-Begin message-
hiii, roxyyy….its jade
weve got a bit of a problem going on here? its nothing for you to pack up and immediately act on, but its certainly something you should be aware of like right now
it
its about dave
he just got back from a job from what im certain is one of the more dangerous worlds and im not even absolutely sure it was because he wont tell me but
roxy you know how much i like to be right, right?
well it fucking sucks right now because i think karkat and i are RIGHT about him, and yes it does have to do with what i asked you to talk to him about
he came back with something hanging over him!! this dark, creepy looking silhouette that hung over him and seemed to originate from his shadow!! it was big, transparent, and had these really creepy wings
i couldnt see a lot of detail other that but
somethings up, and weve got to deal with it when you get back!! dirk and i havent exactly been all that honest with you and were really sorry about that - at least, i am and i have no idea if dirk even is but
im not asking you to leave wasteland!! you guys kind of have to be there right now!! im just letting you know in case you have SOME suggestions as to what to do!
….
yeah thats all i had to say, i dont want dave finding out i called you
kind of afraid he might blow up at me with how VOLATILE hes been lately
talk to you later, roxy!
-End of message-
Roxy let her hand fall limply on her lap, the hold on her phone loose as it quietly recited the voice mail options. She stared off into the long-ruined metro storage room she snuck away to, trying to process all that Jade just laid on her.
The description of the... thing that Dave had with him brought back adrenaline-fuzzy, trauma-muddled memories from years ago. The fall of the Circle, Dirk beaten-- dying --and trapped by Noir, her having to fight off that horrific Guardian of his in order to save her best friend’s life, the suffocating darkness that followed her sacrifice.
She shook her head quickly, refusing to let those thoughts fester again.
Guardian.
Dave had a Guardian.
Only humanoid heartless are capable of having one, and even then it takes an extreme negative dark influence to condone it’s creation. It’s extremely rare, even rarer than an humanoid heartless.
Numbly she saved the message, forcing herself to breathe properly again, having to settle for shaky at best, near-hyperventilation at worst.
No one had told her that Dave might be a heartless, only that he’d been acting strangely and using dark affiliated magic more freely. She had even seen it herself when they sparred for fun that one weekend.
She had a feeling this might’ve been the case, and had hoped she was terribly wrong. It could’ve just been the affiliation being stronger now, the stress of a falling world waking it-- it was a stupid excuse of a wish, in retrospect, it couldn’t explain everything and she knew that.
Optimism and denial went hand in hand and had fucking clotheslined her. Again.
But she couldn’t do anything about that yet, not until they got home. God fucking dammit.
...What did Jade mean by her and Dirk not being honest? What had they kept from her now? They had already tried to keep the surgery from her, only finding out thanks to Hal ratting them out.
...
It had taken Dirk a month to recover fully and return home, and he came back an absolute zombie of himself. No patient should come home that exhausted unless they did more than healing, went outside of standard doctor’s orders to do Gods know what else. Whatever they did secretly was during that time, Roxy was sure of it.
And “you guys kind of have to be there right now”? The hell does she mean by that? They had come here for fun! ...Hadn’t they?
Now that she stopped to think on it, it was weird that Dirk easily accepted her request all of a sudden, and so soon after recovering, too. He seemed eager, which was hardly synonymous with his normal reaction to Wasteland.
He... Oh Gods, he got along with “Tony” and “Lara”, was fine talking to them, traveling and joking around with them. He hated interacting with strangers normally, shut down and put walls up around people he didn’t know, especially people as dangerous as Wastelanders. But he’s been laughing and chatting it up, leaving himself open to them as far as he could with their cover story, friendly as he can get.
...Her-- his --phone has been missing since December, around the time he had started leaving the castle more, going to the Islands only a little while later for his eyes.
Dirk took back his old phone. Dirk must know who Tony and Lara really are, if he’s acting like this, and has probably known far longer than Roxy has.
Dirk remembers Jake and Jane.
Jade knows that, too, if that cryptic comment says anything.
For fuck’s sake, Jade had even yelled about them during New Year’s, and Dirk didn’t even react! Those two have known this entire time, have been hiding it from her this entire time, have lied this entire time. White lies are still lies, half-truths are still lies.
They must be here for Jake and Jane, that’s why Dirk was eager to come and that’s what that weird comment of Jade’s must mean. The timing of the sugery, and the long recovery time, the exhaustion--
Roxy... couldn’t get mad at them for any of that, honestly. At least not too mad right now.
There were more important things to worry about: getting Jake and Jane the hell out of here and somewhere safe, and helping Dave as soon as that’s done.
Letting out another shaky breath, the distressed waver of it leaving her feeling absolutely pitiful, she tried to calm down, tried to press back the wall of emotion that threatened to leave her eyes in tears and mouth in curses.
“...Ffffuuuuuckkkk--”
Well that failed.
Roxy bit back against everything, even as stray drops fell onto her lap, her body shaking in the effort not to let it out. She couldn’t, not right now, not yet. They were still in Wasteland, she had no proper explanation if they found her breaking down, no cover to take that’d keep away their worries and questions.
She’d have to talk with Dirk later, when they were alone. About Dave, of course, and without the help of the voicemail. Not out of pettiness(alright, maybe a bit), but because of the cryptic confession in it. She... didn’t know how to approach that topic, her guilt over keeping something like that from him making her too scared to even try, winning over her anger by a landslide. She’d leave it to him or Jake and Jane to bring it up, if they even could tell it was them between Jake’s worsened sight and Jane’s amnesia.
Gods, this was a fucking mess.
Longing for nothing more than a bath and Eridan’s pile, Roxy pulled herself together again, wiping away at her eyes and pocketing her phone. She stayed there a few minutes longer, getting her breathing to settle and her face to cool, making sure they’d have no clue she nearly broke down in a post-apocalyptic closet of all places.
She gathered up her things, grabbed the supplies she used as an excuse to come here, and put on a brave face(you don’t grow up as a Strilalonde and not learn something like that). Skipping out of the storage room as if she wasn’t carrying the dual baggage she was, Roxy called out about her finds proudly, nearly tripping over an old ghoul cadaver in the process.
“Hey, check out what I got--!”
“SHIT, FUCK-- ...I’m fine!”
