produces better speakers because of PHYSICS.

Also he does not give a shit about his potpourri.]

Tell me about what parts they played.

You're gonna have to vacuum that.

[ dave...shuts his eyes again. ]

This track? [ he obviously knows what it is from the first bar. ] Well, we have the same division no matter who's in any track. John's a piano man, his dad taught him. He's actually really good - I mean, that's easy to hear. Jade plays bass. Rose does violin. Jade does some mixing to - does it sound braggy if I say "to a lesser degree"? But none of them mess with tracks like I do.

It ain't braggin' if it's true. Do they usually play parts and then send 'em to you for composition?

Not originally. I mean, we used to just share shit we did, and then I started mixin' it together. We don't really coordinate as such but no one minds me throwin' things into a pot and seein' what comes up. I guess because they're pretty busy with school, so, like.

You're good at it. Especially at working with the temporal features of composition. You could be more creative with how you adjust your elements for sound, but the overall structuring is really well-done.

[No one ever asks for Dirk's opinion and yet he always gives it.]

What do you mean? What am I doin' wrong?

[ he would

of course focus on that, yes. ]

You aren't doing anything wrong, dude. [God, he should have known better? But Dirk always gives praise and criticism exactly how he sees it. He'll have to be more careful.] Rather, you're conservative with how you use the tracks in terms of alterations and effects. You don't amplify or reduce them at all. That ain't a bad thing. It's just an area of mixin' where you seem to have chosen not to play around.

The choice is fine, especially since these sounds are from your friends. I think it'd be interestin' to hear you experiment more in that area, maybe with samples from other sources. Like I said, your mastery over structure and time is very strong, so you can't really go wrong if you experiment with other elements.

[ dave is not used to...either. weirdly, the idea of being told he sucked at something is almost comforting? the silent disapproval is worse than just having his inadequacy confirmed verbally. ]

Oh. Uh. I guess I could grab some more stuff from online. Most of my remixes are, like, original shit or friends shit. There's a folder in there of like, actual songs, though?

I'd prefer to listen to more of your things first. It will probably be easier to keep you awake explainin' them, for one. Besides, I want to hear all of these.

What do you want to know about 'em?

[ LET DAVE SLEEP!!!!!!!! or don't that's probably healthier but. ]

[Dirk asks him questions as he listens: why did he choose to combine elements like this, what made him do this. What does he think about this kind of adjustment? He doesn't let Dave backtrack on anything; rather, he encourages Dave to defend his positions, and he tells him when he thinks he has good ideas, and he only ever asks Dave to think about alternatives and make the choice about what he thinks is best for himself. He is, in other words, encouraging, and supportive and attentive.

He does this for about an hour before he stops Dave to check his focus again. If Dave can focus, Dirk will let him sleep. If not, then it's more discussion time with the weird creepy stalker.]

[ it's a circular conversation that takes a lot of effort, probably. dave isn't good at committing to his positions even when he realizes dirk is trying to encourage that; sometimes he changes sides seemingly just for the sake of it, but a lot of the time he seems to be trying to figure out what it is dirk wants to hear him say.

...eventually he'll kind of cotton on that dirk wants to hear him say whatever it is dave has to say, but he's still tentative about giving his actual thoughts by the time the hour is up.

THANKFULLY HIS EYES FOCUS THIS TIME, let him rest weird creepy stalker man.

have the other alphas figured out what dirk is up to yet, please advice i'm curious ]

[Once Dirk gets Dave to sleep, he has some calls to make. Calls like, "Hey Roxy, can you buy me a lot of apples, don't ask why, goddammit you already know." Roxy promises not to tell Janey but she also keeps asking him how many ways he managed to mess up and won't admit whether or not she bugged his apartment. He thought he swept for bugs? Dammit Lalonde.

Jake, when he finds out, is ambivalent. His first instincts are excited encouragement! And then the doggish enthusiasm ebbs out as he realizes how dangerous this is.

Dirk lies directly to Jane and tells him he forgot dinner with her because he was so busy working. Jane then demands that he let her come over and feed him. Dirk hurriedly tells her not to. Jane reminds him that she is a detective, and she will goddamned detect this, buster. Dirk hangs up and everyone is now straight to voicemail.

[ is jane going to bust into the apartment and find dirk with a technically-not-yet-kidnapped thirteen-year-old child because that could get Awkward fast??? anyway dave will pretty much sleep. on the couch? in the bed? where is dirk making him sleep actually this is important or not really important since. he will be out for actually probably longer than he usually sleeps. haha. concussions are good for a full night's rest! unless dirk wakes him up before then but it's not like bro is coming back tonight or dave's phone would have blown up with texts.

or just one text.

actually it does vibrate a few times but that's just rose. ]

[Dirk offers Dave the bed but won't fight him if he takes the couch? Whichever room he's in, Dirk eventually has to slip into the other one to beg Jane not come over and bust down his door with a gun and fresh-baked cookies because it will ruin something he's working on which is, to say the least, highly precarious.

This only makes Jane want to bust down his door even harder but she resists.

Barely.

Dirk only wakes up Dave a couple times, just to make sure that he's okay. Once he sees Dave can respond, he immediately tells him it was just a check-in and he can go back to sleep.

btw Dirk doesn't sleep, he stays up making sure Dave is okay all night. The evidence is in the progress he made on Squarewave while sitting beside wherever Dave let Dirk put him to sleep.]

[ honestly for a wonder dave will take the bed offer? like. he figures that will free dirk up to do...whatever the fuck it is dirk does in his spare time. the music thing? the robot thing? and dave doesn't plan to sleep that long - he never sleeps for more than a few hours at a time.

he also has not usually injured himself quite in this manner. dave's had concussions before but not super bad and not after losing a ton of blood.

every time he wakes up he kind of thinks he's delirious and seven years old again, though, because someone is actually there. when he's finally awake-awake, though, his first move is to check pesterchum. jade left him some music, john complained about his dad's clown thing and asked why rose was bothering him about dave, and rose...

dave doesn't even read it all. he types "hey" and waits for the onslaught before squinting at the robot dirk is apparently still doing. it's...way more done. and dave was out all night, shit. bro didn't text, though, so he's probably clear. ]

Aren't you tired? You should've kicked me out hours ago.

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