It's just sitting there, staring at you. It's cold black eyes piercing into your soul as you stand your ground, showing no emotion as of not to show your enemy any weakness.
You squint your eyes as if to say 'Your move, Pal' but no one can see it under your radical shades that you never seem to take off. Not even in your sleep. You sometimes find yourself wondering why you wear them but then you remember the reason but decide not to think about it anymore.
"Dammit bro." You half whisper, kicking the blue smuppet to the side from the center of the hallway. You make sure to watch your step though, if there's one of those things out of it's original place, there's a hundred.
Just before you step into the kitchen you check the sides of the doorframe, although there is no door. Just the frame. Your bro removed the door years ago so it would be easier to move all his technical stuff and shitty swords around the apartment.
You find a thin, see-through wire at the bottom of the frame and you give an almost bored sigh. You pull the wire in front of you and watch as it rains multicoloured rump before your very eyes. At the end of the rainbow, you see your brother standing a good distance in front of you as the last smuppet, a green one, falls with a small 'squeak'.
You don't even know where they came from, maybe he held them up by a net? You look up but you don't see one, where would he get a net? You decide not to think about it, along with a few other things you'd rather not think about.
"Dave." He says, expressionless.
"Dirk." You reply the same.
"You know you have to go to school today." He says. You swear you could almost hear a tinge of annoyance in his voice. You can see why he would be irritated, you've stayed home all week. You don't mind school, you kind of enjoy it actually, all of your friends are there.
Some of the teachers are being more of a douche than usual but that's not the reason you've been avoiding school. Your not sick or anything, there's just this program that the schools are doing, they're forcing all the kids to talk to other kids from different states so they can learn from someone else's perspective what that child's hometown is like.
Penpals they called it. Only they aren't using emails, oh no, they're using the old school letters. You just hate how you have to talk to someone else about their country, culture and languages when you can just read about those in a book. Plus when you did this back in, what was it? Grade 3? Your just gonna go with grade 3 since you actually can't remember what grade but you DO remember that it was in Elementary.
So, back in grade 3, you were penpals with this guy named Wayward from Australia, or, you think he was from Australia. You actually have no idea where the guy was from. He just kept on talking about how he hasn't had a drink of anything for weeks. You had to feel bad for the guy but in a sense where you still didn't care about what he said half the time but those few times you did, it was either bullshit or something sad about his life.
He never even told you what he does other than wander. You thought he had a strange name but that didn't bother you. The reason why you thought he was from Australia was because he seemed to have some sort of an accent. You could tell he had an accent by the way he wrote his words.
You could also tell by the way he was always talking about the sand. At first you thought he might just live by a beach but then you remembered awhile back that he mentioned something about always being parched and you thought about it for a while. 'If he lives by a beach, why would he be thirsty?' That guy confused the fuck out of you.
You eventually started to think that maybe it was salt water he was close to. It would make sense if he was a picky guy but if he's being serious about the way he goes on he could die, even your not that picky. If it was a life or death situation to drink from a salt water lake or river or whatever the fuck it was, you get the feeling he'd drink it. But then you started to re-think the sand part and then the words HE LIVES IN A DESERT smacked you in the face so fast you could feel your head spin. And then Australia came to mind. Funny how thoughts work.
You don't even know if that guy went to school, or where he found a mailbox to begin with. Maybe he lived in a town in Australia but if he did, why would he be so thirsty all the time? Weird. But the teachers have been discussing how none of the kids are really paying attention in their history classes so they thought this would be a 'fun' way to learn about culture. It's not much different now from grade 3 because we're all still pretty childish and our handwriting still sucks, the only kid in the entire school that actually has good handwriting and takes things seriously would have to be Dave's sister, Rose.
You're almost out of your first year of high school and now they decide we should have a pen pal? Well, not actually almost. You're all a little after just half of the year but still.
"Technically, I don't have to." You answer.
"Technically, you do. If you ever want to get a diploma for college." Dirk was quick to respond, as though he had been practicing in the mirror. You don't doubt he had been practicing in the mirror. It would have been ironically hilarious and you and your bro are the kings of irony.
You know that he knows about the pen pal plan by the school and he is all for the idea. Which is why he is most definitely going to find a way to get you to school before all the kids have been partnered up with the ones from your school.
"Dude, you and I both know that it isn't a good idea for me to be sending letters to some kid across the state, okay, we both know what happened with the last guy.
"What, that you just gave up talking to him altogether and he was left to send letters to no one in particular?" Wait. What?
"He still sends letters to us?" You ask with your deepest confusion, which would have been heard by anyone else as a normal tone of voice, and with such a bewildered expression that was easily hidden by your shades.
"Yes, we get one every week. Our mailbox is fuller than a retractable hooded car full of whores." Dirk stated.
"Well, shit. After he didn't reply to the last letter which was at least six years ago, I just thought he died or something." With that, Dirk hit you in the back of the head, not hard though. Only in a slightly rough but teasingly manner.
"So did I, until the bitch at the call center started nagging at us for overdue mail." He said with a smirk.
"That was HER? Holy fucking Christ haha" Dirk was on the phone a few times with someone who you couldn't identify but you could tell that they were probably annoying, considering you saw your brother get so worked up every time they called. It was actually starting to annoy you too after a while, you could hear a high pitched voice and your bros all the way from your room. You almost grabbed the phone off of him one day just so you could mouth off at whoever was calling.
"Come on now, let's get you there before we start getting teachers calling us at home." Dirk said, waving his arm towards the door like an explorer motioning for the others to follow or catch up. You shuddered on the inside at the thought but, there was only one more day of the week left, the last day that the pen pal names are being handed out. You've come. So. Far.
"Ahhh, but I seem to have left my motivation for learning at the plush dong and shitty sword department, why don't we go there and have a look for it?" You said with a slight smug expression.
"Leave the bullshit behind, we're going. Now." Dirk said as he literally grabbed you by your ear and dragged you out of the building. Some people in the halls stared, but others were used to it so they just ignored you and your bro.
As he walked up to the sign in desk, your ear in hand, to pass in the keys for the apartment, you noticed that there was a new girl at the front desk. She had dusk coloured hair to about her shoulders and turquoise/green eyes that had an attentive, sharp, vicious glint in them but her face looked soft. She seems pretty hard to read. She looked at you both strangely but you just ignored her glares.
"For apartment room H19" Dirk said, dropping the keys on the desk hastily.
"Alrighty, I hope you enjoyed your stay at Dally's Condo, please come again!" She replied with a smile not too wide too be considered fake and not too small to be considered shy. She was actually happy. That has got to be the first time you have ever seen a person that works here sound happy about it. Yes, it's all fun and smiles until you actually get to meet the people here.
"Yeah, your new aren't you." Dirk asked. She gave him a confused look, her smile faltering to match her look.
"Uhh"
"Carl over there, you know Carl" He pointed to the manager of the building. He had slightly long choppy whitish blonde hair, bangs that covered his eyebrows and dark blue eyes. He was kind of lanky looking, to be honest.
"Y-yes," She replied.
"He's the guy who introduced you to the works of how to do your job, right?" Dirk questioned the girl.
"Oh-uh, yes! He did! How do you-"
"And your sure that he mentioned everything to you?" He gave her a look but she couldn't tell because of his shades.
"Why are you asking me-"
"He didn't tell you everything." The girl gave him a blank stare. You could have exploded with laughter but 1) Your stuck in the middle of a serious conversation 2) Carl is eavesdropping on the conversation and this girl doesn't seem to notice anything, laughing would only give him an excuse to kick us out for disruption and 3) Your bro has a death grip set on your ear. You can guarantee that if he could squeeze it any tighter, he'd break the skin if he hasn't already done that.
"What do you mean?" She asked, her voice quavering slightly.
"Your not supposed to put the keys back." He replied. She gave him the most puzzled look you have ever seen.
"Pfff" You accidentally let the air hiss out through your teeth. Your bro lets go of your ear and elbows you in the gut. Hard. Your forced to let all the air escape your lungs in a painful way but hey, at least you can feel your ear again.
"There was a drug bust here a few years back, a couple of guys, you'd see them leave occasionally and a new guy would arrive each time with the same key. After a while, Carl, hey Carl," He gave a Carl a wave and Carl just stared.
"Carl got wise on them and called the cops, there were about 15 guys in that one apartment, they almost killed a couple of people actually." She gave a small surprised gasp that a child or overly dramatic teenage girl would give along with the 'oh my god' to match.
"Ever since then Carl's had all of the visitors bring their keys up to the front desk before they leave rather than take them with them for safety precautions. After the bust the guy who worked where your working now quit and Carl's had all kinds of new people coming in and out for job interviews, the first guy he accepted he forgot to tell him that he wasn't supposed to put the keys back but to hold them in the locked box under the desk your behind." The girl checked to see a smallish rectangle shaped oak wood box with a key taped to the top.
"The guy didn't know he was supposed to hold onto the keys so when the people came back to go to their apartments, the keys were somewhere in the storage room, I'm pretty sure Carl's already shown you that room. Lot's of drawers, try not to get confused. He fired the guy on spot and for some sick, twisted reason he started 'forgetting' to tell the others just for a reason to fire somebody. I honestly think he's been working here too long." The girls mouth was hung slightly ajar.
Carl gave Dirk one of his signature glares, if looks could kill.
"I was one of the first few to rent here when Carl became manager, that's why I know so much about the guy but now that he knows that I've been going around giving tips and concerns to the workers here, he's been snooping into my business to try and get me and Davey here kicked out." He ruffled your hair and shoved you by your head towards the door which almost caused you to collapse.
"Don't call me that." You said with a mildly irritated tone. You hate it when he calls you that, you hate it when people call you by a longer version of your name and you swear to the very next person who calls you 'David' or 'Davey' your gonna cut off their genitalia and force feed it to them personally.
"Get in the car, the doors unlocked." Your bro never locks the car doors, for multiple reasons that he refuses to tell you. You just think he's testing his luck, what with all the muggers in the city and all.
"Wait, so, which floor is apartment H19 on?" The girl asked.
"I'm in a hurry, I've already wasted too much of this dorks time, later." He replied, grabbing my arm.
"Actually, uh, you two seemed to be having quite the conversation. Drugs and stuff, always nice. SO. What do you say we stay and talk some more or-"
"Your GOING to school today, Dave."
"Wow okay no need to yell in front of your wife there." You could see your bro getting angrier by the second all the while that girl just kept her blank stare fixed on us both.
"Uhm, so H19-"
"Another time, lady!" He shouted, halfheartedly running out the doors, dragging you along by the sleeve.
"It's Kristy!" She shouted at the closing doors.
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"You have legs, have you ever considered using them?" Dirk asked, getting annoyed.
"Is there a point if your just gonna pull me everywhere you go?" Dave.. wasn't asking. He was stating. Dirk swung open the passenger side door to the Orange Fiad and shoved Dave inside, just barely missing his hand when he shut the door, running up to the drivers side.
Dave barely had time to put his seatbelt on before Dirk sped the car out of the parking lot with a deafening screech, nearly crashing into the car in front of them. That's something you definitely do not need more of. Car fines. Nice one, Strider.
"Jegus, are you trying to kill us? I mean Jesus." Dave asked, accidentally stuttering.
"Yeah, I thought we may as well go to see the big man, ask if he'll hold at least one more kid for you to write letters and all that girly shit to." Was his response. "Do you have your bag? Because I swear to fuck, Dave, if I have to turn this goddamn car around-" Dave cuts him off by equipping his sylladex and pulling out the overstuffed bundle of stitching.
"Here! Holy shit, I have it. You don't have to turn this goddamn car around." Dave answered, anger hidden behind his dark mask. Dirk continued with the questions, starting to really get on Dave's nerves. School wouldn't come soon enough. Erasing another four months from his life wouldn't be as bad as having his older brother treat him like a misbehaved son, right? Right? Right.
When they finally arrived at the school, Dirk skidded the car to a stop causing tire markings to be forever imprinted into the pavement. Dave nearly jumped out the window, before Dirk stopped him to hand him ten dollars for lunch money.
"-And I want change back, got it? And not ten cents, not a dollar sixty, I'm expecting AT LEAST three dollars change back. Okay?"
"Okay, thanks mom." Dave said as he stepped out of the car.
"And DON'T FORGET TO ASK THE PRINCIPLE OR YOUR HISTORY TEACHER AS SOON AS YOU STEP THROUGH THAT BUILDING ABOUT YOUR PENPAL" He shouted to Dave.
"Yeah, I heard you the first five times you told me." Was his reply.
"I swear Dave, if you don't ask them or if they say all the kids are paired up, I will fucking disown you." He threatened the boy with a serious tone. Dave responded whilst walking towards the building, showing his two middle fingers to his bro behind him as a way of saying 'farewell, dearest brother of mine, for I shall care for thy as thou is absent', only in a much less constructive way. Dave could hear the engine of the car roar out of distance.
Dave's best friend John came running up to him instantly because everyone knows who the sound of that car belongs to. You really can't wait for Dirk to fix that.
"DAVE!" He yelled, unsuccessfully springing himself towards his arms but instead just ended up hurling himself at Dave, causing them both to collapse. "It's been four days! Where have you been?"
"Aw, honey were you worried?" Dave said, his voice low but loud due to his lungs being crushed.
"Kind of, I mean, you never said you were going to be gone for a while and you haven't been on pesterchum. I thought something might have happened." Was Johns response.
"Okay, dude, seriously. You, need to get off." Dave said, shoving John and getting back up to stretch. "Don't be so dramatic John, four days isn't as long a time as you seem to think it is." John just pouted.
When the bell rang Dave saw John jump like the sound scared him, he teased him about it on the way to class. Dave's first class was English, John had Science, about the only two classes that they didn't have each other in. The English teacher was one of the nicer teachers in the school, she was smaller than most of her class with a high pitched voice and chubbier face, short black spikyish brown hair and square shaped black glasses with slightly dark brown eyes.
"Okay class, settle down." She announced, some kids were throwing bits of erasers everywhere at each other and others were just reading or minding their own business but about half of the girls were gossiping about who fought who yesterday and over who and whatnot.
When Dave saw the teacher coming up to his desk he knew what was next. He hurriedly searched his binder for what she was looking for.
"Dave, do you have your literacy poem?" She asked. Dave handed her a few pieces of loose leaf paper with words scribbled from the front to back of each. She eyed them curiously.
"I lost the sheets for it so I just used regular paper." Dave said cooly. She gave him a pleased look.
"This was due on Tuesday, you do realize I'm going to have to dock a few points off of this because of it, right?" She asked, concern growing in her expression.
"Yeah," Dave sighed out. "I do."
"You were gone for a while, were you sick or- KYLE STOP IT, THAT IS DISRESPECTFUL TO JOBY'S MOTHER" She screamed in Dave's ear, her high voice nearly causing his ears to pop.
"Sorry Miss"
"-or is there a problem at home or..?" She ended with a questioning look playing in her eyes.
"Nah, I was just sick. Nothing big." Dave answered with a shrug.
"Well, if there's anything you need to talk about, I'm always here." She replied with a smile and a pat on his shoulder. There was a bunch of screaming and items being chucked in every direction around the back left side of the classroom. Dave sat around the middle back of the classroom. Mrs. Ottre spun her head to the left of classroom at the sound of one guy in particular. "KYLE, WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT DISRESPECT?"
"But Miss, he started it." Said Kyle, pointing to one of the boys.
"I don't care who started it, I want it to stop NOW." She said, angrily walking over to where all the boys were arguing.
"He's making fun of my mom Miss, you should kick him out of class." Kyle said, pointing to Micheal.
"Oh yeah, Kyle, I'm the one who started it." Dave could sense Micheal's sarcasm all the way across the room, this caused him to smirk.
"YOU were the one who started talking about my mom you dirty chode." Micheal yelled at Kyle.
"Deck the halls with Holly" Derek butted in making the other boys laugh, Micheal was growing more irritated by the second.
"You know what else is funny? Barb's mom." Announced Kyle.
"Shut up, Tara" Joby replied.
"See Miss, they're making fun of me." Kyle said.
"Are they now" She wasn't asking.
"Yeah! I mean, it was Sherri who started it but you should kick them all out." He said.
"I didn't start it, don't bring me into this or I will break your legs and feed them to the next guy." Derek said.
"Kyle, get out of my class." Mrs. Ottre said, pointing to the door.
"But Miss I didn't do anything."
"You did, your disrupting this class and taking away everyone's learning time." She snapped.
"No Miss, I'm sorry, I'll be good." He said, but it was easy to tell he didn't care.
"NO. LEAVE." The teacher was about to flip her shit, which was rare for Mrs. Ottre. But that's what got everyone's attention. The whole classroom was silent besides these two arguing with each other, like a young married couple that decided to re-decorate their house. This went on for a good half hour.
The rest of the day went by pretty smoothly, Dave had Visual Art where he and John both argued about which kind of dog Mcconaughey would have if he was in the movie Beverly Hills Chihuahua even though you were supposed to be making sculptures of buildings, Phys Ed. (where Dave totally kicked Johns ass at basketball), and at lunch they both discussed how weird it would be to have a deep sea fish as a pet.
"But really John, if you had this gigantic fanged black eyed creature just staring at you every day you stepped through the door, how can you tell me that you wouldn't piss your pants each and every time?"
"I think it would be neat to have a lantern fish as a pet!" He answered gleefully.
"Did you know that the male lantern fish can fuse itself to the female, adding it's body parts as extras to the female and she can choose whenever she wants to use the semen to become pregnant?" Rose asked the boys, never looking up from her book. She was reading something very sappy and romantic, with the moon and the stars, demonic beasts and all. Also know as Twilight.
"I know! Dave, why can't you see anything cool about that? Because it is REALLY fucking cool!" John practically jumped out of his seat with excitement. Dave just looked at him as though he was a small child who had eaten too much sugar within the hour and was just getting a reaction from it.
"I have to agree with John on this one Dave, it is indeed, REALLY, fucking cool." The bell rang, now the boys had Spanish. Both John and Dave waved to Rose as she went off to the Literacy club that Mrs. Ottre held every forth period.
This period everyone was supposed to watch a movie and write a paragraph about what they thought it was about, only in Spanish, both the movie and the paragraph were supposed to be in Spanish.
It was about 15 minutes before the second last bell, when there was a knock at the door.
"Hey, is Dave here?"
SHIT. Dave knew that voice too well to think it was a teacher. He looked up to see Dirk standing in the doorway.
"Why yes, he is! And you must be his brother, Dirk? Was it?" The teacher asked.
"Yeah, so can I see him for a while, he forgot something very important." Dirk said, looking over at Dave. Dave quickly shook his head in protest, he saw his bro lift an eyebrow over his anime sunglasses.
"Of course! Dave?" She asked, looking for his face. Dave knew he couldn't get out of this so, with a defeated stance, he picked up his books and slowly dragged himself out of the room. When the door shut closed, he looked up to see a disappointed glare plastered on his brothers face. Although no one else could tell because they haven't lived with the guy for fifteen years and couldn't tell the different between his poker face and his 'one more word and I will tear your throat out' face.
"I checked in with the office, they said you never came to see them and that you don't have History today so you can't get one in the class." He stated.
"Yeah, I kind of figured that." Dave replied.
"I'm taking you down to the office now to see if anyone's left for the opportunity."
"Got it." Dave groaned out.
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"So your telling me that you came here at the end of the very last day of the only week for a Penpal and your only just asking for one now?" Yeah, your principle is kind of a douchey smartass.
"Yes." Your brother answered the man for you since you know that if you open your mouth right now without being asked to he is going to chuck you through the closest window. No second thoughts, your principle would probably give him a sticker for it too, one of the smiling star ones the Resource Center gives the kids on hat day after they've payed to wear it indoors to let everyone know that you payed. You never knew why your principle seemed to hate you, you never caused as much trouble as a good third of this school put together did. Or, not occasionally anyway.
"And you honestly think that there's going to be at least one left?" He asked Dirk.
"Dave's hoping so, he couldn't stop talking about it all week but he was sick so he couldn't come. The doctors told us it was a disease called bullthitnyarthiblinaintgunawork-syndrom but lucky for him it was treatable." He gave you a deathly glare, a shiver ran down your spine. Your principle just sighed.
"If there were any left today I can't guarantee but I think that they've all been taken. But again, I can't guarantee that. Dave, go check with your history teacher. She might have something if your lucky, but you best hurry." He stated to you and your bro. You just nodded.
"Thank you Mr. Jared, we'll be on our way." He replied, tugging on your shirt for you to get up.
Your History teacher, Mrs. Brad, wasn't in her classroom. One of the students gathering up their books told you she had a class booked in the computer lab. The class she was teaching was 10CO, Mrs. Ottre's homeroom. Your homeroom is 9BB, Mrs. Brad's class. Wow, lucky you.
You find that Mrs. Brad works far too fast for you to catch up and that's why you don't do too well in her class, but she just thinks your dumb like the other half of your class only you have the courage to talk back to her though and that half of the class agrees with you completely.
Mrs. Brad was getting 10CO to do slideshow projects on worldwide historic events, you saw one guy doing a project about Leon Armstrong and first landing on the moon with a little pun panel at the end with a cat that said 'Mouston, we have a problem'. When your teacher saw you, you thought for a second you saw her sneer. You don't doubt it either. She didn't even wait before you all left to another room before she asked, "This is about your Penpal, isn't it." She didn't sound the least bit surprised, it was like she could read your minds.
"If so, there's none left. Just finished giving out the last letter address this morning. Sorry Dave, you missed your chance." You know she's not sorry. You know on the inside she's cackling like a witch buying her first kitten. Your bro knows it too, and he looks like he's about to smash his fist through the wall but he knows that there's no good way it'll end. After all, we don't need another fine for that.
"Are you sure there isn't at least one left?" Your bro asked, You could hear the desperation in his voice.
"If this is to bring his mark up, even I don't think two years worth of it would do him any good. He's failing this class badly." She said, her tone getting lower with frustration. "You and I both know that the Penpal idea wouldn't do to good for him anyway, we have the recordings of his third grade Penpal letters and those weren't too good either. You do know you're still getting mail from him right? The entire Elementary was ready to strangle you for the funding until they decided to send it to your box instead."
"No, we know that we're still getting mail from him and no this isn't to get his grade up." You looked at him curiously and he notices. "Well, mostly not." That's better, you think to yourself, although still confused. "Dave needs to learn how to not abandon things when he's in the center of it all. He needs to learn to actually be patient and a Penpal would probably be the only way to smack it into his thick skull." Mrs. Brad eyed him as though she were looking for any signs of bullshittery dancing around his words. She then gave an exhausted sigh and shook her head slowly, turning towards the door back to the computer lab.
"Follow me," Was her only sentence. She led us back to your homeroom and took out a bundle of keys used for unlocking the small drawers behind her desk. "My doubts are high I am almost completely certain that they're all-" She stopped, lifting up a folder cover to see a slip of paper sticking out the side. 'Penpal assigned to ...' You saw her mouth drop. "I could have sworn... But, this one doesn't have an address! How can we have one without an address? How do we have ANY left?" She was so dumbstruck, if you weren't as well, you would have cried out of laughter.
"Here," Dirk offered. "Let me see it." He examined the piece of printed paper, checking it's front and back until- "Here it is." Mrs. Brad examined the paper more closely around the are where Dirk was pointing.
"Oh, well that's definitely it. But the writing makes no sense!" With that, you snatch the paper out of your bros hands. You are confused as fuck. You can tell that it's definitely some kind of language, but it's all kinds of wacky shaped letter like... things. You fail to identify any of them.
"What does this say?" You ask either of them. They just give you blank stares. "Okay, that really helped." You say, looking down at your feet.
"Do you know who printed these off?" Dirk asks your teacher. She gives him a look of uncertainty. "They might be able to help us out with this since, you know, they were the ones who printed it off and all." He says, making it clearer for her to understand.
"Oh, uhm.. I think, they work at the Writers Press by the Café downtown from here." She answered.
"Alright, Dave, We're leaving. Pack your stuff, tell your teacher you got sick again or something and that I'm taking you back home. Or don't, just grab whatever and meet me in the car." Dirk says, and with that, he takes off with flashstep, leaving you with your teacher.
"Well?" She asked, giving you a look of question.
"Right, uh, see you tomorrow, then. Or, next week.." You say, awkwardly walking out of the classroom to put your books back and get your belongings from your locker.
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"You have no idea how lucky this is for you." Dirk says, looking over at you and back to the road.
"You mean how lucky YOU are, since you seem to be the only one enjoying anything about it." You reply, irritated.
"Don't complain so much, it'll be good for you." He says, slowing down so he can pull into the parking space. The small building looks completely broken and run down, like it was burned but they used the wood that wasn't AS burned as the rest to re-build it. At first you couldn't believe that the school got it's printings done here, but then you remembered that they actually can't afford printing anything at the school for a while because some jackass decided to print off two thousand sheets of a Raptor shooting a basket and tape them all over the school. Everywhere. This place must have been the cheapest to get printed paper, you guess.
"Let's go talk to the owner, see if there was some kind of mix up." Dirk says, walking towards the tiny structure, opening the screen door and knocking on the iron one. We waited for about five minutes which in a book or something might not seem like a long time but if you actually count it, it's a pretty long time of just sitting there and waiting. He tried knocking again, only with a little more force than the last time. Again, no answer.
"Well, looks like no one's here. We'll just have to come back later." Dirk said, turning back to the car, I was getting back up from sitting on one of the three thick steps until the sound of creaking wood stopped us both. "Was that the stairs?" Your bro asks.
"I don't know" You respond. You both wait another minute before deciding you can't stand the smell of rotting feces any longer and decide to call it quits.
"We'll come back in another half hour, yeah?" He asks you.
"Su-" The door unlocks. You both look over to see two dark, glowing yellow eyes staring at you through the side of the door. It's honestly freaking the living fuck out of you.
"What do you want?" Asks a low, raspy voice. It sounded like one of those guys from shows that's always the bar owner. It took us both a while but we were finally able to respond.
"Uhhm, well-"
"We're here to look for the person who sent the school this Penpal sheet?" Dirk interrupted, holding up the paper with the strange symbols for the stranger to see. Those dark eyes widened at the sight. You noticed that around the pupil, or, the iris looked like a dark gray colour.
"Oh my god, GET IN HERE NOW." He whisper/yelled at us. We walked up the steps again, and followed the stranger into the cramped space. He snatched the paper from Dirk and walked into what you think was the middle of the room, but you can't tell because it is so goddam dark in here. How the hell does this guy get around? You can still see his eyes looking over the page in disbelief, but, why can you see his eyes? Is it because they're yellow instead of white? Maybe he has some sort of infection... But why would having an infection allow you to see his eyes in the dark?
This isn't one of those cartoons you see on T.V. when your brother is watching something, you think it has to do with winged horses or something. That guy is horse crazy. The only time you've actually been able to see someone's eyes in the dark was when you saw a stray cat in the middle of the night a few months ago, it was just laying in the middle of the road, like it was testing oncoming cars with it's supposed nine lives. But cats are nocturnal so that made sense, this doesn't.
He turns on a dimly lit light on the ceiling in the center of the room. Now you can get a better look at his eyes and you realize that it's not just gray, there's bit's of sky blue in there too.
"How did you get this?" He asks Dirk.
"It was listed as one of the school program Penpal signup sheets, we just found it today." Was his answer.
"Ohhh shiiiiit." The guy said, slowly shaking his head. You realize that he's wearing no shoes and- wait. are his feet, gray? What the actual fuck is going on? His nails seem to be yellow like his eyes. He must have a serious infection or something. Baggy, dark cyan jeans, and a black, two button hood sweatshirt. You notice that his hood goes up way higher than his forehead with two slightly obvious points sticking out. You think he might just have some kind of wacky hairdo.
"There weren't any more of these were they? Not the regular ones but the ones with these symbols?" He asks, obviously getting nervous. You wonder why.
"Not that we know of, otherwise you most likely would have seen more than just the two of us here." He replies.
"I-I guess that's true." He stammered, but seeming to calm down a little bit.
"So," I start, "Do you know what it says?" He seems hesitant but answers anyway.
"Of course, it says Karkat Vantas, but there has been a huge mix up." He appears unwilling to continue, so neither of you push it.
"Karkat Vantas? Is that the Penpal name?" Dirk questions him.
"No, uh, well, yeah but-"
"Then doesn't that make it so this, Karkat, is to be Penpals with someone?" Your pushing iiiit.
"Yes but you don't-" Dirk cut him off again, impatient bastard. Although you can't argue, your impatient yourself too.
"Whatever language that is, if someone can read it then we can contact him."
"Dude, we don't even know if the kid understands English. How are we gonna talk to him?" I asked.
"We'll find a way" Was his response. You groan angrily, then look over to see the guy eyeing you both with a strange look. He seems to be nervous about something, like he's hiding something or trying not to reveal it. You can easily tell when someone's bullshiting you.
"It's for an important school project, I'm sure the principle told you about it when he called." The guy in the hoody nodded slowly. "Dave missed the days they were giving out the Penpals and his homeroom teacher told us this was the last one. She told us that you were the one who printed of the sheets so maybe you'd understand what it said." Dirk gave an almost pleading look "Can you help us out? He's going to fail if he doesn't get a good grade in History and he needs to learn something from this."
The guy gave Dirk a questionable look but just shrugged it off. "I'll check the files." He said, walking over to a small computer around the back of the room. When the computer came to life, what you saw seemed to scare you even more. With the light emitting from the screen you could see that ALL of his face was gray, like, not a sick type of gray but a more normal type, like it was normal for his skin to be that shade like it was for your skin to be a peachy colour. He had dark circles under his strange glowing eyes, and what appeared to be fangs sticking out from his mouth. You then thought of the book Rose was reading earlier.
"Okaaaaay," He sighed, clicking envelopes and literally everything was in the strange symbols you saw on the signup sheet.
"Hey, what language is that?" You ask him, but he ignores you by pretending he didn't hear what you said. He clicks on small tab and you hear a sound of a printer running beside you. The stranger stands up and goes to where the paper is coming out through the slot. He takes it off the printer and hands it to you, it's still hot from the printer but not too hot to burn.
"That has all the information you need to contact him, but you can only contact him from emails or texting apps. Letters won't do anything." You try to question him but he just pushes both you and your bro out of the building and onto the porch. "If you have any questions, just come and ask." With that, he shut the door and locked it. You and Dirk just looked at each other.
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"I can't do it now!" You protest.
"It's only 4:30, you CAN do it now and you will!" Dirk argues back.
"I'm not your child, I'm your brother, stop treating me like your son." You say, tightening your fists.
"I'm not acting like a father, I'm acting like a responsible adult, only you wouldn't know the difference." He pointed to the hallway in your apartment that led to your room. "I want at least one sentence sent to that boy. Today. Now, go." You grit your teeth and drag your feet against the hardwood floor down to your bedroom. When you close the door you go over to your closet and take an apple juice out of a hidden stash under a floor panel that you discovered about two or three, maybe even four years ago. You honestly don't care how long ago it was.
When you go to your jeans pocket to get the printed sheet of paper you pull out another thing, the ten dollars your bro gave you for lunch money that you never spent, you just weren't hungry today. You decide not to tell him about it. You go over to your computer but before you do anything, you look at the sheet. It gives you multiple access sites and downloaded apps and programs. Most of them are blank though, he must not be a very social guy.
Eventually you find one for pesterchum. "Alright, lets use this one." You say to no one in particular. You open up the program and search up his user 'carcinoGeneticist' you find one result. Funny, you thought everything was going to be typed up in that strange language on the other sheet that the guy at Writers Press seemed to have kept.
turntechGodhead [TG] started pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] at 16:42
TG: hey man
TG: i was told that im supposed to talk to you
TG: forced actually
TG: but whatever im here now
TG: so first of all i know your names karkat
TG: and now im supposed to tell you my name because
TG: well
TG: its logical or whatever
TG: im dave
TG: so is this how its gonna go
TG: are we just going to be talking like preschool girls talking to their crush
TG: or just drooling in the corner
TG: or is it just gonna be me talking to myself the whole time
TG:
TG:
TG: ...
Your beginning to grow impatient, you've been sitting here for a good fifteen minutes waiting for this guy to respond.
TG: dude
CG: ?ETIR OORHHT TNEW ELAUOYTKA GESSSEM EHT .TIHS EELOH
TG: whoa what
CG: ?WAIT SPEEK YOU ,FOREWARD?
Whoa, what.
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END OF CHAPTER 1 FINALYYYYYYYYY
My neck. Is gonna. Break itself, soon enough.
Hope you enjoyed it!
Full credit goes to schntgaispocks and nubbybub on tumblr
They're the ones who created it, I'm just making words.
schntgaispocks came up with the AU and nubbybub created all kinds of sick head cannons that I'm gonna try my best to add.