MSPA Fanfiction III

[IndieRainbow]

A-ah the sadfics, they are making me cry copious amounts of tears. And I like the other ones, too.

Also, I have a couple fanfic ideas of my own in mind. In some kind of Homestuck AU. Like Karkat, Sollux, and Gamzee starting a rock band and a ballroom blitz featuring the kids and the trolls. Watch me attempt writing fanfics and fail, everyone.

[sarasvati]

throwing my own chip onto the sadfic pile. second-person Bro, going through the years:

sun's angle
David fucking Strider. Kid's going to be amazing if you've got any say in it.

[Zizzo]

Oh. Oh, Sarasvati, my heart. That was so lovely and poignant and painful and exactly what I didn't know I wanted after the update, except a million heartwrenching miles better.

Stupid brilliant Striders.

[-Benedict]

wh- WOW. Ok. That was beautiful. It's completely perfect. I didn't really know how to feel about Bro dying until now, but now... he succeeded. He's bleeding out in front of his brother, his son, and they're both dying, but it feels like a triumph. Everything he did, and it's not an untimely death. It's the only timely death. He built a Dave. A Knight of Time. And he's done.

Wow.

[Douhneill]

Hey, I've been getting annoyed having all of my non-school time be working on my Heirman stuff, as well as all these sadfics, so here's something I came up with when I was trying to clear my mind last night. (Yes, most of my inspiration comes at the absolutely most inconvenient times. But w/e)

Naughty Little Fly (<-- Yes, that is a LOTR reference. Get at me.)

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I screwed up.

I'd complain that she's being underhanded, but this is par for the course, concerning her. I should have been more careful. When she decides to show up, she's gonna be "soooooooo" happy.

Mind you, that's pretty much the reason I'm here, isn't it? The fact that we'd be bored if we weren't at each other's throats all the time is the very same reason why I let my guard down today. It's kind of ironic, actually. I'm sure Dave would approve of this. He doesn't approve of what I usually do when it comes to her, but he'd approve of this.

Oh, here she comes, dressed for show, as usual. Ever since I started outdoing her theatrically, she's been extremely focused on looking better than I do. Can't say I don't like the competition. It's fun. But now that I'm at her mercy, it really does get annoying to see her flaunt that side of the battle.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here."
"Mindfang."
"Nice to see you made it on time, Trickhands."
"I've been told it would be more gentlemanly not to show up fashionably late to this."
And here it starts. This is the only thing she does that I can't understand. Whenever I'm actually helpless in front of her is when she starts acting... nice. Here she comes, leaning against the web she set up, right in front of me. She's playing in my hair this time. She must be pretty excited if she's playing in my hair.
"You even let yourself get caught in my trap. It's nice to see how courteous you're 8eing tonight."
I don't know if it's her eyes, or just the way she looks at me, but I've always been kinda hypnotized by her when we're this close. It's not actual hypnotism, though. I built up an immunity to that. At this point, it's hard not to smile, you know? Even at the mercy of the marquise, I can still feel in control, even if it's only slightly.
"Well, you know how much this means to me."
"Hmm. Well, I can't just take these gifts without giving you something in return."
I've closed my eyes. We both already know what's going to happen. I can feel her hands on my cheeks, her lips on mine, straddling the line between delicate and forceful. I'd hold her, but I'm kinda stuck in a web right now. Ah, well. It's not the last time this is going to happen. I open my eyes around the time I expect her to begin walking away. And there she goes, egging me on.
"You should be more careful, Thomas. There are maniacs about."
She's gone. I'm getting my special card out from my sleeve to cut this damn webbing. I better hurry, though. It's not polite to keep a girl waiting, and it's unwise to annoy Spinneret. But all the while, I just can't stop smiling.

This date's going a lot better than I expected.

A/N

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hide spoiler

I started with "Colonel Thomas Trickhands" (John's persona) in a tight spot against Mindfang, but suddenly it turned into HOLY CRAP ON A STICK WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I actually have no clue how that happened.

[Wigmund]

Karaoke Night Part 5
(Previous chapters are linked in my signature)

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I guess Dave found his present...
Well, I gotta run.
Dave's terrified screams had turned into a roar of pure rage.
Right now.
John gave Rose the recorder,
Tavros! It's your turn next. Get up on stage and give us your best!
John got up and went to the door. When it opened, he ran like the Demon himself had come back for vengeance.
Are you ready Tavros?
uh, I think so.
You'll do gr8 Tavros!!!!!!!
You'll 8e the 8est........or else.
umm, thanks for the support Vriska.
Tavros made his way up to the stage. The poor guy was sweating bullets.
uhh, I WANT TO BE THE BEST
LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS!
um, TO CATCH THEM IS MY REAL TEST
TO TRAIN THEM IS MY CA--
The music came to a screeching halt and changed to something else.
Rose swung back and saw Nepeta giving her a sheepish look over by the sound equipment. She was busy plastering the wall with red paint.
8OO < I wasn't me. It was Vriska! She changed the music!
Rose turned around to see Vriska stomp onto the stage. Murder was in her eyes and Tavros was receiving the worst of the glare. She grabbed the extra mic.
STOP RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!
I GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
huh?
8efore we go any further,
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit?
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forever!?
Do you need me!?
Will you never leave me!?
Will you make me happy for the rest of my life!?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit!?
I gotta know right now!!!!!!!!
Before we go any further,
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forevvvvvvvver!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
umm, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
uh, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
yeah, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
I GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Do you love me? Will you love me forever?
Do you need me? Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit?
I gotta know right now!Before we go any further,
Do you love me!? Will you love me forevvvvvvvver????????
um...I...
What's it gonna 8e 8oy?
C'mon, I can wait all night.
What's it gonna 8e 8oy?
Yes or No?
WHAT'S IT GONNA 8E 80Y!?
YES - OR - NO?
uh...uh, uh, uh
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
umm, let me sleep on it
and I'll give you an answer in the morning!
I GOTTA NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Let me sleep on it...
DO YOU LOVE ME!?
Vriska, baby
WILL YA LOVE ME FOREVER!?
let me sleep on it...
DO YA NEED ME!? WILL YOU NEVER LEAVE ME!?
Well let me sleep on it
WILL YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!?
And I'll give you an answer
WILL YA TAKE ME AWAY!?
In the morning!
WILL YOU MAKE YOUR MATESPRIT!?
uh, I'll tell you in the morning!
I gotta know right now!
8efore we go any further,
Do you love me?
Will you love me forevvvvvvvver?
uh, let me sleep on it.
Will you love me forever?
uh, let me sleep on it.
Will you love me forever?
I can't take it any longer
Jegus I am feeling crazed
And there's this feeling come upon me
Like a tidal wave!
I swear to gog and upon tinkerbell's grave
That I will love you until the end of time!
I swear that I will love you to the end of time!
Damn right you will 80y.
Now, follow me. We need to go someplace priv8........
;;;;)
umm...uh...
oh dear
Vriska took hold of Tavros' collar and dragged him out of the lounge.
That seems to be a recurring ending to our performances tonight.
XDD < 3333333333333!
....
What's that noise?
Rose glanced back at Nepeta who was chewing on her Puppy Noir fur cap and looked about ready to burst.
You're enjoying tonight, aren't you my dear?
X33 < aC is so purrfectly happy that so many people are confurming her shipping wall!
Wait...I...
I thought you were always joking about that thing.
:DD < Nope
;33 < And I can't wait until your purrfurmence Rose.
XDD < I CAN'T WAIT!
Oh...
Well, you will.
Uh, Equius is up next.
I Think You Are Mistaken Rose.
I Thought We Had ---
Nope, Equius is next.
D--> If you insist. I shall obey you orders.
Stop that creepy submission fetish and just get up there.
D--> Oh...alright
Rose got ready to watch Equius perform. She was kinda curious what he would do.

But it was gonna be hard to watch him when she had the intense, interested, excited glare boring into her head from the back of the room.

Oh boy. She really wasn't expecting this kinda fun tonight.

A/N:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Only one performance this time...well two if you call Vriska's interruption of Tavros' awful cover of the Pokemon theme with the middle act of "Paradise By Dashboard Light" a separate performance.

Just if anyone wanted to know what face Nepeta was giving Rose, it's this one. I have no idea what that particular face is called, but I can imagine Nepeta sitting by the sound equipment, hands all covered in red paint, giving Rose that face for the rest of the night until she performs.

Oh what fun the final part of Karaoke Night will be :33
Maybe the hybrids will get involved ;3

[Douhneill]

Karaoke Night Part 5
(Previous chapters are linked in my signature)

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I guess Dave found his present...
Well, I gotta run.
Dave's terrified screams had turned into a roar of pure rage.
Right now.
John gave Rose the recorder,
Tavros! It's your turn next. Get up on stage and give us your best!
John got up and went to the door. When it opened, he ran like the Demon himself had come back for vengeance.
Are you ready Tavros?
uh, I think so.
You'll do gr8 Tavros!!!!!!!
You'll 8e the 8est........or else.
umm, thanks for the support Vriska.
Tavros made his way up to the stage. The poor guy was sweating bullets.
uhh, I WANT TO BE THE BEST
LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS!
um, TO CATCH THEM IS MY REAL TEST
TO TRAIN THEM IS MY CA--
The music came to a screeching halt and changed to something else.
Rose swung back and saw Nepeta giving her a sheepish look over by the sound equipment. She was busy plastering the wall with red paint.
8OO < I wasn't me. It was Vriska! She changed the music!
Rose turned around to see Vriska stomp onto the stage. Murder was in her eyes and Tavros was receiving the worst of the glare. She grabbed the extra mic.
STOP RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!
I GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
huh?
8efore we go any further,
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit?
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forever!?
Do you need me!?
Will you never leave me!?
Will you make me happy for the rest of my life!?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit!?
I gotta know right now!!!!!!!!
Before we go any further,
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forevvvvvvvver!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
umm, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
uh, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
Let me sleep on it...
yeah, And I'll give you an answer in the morning.
I GOTTA KNOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Do you love me? Will you love me forever?
Do you need me? Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your matesprit?
I gotta know right now!Before we go any further,
Do you love me!? Will you love me forevvvvvvvver????????
um...I...
What's it gonna 8e 8oy?
C'mon, I can wait all night.
What's it gonna 8e 8oy?
Yes or No?
WHAT'S IT GONNA 8E 80Y!?
YES - OR - NO?
uh...uh, uh, uh
Let me sleep on it...
Baby, baby let me sleep on it...
umm, let me sleep on it
and I'll give you an answer in the morning!
I GOTTA NOW RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!
Let me sleep on it...
DO YOU LOVE ME!?
Vriska, baby
WILL YA LOVE ME FOREVER!?
let me sleep on it...
DO YA NEED ME!? WILL YOU NEVER LEAVE ME!?
Well let me sleep on it
WILL YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!?
And I'll give you an answer
WILL YA TAKE ME AWAY!?
In the morning!
WILL YOU MAKE YOUR MATESPRIT!?
uh, I'll tell you in the morning!
I gotta know right now!
8efore we go any further,
Do you love me?
Will you love me forevvvvvvvver?
uh, let me sleep on it.
Will you love me forever?
uh, let me sleep on it.
Will you love me forever?
I can't take it any longer
Jegus I am feeling crazed
And there's this feeling come upon me
Like a tidal wave!
I swear to gog and upon tinkerbell's grave
That I will love you until the end of time!
I swear that I will love you to the end of time!
Damn right you will 80y.
Now, follow me. We need to go someplace priv8........
;;;
umm...uh...
oh dear
Vriska took hold of Tavros' collar and dragged him out of the lounge.
That seems to be a recurring ending to our performances tonight.
XDD < 3333333333333!
....
What's that noise?
Rose glanced back at Nepeta who was chewing on her Puppy Noir fur cap and looked about ready to burst.
You're enjoying tonight, aren't you my dear?
X33 < aC is so purrfectly happy that so many people are confurming her shipping wall!
Wait...I...
I thought you were always joking about that thing.
D < Nope
;33 < And I can't wait until your purrfurmence Rose.
XDD < I CAN'T WAIT!
Oh...
Well, you will.
Uh, Equius is up next.
I Think You Are Mistaken Rose.
I Thought We Had ---
Nope, Equius is next.
D--> If you insist. I shall obey you orders.
Stop that creepy submission fetish and just get up there.
D--> Oh...alright
Rose got ready to watch Equius perform. She was kinda curious what he would do.

But it was gonna be hard to watch him when she had the intense, interested, excited glare boring into her head from the back of the room.

Oh boy. She really wasn't expecting this kinda fun tonight.

A/N:

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Only one performance this time...well two if you call Vriska's interruption of Tavros' awful cover of the Pokemon theme with the middle act of "Paradise By Dashboard Light" a separate performance.

Just if anyone wanted to know what face Nepeta was giving Rose, it's this one. I have no idea what that particular face is called, but I can imagine Nepeta sitting by the sound equipment, hands all covered in red paint, giving Rose that face for the rest of the night until she performs.

Oh what fun the final part of Karaoke Night will be :33
Maybe the hybrids will get involved ;3

Wiiiiiiiigmuuuuuuuund!

I'm actually pretty sure that's all I need to say on the matter.

[BPrinny]

Hey, I've been getting annoyed having all of my non-school time be working on my Heirman stuff, as well as all these sadfics, so here's something I came up with when I was trying to clear my mind last night. (Yes, most of my inspiration comes at the absolutely most inconvenient times. But w/e)

Naughty Little Fly (<-- Yes, that is a LOTR reference. Get at me.)

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I screwed up.

I'd complain that she's being underhanded, but this is par for the course, concerning her. I should have been more careful. When she decides to show up, she's gonna be "soooooooo" happy.

Mind you, that's pretty much the reason I'm here, isn't it? The fact that we'd be bored if we weren't at each other's throats all the time is the very same reason why I let my guard down today. It's kind of ironic, actually. I'm sure Dave would approve of this. He doesn't approve of what I usually do when it comes to her, but he'd approve of this.

Oh, here she comes, dressed for show, as usual. Ever since I started outdoing her theatrically, she's been extremely focused on looking better than I do. Can't say I don't like the competition. It's fun. But now that I'm at her mercy, it really does get annoying to see her flaunt that side of the battle.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here."
"Mindfang."
"Nice to see you made it on time, Trickhands."
"I've been told it would be more gentlemanly not to show up fashionably late to this."
And here it starts. This is the only thing she does that I can't understand. Whenever I'm actually helpless in front of her is when she starts acting... nice. Here she comes, leaning against the web she set up, right in front of me. She's playing in my hair this time. She must be pretty excited if she's playing in my hair.
"You even let yourself get caught in my trap. It's nice to see how courteous you're 8eing tonight."
I don't know if it's her eyes, or just the way she looks at me, but I've always been kinda hypnotized by her when we're this close. It's not actual hypnotism, though. I built up an immunity to that. At this point, it's hard not to smile, you know? Even at the mercy of the marquise, I can still feel in control, even if it's only slightly.
"Well, you know how much this means to me."
"Hmm. Well, I can't just take these gifts without giving you something in return."
I've closed my eyes. We both already know what's going to happen. I can feel her hands on my cheeks, her lips on mine, straddling the line between delicate and forceful. I'd hold her, but I'm kinda stuck in a web right now. Ah, well. It's not the last time this is going to happen. I open my eyes around the time I expect her to begin walking away. And there she goes, egging me on.
"You should be more careful, Thomas. There are maniacs about."
She's gone. I'm getting my special card out from my sleeve to cut this damn webbing. I better hurry, though. It's not polite to keep a girl waiting, and it's unwise to annoy Spinneret. But all the while, I just can't stop smiling.

This date's going a lot better than I expected.

A/N

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I started with "Colonel Thomas Trickhands" (John's persona) in a tight spot against Mindfang, but suddenly it turned into HOLY CRAP ON A STICK WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I actually have no clue how that happened.

Yay

John x Vriska is always welcome

[IncredulousToast]

(SLIGHT REVISION TO FIRST SUBMISSION.) This is my first fan fiction ever. I always hated fan fictions, until I became obsessed with Homestuck. So here it is. x3

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You sit with your head in your hands, trying not to think, but, despite your efforts, the thoughts continue to flow at a speed which renders them nearly indecipherable. You see images of her face. You hear words. Not complete thoughts. Just words and phrases, singled out of the swift stream of thoughts.
You.
Her blood.
On your hands.
YOURS.
Hers.
Her hands.
Her hand in your hand.
Until you killed her.
If only you could have done something, anything, to prevent it. You know this is impossible. You still hate yourself. Hate yourself, as you always do.
Except for when you were in her presence. There was never room for hatred.
But now...now things are different. She is different. Because of you.
Because of HER.
Vriska. You all have just discovered what she had done, using her mind to invade that boy's, John's, mind, to make him sleep. To make him miss his chance to perhaps save you all. He was the only chance you all had.
Karkat had guessed the truth after much conversing with John, who had not the slightest idea of what had happened. Just like you had no idea when...
When she did it to you.

You had been so angry when you heard of her error, of making John sleep. You had lashed out at her, your anger equal to that of even Karkat's. They were all angry. You had never liked Vriska. She had always been an annoyance to you, as you had been to her. She had never messed with you like the others, like Tavros and Terezi especially. Or so you had thought.
As you unleashed a torrent of hateful speech toward Vriska, she had glared back at you. She had endured Karkat's anger, as everyone has learned to do, but she could not take yours. Having you speak to her in such a manner was unbearable to her.
“Listen to you, so self-righteous, Sollux. As if you have no blood on your own hands.” She smiled.
This stopped you. Blood? On your hands? When...
Her smile grew. Everyone in the room was watching, silent. Terezi looked as though she was about to attack Vriska. Instead, she spoke to Vriska in a surprisingly quiet and calm manner.
“Vriska...why? What...”
Vriska held up a hand to silence her. Everyone was looking confused and nervous, aside from Vriska, Aradia, and Terezi, who was now looking at Sollux, fear and concern displayed on her face. She knew something. The three of them knew something. Something that you didn't know.
Aradia, who had been frozen this whole time, suddenly rushed forward.
“Don't you dare, Vriska. Don't you DARE do this to him.”
You can feel the surprise showing on your face as your eyes flash to her.
“Aradiia? What iith goiing on? Do what to me? What are you not telliing me?”
The surprise was initially due to the fact that she had moved and spoken so suddenly, without warning. The next phase of surprise came into focus when you realized that she had just displayed real emotion toward you, for the first time since she had died.
Her death had happened unexpectedly, and she had never told you how it had happened. Nobody had known, except for Terezi (but you did not know this at the time). Aradia had hidden herself away, a spirit, communicating only through her computer. No one had even known that she was dead at first, except for Nepeta (once again, you did not know this at the time). Nepeta was sworn to secrecy. At first you were relieved that she was still...er...”there,” you suppose. But after a while, you noticed that although she had remained, in a way, she had changed. Death seemed to hollow her out and extract her emotions. Occasionally, she would hint at feeling something, but then she would revert back to her constant emptiness. It was like she was teasing you. But you knew it was no game. She was different. She could no longer feel or express anything. And so the two of you had fallen to the wayside. And in this way you had been left with your own emptiness. After she had merged with the robot body which Equius had built for her, she regained feelings and emotions. The change had been so sudden that she didn't know how to handle it, and her emotions became extreme. You had observed this behavior as she interacted with others, but you yourself had not had the time to speak much with her.
You were pulled from your thoughts, back to your surprise. “Aradiia...”
Vriska let out a humorless laugh. “It's funny how you care so much about the one who brought you to this state in the first place.”
What? She still cares? About you? You...who brought her to this state...of death? No. No, you did no such thing. What is Vriska playing at?
“Ii would never...”
“Would you? I beg to differ, Sollux. You did. With your own two hands...or should I say, eyes.” She laughed at her own joke, and Aradia stood, frozen again, and you could feel her horror. Her horror...does this mean that it's true? But how...
You froze. Vriska. That's how.
“You diid not. You diid not get iinto my head. And...make me conthume the miind honey...”
She said nothing. Nobody said a word. This was the confirmation that yes, she had. She had made you her puppet and used your powers to kill your own matesprit.
For a long moment, you had said nothing. You had not even moved a muscle. That feeling, that realization, was paralyzing. Slowly, however, fury made its way through you, shattering your paralysis and leaking through the cracks, flooding your insides, consuming you. The fury shot a deluge of adrenaline straight to your head. Without a thought, you had lunged at her. The rest is a blur.
They had stopped you. You couldn't believe it. After everything Vriska had done to so many of them, and just now, to him, they were defending her? Karkat had reverted back to his leadership role, insisting that fighting amongst one another was not the wisest thing to do under current circumstances. Working together was essential.
Yes, because Vriska is always such an advocate for team effort.
Aradia had been the first to get in your way, to cut you off. She said that she had already settled the score with Vriska. You knew about that...but you had assumed that it was an action brought about by what Vriska did to Terezi, and by her usual scorn and cruelty. It all made sense now. No more holes. Aradia, pulling you away, holding onto you, speaking softly, reassuring you. Any other time, this would be welcome. Right then, however, you had wanted to be alone.

You sit with your head in your hands, trying not to think, but, despite your efforts, the thoughts continue to flow at a speed which renders them nearly indecipherable.

[Douhneill]

Hey, I've been getting annoyed having all of my non-school time be working on my Heirman stuff, as well as all these sadfics, so here's something I came up with when I was trying to clear my mind last night. (Yes, most of my inspiration comes at the absolutely most inconvenient times. But w/e)

Naughty Little Fly (<-- Yes, that is a LOTR reference. Get at me.)

show spoiler

hide spoiler

I screwed up.

I'd complain that she's being underhanded, but this is par for the course, concerning her. I should have been more careful. When she decides to show up, she's gonna be "soooooooo" happy.

Mind you, that's pretty much the reason I'm here, isn't it? The fact that we'd be bored if we weren't at each other's throats all the time is the very same reason why I let my guard down today. It's kind of ironic, actually. I'm sure Dave would approve of this. He doesn't approve of what I usually do when it comes to her, but he'd approve of this.

Oh, here she comes, dressed for show, as usual. Ever since I started outdoing her theatrically, she's been extremely focused on looking better than I do. Can't say I don't like the competition. It's fun. But now that I'm at her mercy, it really does get annoying to see her flaunt that side of the battle.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here."
"Mindfang."
"Nice to see you made it on time, Trickhands."
"I've been told it would be more gentlemanly not to show up fashionably late to this."
And here it starts. This is the only thing she does that I can't understand. Whenever I'm actually helpless in front of her is when she starts acting... nice. Here she comes, leaning against the web she set up, right in front of me. She's playing in my hair this time. She must be pretty excited if she's playing in my hair.
"You even let yourself get caught in my trap. It's nice to see how courteous you're 8eing tonight."
I don't know if it's her eyes, or just the way she looks at me, but I've always been kinda hypnotized by her when we're this close. It's not actual hypnotism, though. I built up an immunity to that. At this point, it's hard not to smile, you know? Even at the mercy of the marquise, I can still feel in control, even if it's only slightly.
"Well, you know how much this means to me."
"Hmm. Well, I can't just take these gifts without giving you something in return."
I've closed my eyes. We both already know what's going to happen. I can feel her hands on my cheeks, her lips on mine, straddling the line between delicate and forceful. I'd hold her, but I'm kinda stuck in a web right now. Ah, well. It's not the last time this is going to happen. I open my eyes around the time I expect her to begin walking away. And there she goes, egging me on.
"You should be more careful, Thomas. There are maniacs about."
She's gone. I'm getting my special card out from my sleeve to cut this damn webbing. I better hurry, though. It's not polite to keep a girl waiting, and it's unwise to annoy Spinneret. But all the while, I just can't stop smiling.

This date's going a lot better than I expected.

A/N

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I started with "Colonel Thomas Trickhands" (John's persona) in a tight spot against Mindfang, but suddenly it turned into HOLY CRAP ON A STICK WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I actually have no clue how that happened.

Yay

John x Vriska is always welcome

It's not John x Vriska. It's Trickhands ♠ Mindfang. And I don't even know how it happened.

[rampantVariable]

(SLIGHT REVISION TO FIRST SUBMISSION.) This is my first fan fiction ever. I always hated fan fictions, until I became obsessed with Homestuck. So here it is. x3

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You sit with your head in your hands, trying not to think, but, despite your efforts, the thoughts continue to flow at a speed which renders them nearly indecipherable. You see images of her face. You hear words. Not complete thoughts. Just words and phrases, singled out of the swift stream of thoughts.
You.
Her blood.
On your hands.
YOURS.
Hers.
Her hands.
Her hand in your hand.
Until you killed her.
If only you could have done something, anything, to prevent it. You know this is impossible. You still hate yourself. Hate yourself, as you always do.
Except for when you were in her presence. There was never room for hatred.
But now...now things are different. She is different. Because of you.
Because of HER.
Vriska. You all have just discovered what she had done, using her mind to invade that boy's, John's, mind, to make him sleep. To make him miss his chance to perhaps save you all. He was the only chance you all had.
Karkat had guessed the truth after much conversing with John, who had not the slightest idea of what had happened. Just like you had no idea when...
When she did it to you.

You had been so angry when you heard of her error, of making John sleep. You had lashed out at her, your anger equal to that of even Karkat's. They were all angry. You had never liked Vriska. She had always been an annoyance to you, as you had been to her. She had never messed with you like the others, like Tavros and Terezi especially. Or so you had thought.
As you unleashed a torrent of hateful speech toward Vriska, she had glared back at you. She had endured Karkat's anger, as everyone has learned to do, but she could not take yours. Having you speak to her in such a manner was unbearable to her.
“Listen to you, so self-righteous, Sollux. As if you have no blood on your own hands.” She smiled.
This stopped you. Blood? On your hands? When...
Her smile grew. Everyone in the room was watching, silent. Terezi looked as though she was about to attack Vriska. Instead, she spoke to Vriska in a surprisingly quiet and calm manner.
“Vriska...why? What...”
Vriska held up a hand to silence her. Everyone was looking confused and nervous, aside from Vriska, Aradia, and Terezi, who was now looking at Sollux, fear and concern displayed on her face. She knew something. The three of them knew something. Something that you didn't know.
Aradia, who had been frozen this whole time, suddenly rushed forward.
“Don't you dare, Vriska. Don't you DARE do this to him.”
You can feel the surprise showing on your face as your eyes flash to her.
“Aradiia? What iith goiing on? Do what to me? What are you not telliing me?”
The surprise was initially due to the fact that she had moved and spoken so suddenly, without warning. The next phase of surprise came into focus when you realized that she had just displayed real emotion toward you, for the first time since she had died.
Her death had happened unexpectedly, and she had never told you how it had happened. Nobody had known, except for Terezi (but you did not know this at the time). Aradia had hidden herself away, a spirit, communicating only through her computer. No one had even known that she was dead at first, except for Nepeta (once again, you did not know this at the time). Nepeta was sworn to secrecy. At first you were relieved that she was still...er...”there,” you suppose. But after a while, you noticed that although she had remained, in a way, she had changed. Death seemed to hollow her out and extract her emotions. Occasionally, she would hint at feeling something, but then she would revert back to her constant emptiness. It was like she was teasing you. But you knew it was no game. She was different. She could no longer feel or express anything. And so the two of you had fallen to the wayside. And in this way you had been left with your own emptiness. After she had merged with the robot body which Equius had built for her, she regained feelings and emotions. The change had been so sudden that she didn't know how to handle it, and her emotions became extreme. You had observed this behavior as she interacted with others, but you yourself had not had the time to speak much with her.
You were pulled from your thoughts, back to your surprise. “Aradiia...”
Vriska let out a humorless laugh. “It's funny how you care so much about the one who brought you to this state in the first place.”
What? She still cares? About you? You...who brought her to this state...of death? No. No, you did no such thing. What is Vriska playing at?
“Ii would never...”
“Would you? I beg to differ, Sollux. You did. With your own two hands...or should I say, eyes.” She laughed at her own joke, and Aradia stood, frozen again, and you could feel her horror. Her horror...does this mean that it's true? But how...
You froze. Vriska. That's how.
“You diid not. You diid not get iinto my head. And...make me conthume the miind honey...”
She said nothing. Nobody said a word. This was the confirmation that yes, she had. She had made you her puppet and used your powers to kill your own matesprit.
For a long moment, you had said nothing. You had not even moved a muscle. That feeling, that realization, was paralyzing. Slowly, however, fury made its way through you, shattering your paralysis and leaking through the cracks, flooding your insides, consuming you. The fury shot a deluge of adrenaline straight to your head. Without a thought, you had lunged at her. The rest is a blur.
They had stopped you. You couldn't believe it. After everything Vriska had done to so many of them, and just now, to him, they were defending her? Karkat had reverted back to his leadership role, insisting that fighting amongst one another was not the wisest thing to do under current circumstances. Working together was essential.
Yes, because Vriska is always such an advocate for team effort.
Aradia had been the first to get in your way, to cut you off. She said that she had already settled the score with Vriska. You knew about that...but you had assumed that it was an action brought about by what Vriska did to Terezi, and by her usual scorn and cruelty. It all made sense now. No more holes. Aradia, pulling you away, holding onto you, speaking softly, reassuring you. Any other time, this would be welcome. Right then, however, you had wanted to be alone.

You sit with your head in your hands, trying not to think, but, despite your efforts, the thoughts continue to flow at a speed which renders them nearly indecipherable.

MORE SADFICS. CAN'T TAKE THE EMOTIONAL STRESS!!!

[SkaianRedeemer]

So much sad. It keeps happening!

EDIT: Also, Wigmund: was that fic!canon puppy hat? Oy.

[Red Pen]

So close to the end, so close! And by that I mean a couple more chapters, but not many. I guess a bunch of people are still reading this even though it's getting really long, so thank you everyone for putting up with me so far! You have my respect for the massive amount of reading I've made you sit through.

This is a long chapter and I don't really know what to say about it.

Previously, on Unhinged...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Unhinged - part 13

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Feet pounding against the tile floor. Had to tell Draconian, tell Jack, tell his real friends how his fake one had betrayed them. Heart pounding against his ribcage. Had to warn Jack, couldn't stop, couldn't think, because he'd forget, he knew he'd get distracted and forget... Thoughts pounding through his head: it was my idea, it's all my fault, the one time they listen to me and I ruin everything...

Droll stumbled breathlessly onto the platform of a transportalizer and felt that disconcerting weightlessness as his body was jerked ten stories up. On the floor where the throne room could be found his feet struck tile and he was off again, sprinting down the wide purple hallways. In a panic his hands struck the great double doors of the throne room and he swung them open with manic hysteria and ran straight into Draconian's back.

He found himself lying on his back, winded and staring at the ceiling, and then Draconian leaned over him and pulled him up by the arm, setting him on his feet again. "Watch where you're going."

"Sorry, Draconian, I didn't see..." Droll blinked, shook his head, and resumed his expression of urgent panic. "I mean, wait! I have to tell you something important!"

"It can wait," Draconian said shortly, striding away from him down the long red carpet of the massive, vaulted chamber. The Courtyard Droll trailed after him, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in nervous excitement.

"But Draconian, I have to tell Jack-"

"It can wait," the Dignitary repeated, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice, and it was only then that the Droll remembered how furious his friend was. Draconian reached the vacant throne and glared at the velvet seat with his hands clasped behind his back, his mouth twitching into an annoyed frown. "He's not here."

"Oh no, I need to warn him about-"

"What part of 'it can wait' did you not understand?" Draconian snapped, his fleeting acid temper flashing to the surface for a moment as he spun to face the little Dersite. He started walking purposefully towards the double doors again, forcing Droll to jog in order to keep up. "You may not have picked up on this, but Jack and I are at each other's throats right now. He just put a thirteen-year-old in a position of power and I think his ring might be tearing him apart; now forgive me if I think this is slightly more important than whatever inane idea you've come up with today."

He stormed through the doorway and set off towards the transportalizer, Droll trailing slightly behind with a rather hurt look on his face. "My ideas aren't insane. Sometimes they're really good."

"Inane." As he walked, Draconian took a deep breath and let it out in a hiss. "Listen, Droll. I'm not annoyed at you. I'm annoyed at Jack. If you don't want to be caught in the crossfire then I suggest you go do something else for a few hours until we've both finished shouting at each other."

"The memorial was my idea," Droll said quietly, having some trouble letting go of the topic.

"Go away, Droll," Draconian muttered, stepping onto the circular platform of the transportalizer. Droll quickly hopped on after him.

"Where are we-"

"-going?" he finished, as they abruptly appeared several stories away.

"I am confronting Jack about this... archagent thing. I want my office back."

The tall Dersite started walking again, and Droll hurried after him. He had the vauge impression that he was supposed to be telling Draconian something important, but with all this walking around he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. "But he wasn't in the throne room!"

"You and I both know where he is."

- - - - - - - - - -

The foul reek of old blood hung heavy and rank in the air as Draconian carefully pushed open the door of Jack's former office, but it was an old stench; the smear on the floor had long ago dried and turned and ugly brown, and still no one had bothered to scrub it away. Jack was seated at an empty desk now void of its familiar strata of paperwork, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to the violet wood and his shoulders sagging under the weight of his wings, exactly the way they'd found him before. Draconian stepped forward cautiously.

"Jack."

No answer.

"Jack?" he said again, some of the anger draining out of his voice when the Sovereign Slayer didn't stir, and a moment later he was rushing forward and shaking Jack roughly by the shoulder. "Oh god, Jack, don't-"

Jack Noir's head snapped up, and one of his tentacles shot out and pounded Draconian into the far wall, wrapping itself around his throat and constricting. The Dignitary, his feet suspended a good six inches off the floor, struggled and clawed at the thick black tentacle crushing his windpipe. "Jack it's... me you... idiot..."

"Don't sneak up on me!" Jack hissed, his eyes wide and wild. "Don't you ever dare sneak up on me!!"

"We weren't sneaking up on you!" Droll protested, trying without much success to tug Jack's tentacle away from Draconian. "Stop it; it's just us!"

After a moment, Jack's eyes glazed over, and he sank back into his chair and let the tentacle go limp. The Dignitary dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

"Never do that again," Jack muttered, looking away. "Just walking in like that. You know how many people want me dead?"

"And how many of those people know you come here to sulk?" Draconian spat, pushing himself to his feet and rubbing reproachfully at his throat. "It's not my fault you were passed out at your desk. Go to bed, Jack. It will solve so many of our problems."

"You want that, don't you?" the Slayer snapped back, glaring at him with unconcealed loathing.

"Yes, I want that," said Draconian, meeting his gaze cooly and silently cursing himself for jumping almost immediately to his inner "is Jack taking care of himself" checklist. "I'd appreciate it if you weren't jumpy and exhausted all the time. Did you eat anything today? That would help."

A tired grumble from Jack, which was as close to a "no" as he was going to get. The Dignitary nodded and with the slightest bit of irritation cast a glance over at Droll. "Run down to the kitchens and grab something for him; it doesn't matter what. Maybe getting his blood sugar up will make him stop acting like such a drama queen."

Jack muttered something unintelligible and most likely obscene, and Droll hurried off down the the hallway to find something edible.

"I'm not eating it. They're poisoning my food."

"You've said," Draconian muttered, leaning on Jack's desk and gazing down at him flatly. "Jack, we need to talk."

Jack leaned back in his chair, and the corners of his mouth twitched briefly into a cruel smile. "About your office?" The smile faded as quickly as it had come. "You know, if if someone had done his job and killed the boy when I ordered him to, we wouldn't have had to move her and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

"About your archagent. She's our prisoner, or did you forget? Why put her in a position of power... to spite me? To teach me a lesson for bringing her here and forcing you to talk to her? This has to be the pettiest, most irrational thing you've ever done; I hope you realize that." Draconian shook his head. "Jack, when I told you to get an archagent, I meant-"

"You meant yourself." The Sovereign Slayer's tone was icy, distant.

"Of course I did. I already do most of the work around here; I might as well be on the payroll for it."

"Of course you did," Jack echoed. "Of course you did. Who else is qualified; who else could I... trust?" With a tired sigh he closed his eyes and put a hand to his temple, his voice slurring slightly. "Who can I trust...?"

The Dignitary's eyes flickered to the ring on Jack's finger, gleaming small and deceptively innocent against the dark chitin. It's killing him. He's not the queen; he can't handle it, and it's killing him.

"Take off your ring, Jack," he said aloud, for what must have been the fiftieth time.

"Why should I?" Jack asked softly, eyes still closed.

"Because I can tell it's exhausting and no one ever said you had to wear it around all the time."

"That's not the reason," came the hissed reply, and Jack's eyes snapped open again. "Tell me the real reason, Draconian. Tell me why you want me to take this ring off so badly. Why that's so damn important that you can't stop talking about it. Say it, and stop acting like I haven't figured this out!"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Draconian began, but Jack had already gotten to his feet (swayed dangerously for a moment, and seized the desk to steady himself), and shoved his palm in the tall Dersite's face.

"Why don't you take it?!" Jack muttered through gritted teeth, his face taught with rage. "Take it if you want it!! Earn it like I did and kill me for it and cut it off my goddamn corpse!!"

For a moment the room was dead silent.

Then the door creaked open again and the Courtyard Droll strolled inside, carrying a plate of cookies. "Will this be alright? They just finished making these down in the kitchen, and they smell so good!" He wiped the crumbs from around his mouth and glanced down at the plate in genuine confusion. "There were a lot more cookies on here when I started walking back! I don't know what happened to them."

Jack and Draconian stood frozen, Jack's arm still outstretched, and stared at him blankly.

"Yes Droll, that's fine," Draconian said after a stunned minute.

"It is not," Jack snapped, his arm dropping at last, but only so that his hand could hover dangerously over the hilt of the sword in his chest. "I'm not eating those. They poisoned them. They're poisoning all my food!"

"No one is poisoning your food." Draconian snapped back. "Everyone knows you don't eat the palace cooking, and regardless, no one would be stupid enough to try. Droll ate some; they're fine."

"Then why are you trying to force me to eat them?" Jack's voice was rising in pitch, his hand trembling slightly just above his sword. Droll looked from one man to the other with apprehensive confusion, not sure of what was going in.

"You think I told the kitchens to poison your food?" Draconian said disbelievingly. "Stop being such a paranoid... idiot, Jack! I'm not trying to kill you and I don't want your ring."

"YES YOU DO." There was a ringing crack as Jack's chitinous hand abandoned his sword and struck the side of Draconian's face, hard enough to send the Dignitary stumbling backwards. "I know you do! You hate me; you hate that I have power now, and you're still just a pawn! You hate that it wasn't you!"

"What I hate has nothing to do with your ring and everything to do with your sudden transformation into a manic, unbalanced wreck! Get a grip, Jack!"

"Pawn!" Jack shouted back at him, a fatigue-drunk thrill crossing his face at the word. "All you'll ever be, because it was me, Draconian. I'm the king, I'm the one with the ring, and you will never touch it!" One tentacle wrapped itself loosely around Draconian's throat again, and the Sovereign Slayer seized the hilt of his seppuku blade.

The thought: I'm probably going to die here ran through Draconian's head with alarming calmness. He'd never even considered being afraid of Jack, no matter how powerful he got. They were a crew; they bickered with each other and they trusted each other and they didn't kill their own. But as he thought of Hegemonic's corpse lying somewhere on the battlefield, of how Jack had never even bothered to mourn... He wasn't the same person anymore, and they were his pawns, not his crew.

I'm probably going to die here.

And then, somewhere off to the side, the plate fell from Droll's hands and shattered against the tile, scattering cookies across the floor of Jack's office.

Draconian automatically turned his head. Droll was standing rigid, a look of shock on his face as his hands clutched his throat, and then, even as the Dignitary watched, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, his body convulsing helplessly.

"Oh god," said Jack, releasing Draconian, and the two of them exchanged looks of pure panic before rushing over to where the Courtyard Droll lay spasming, froth beginning to fleck his lips.

Draconian's knees hit the ground beside Droll and he grasped the little Dersite by the shoulders. "Droll, can you hear me? Droll! Oh god, you were right, they were poisoning your food-" He was cut off when a cookie struck him in the side of the head and shattered into crumbs. Draconian looked up just in time to see Jack lob another one at him.

"Now look what you did!"

"What I did?"

"You poisoned him! You killed him!"

"Jack Noir, I am not trying to kill you." Rather franticly, he gathered up the convulsing Droll. "He's not dead yet! We have to... We have to..."

"Have to do what?!" Jack demanded, throwing another poisoned cookie.

"Would you stop that? I am trying to think!" His mind was working wildly, and Droll was beginning to go still in his arms. "The kitchens! He got them from the palace kitchens. You don't store poison around food without some kind of failsafe; that means one of the cooks has to have an antidote!"

And then they were both sprinting through the palace, Draconian carrying Droll as they made their mad dash towards the kitchens. Two long hallways, a staircase, a transportalizer that jumped them from one massive tower to another.

"How do you know that? How could you possibly know that if you're not the one trying to kill me?!"

Three more flights of stairs, another transportalizer, another hallway.

Draconian grimaced. "I don't. I'm guessing."

A hallway, a staircase, a hallway, and at last the Sovereign Slayer thrust the vaulted wooden double-doors of the palace kitchens aside with enough force to tear one of them off its hinges. "Who. Was. It."

The ballroom-sized kitchens, filled with massive, industrial-sized ovens and all those gleaming, stainless steel machines associated with feeding an entire palace, went silent. The army of pawns staffing the great room paused to take in the scene with varying degrees of fear and confusion on their faces. With a scowl, Jack pointed to the little Dersite twitching in Draconian's arms. "Who did that? You have two seconds to turn him in. One. T-"

The staff nearest the door scrambled backwards, and almost immediately a pawn was shoved rather violently into the empty space they left behind by someone in the crowd. Jack grabbed him by the collar, and in a flash his vicious black blade was at the man's throat. The pawn gaped at him, terrified.

"You're the one who poisoned Droll?"

"Your highness, I never-"

The sword drew a thin thread of blood. "Tell me."

"Yes! Yes!" he babbled. "But it wasn't just me! There are others! I can point them out, I can tell you who they are! There's a woman; she comes every couple days to bring us more poisons! I swear it wasn't just me! Don't kill me and I'll tell you everything I know!"

"Did this woman bring you an antidote?" Draconian demanded.

"Yes! Yes!"

Jack shoved the pawn back into the crowd. "Go get it."

They laid the now nearly motionless Droll out across the floor, and Draconian held his head up while Jack uncorked the proffered glass bottle with his teeth and poured the dark, syrupy liquid within carefully down Droll's throat.

There was a tenseness in the air as the two of them crouched over Droll, oblivious to the mass of pawns all around them, just waiting. Draconian with a hand over Droll's faintly beating heart. Jack cursing, too low to be heard.

After what seemed like eons, Droll gave a shuddering cough and focused his eyes. "Draconian... Hegemonic says he likes the streamers."

"That's good, Droll," Draconian answered quietly.

Jack nodded shortly and stood up, sword held loosely at his side as his eyes swept over the watching pawns. "Draconian. Get out."

The Dignitary looked up at him. "What?"

"Take Droll and get out. I'm not going to kill you and god damn it I can't bring myself to exile you, but if I ever see you again I'm running this sword through your chest." His voice was cold, steely, dead serious. "You have until everyone in this room is dead to get out of my palace."

For once, Draconian didn't argue. He lifted Droll, who was still too weak to stand, and walked slowly towards the doorway, hearing the rise of frantic protests from the pawns behind him.

"Been meaning to hire some new kitchen staff anyway," Jack muttered.

They were halfway down the hallway outside when the death-screams began. Draconian broke into a run, and didn't look back.

- - - - - - - - - -

Rose looked up serenely from the documents she'd been working on as Jack Noir wandered exhaustedly into her office, his wings dragging on the floor behind him, his carapace spattered in someone else's blood. He sank heavily into the chair across from her without speaking, and folded over onto her desk, burying his face in his arm and smearing blood across her carefully sorted files.

"Jack, can I help you?" Rose asked softly, trying to hide her shock. "What happened?"

"They're gone," he murmured, his voice muffled. "Draconian, and Droll. You were right."

"Oh, Jack," she said consolingly, reaching out and touching his shoulder, trying her best not to think about the slick blood under her fingers. It was a mark of how far she'd come that this time, he didn't jerk away. "I tried to warn you. You can't trust them. You can't trust anyone but me."

He told her, shakily, brokenly, what had happened, and little droplets of blood made patterns on the dark purple tile.

Did you see what Jack did to that door, you guys? He unhinged it. Ahahahaha*shot*

[Quixotic]

Previously, on Unhinged...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Unhinged - part 13

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Feet pounding against the tile floor. Had to tell Draconian, tell Jack, tell his real friends how his fake one had betrayed them. Heart pounding against his ribcage. Had to warn Jack, couldn't stop, couldn't think, because he'd forget, he knew he'd get distracted and forget... Thoughts pounding through his head: it was my idea, it's all my fault, the one time they listen to me and I ruin everything...

Droll stumbled breathlessly onto the platform of a transportalizer and felt that disconcerting weightlessness as his body was jerked ten stories up. On the floor where the throne room could be found his feet struck tile and he was off again, sprinting down the wide purple hallways. In a panic his hands struck the great double doors of the throne room and he swung them open with manic hysteria and ran straight into Draconian's back.

He found himself lying on his back, winded and staring at the ceiling, and then Draconian leaned over him and pulled him up by the arm, setting him on his feet again. "Watch where you're going."

"Sorry, Draconian, I didn't see..." Droll blinked, shook his head, and resumed his expression of urgent panic. "I mean, wait! I have to tell you something important!"

"It can wait," Draconian said shortly, striding away from him down the long red carpet of the massive, vaulted chamber. The Courtyard Droll trailed after him, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in nervous excitement.

"But Draconian, I have to tell Jack-"

"It can wait," the Dignitary repeated, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice, and it was only then that the Droll remembered how furious his friend was. Draconian reached the vacant throne and glared at the velvet seat with his hands clasped behind his back, his mouth twitching into an annoyed frown. "He's not here."

"Oh no, I need to warn him about-"

"What part of 'it can wait' did you not understand?" Draconian snapped, his fleeting acid temper flashing to the surface for a moment as he spun to face the little Dersite. He started walking purposefully towards the double doors again, forcing Droll to jog in order to keep up. "You may not have picked up on this, but Jack and I are at each other's throats right now. He just put a thirteen-year-old in a position of power and I think his ring might be tearing him apart; now forgive me if I think this is slightly more important than whatever inane idea you've come up with today."

He stormed through the doorway and set off towards the transportalizer, Droll trailing slightly behind with a rather hurt look on his face. "My ideas aren't insane. Sometimes they're really good."

"Inane." As he walked, Draconian took a deep breath and let it out in a hiss. "Listen, Droll. I'm not annoyed at you. I'm annoyed at Jack. If you don't want to be caught in the crossfire then I suggest you go do something else for a few hours until we've both finished shouting at each other."

"The memorial was my idea," Droll said quietly, having some trouble letting go of the topic.

"Go away, Droll," Draconian muttered, stepping onto the circular platform of the transportalizer. Droll quickly hopped on after him.

"Where are we-"

"-going?" he finished, as they abruptly appeared several stories away.

"I am confronting Jack about this... archagent thing. I want my office back."

The tall Dersite started walking again, and Droll hurried after him. He had the vauge impression that he was supposed to be telling Draconian something important, but with all this walking around he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. "But he wasn't in the throne room!"

"You and I both know where he is."

- - - - - - - - - -

The foul reek of old blood hung heavy and rank in the air as Draconian carefully pushed open the door of Jack's former office, but it was an old stench; the smear on the floor had long ago dried and turned and ugly brown, and still no one had bothered to scrub it away. Jack was seated at an empty desk now void of its familiar strata of paperwork, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to the violet wood and his shoulders sagging under the weight of his wings, exactly the way they'd found him before. Draconian stepped forward cautiously.

"Jack."

No answer.

"Jack?" he said again, some of the anger draining out of his voice when the Sovereign Slayer didn't stir, and a moment later he was rushing forward and shaking Jack roughly by the shoulder. "Oh god, Jack, don't-"

Jack Noir's head snapped up, and one of his tentacles shot out and pounded Draconian into the far wall, wrapping itself around his throat and constricting. The Dignitary, his feet suspended a good six inches off the floor, struggled and clawed at the thick black tentacle crushing his windpipe. "Jack it's... me you... idiot..."

"Don't sneak up on me!" Jack hissed, his eyes wide and wild. "Don't you ever dare sneak up on me!!"

"We weren't sneaking up on you!" Droll protested, trying without much success to tug Jack's tentacle away from Draconian. "Stop it; it's just us!"

After a moment, Jack's eyes glazed over, and he sank back into his chair and let the tentacle go limp. The Dignitary dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

"Never do that again," Jack muttered, looking away. "Just walking in like that. You know how many people want me dead?"

"And how many of those people know you come here to sulk?" Draconian spat, pushing himself to his feet and rubbing reproachfully at his throat. "It's not my fault you were passed out at your desk. Go to bed, Jack. It will solve so many of our problems."

"You want that, don't you?" the Slayer snapped back, glaring at him with unconcealed loathing.

"Yes, I want that," said Draconian, meeting his gaze cooly and silently cursing himself for jumping almost immediately to his inner "is Jack taking care of himself" checklist. "I'd appreciate it if you weren't jumpy and exhausted all the time. Did you eat anything today? That would help."

A tired grumble from Jack, which was as close to a "no" as he was going to get. The Dignitary nodded and with the slightest bit of irritation cast a glance over at Droll. "Run down to the kitchens and grab something for him; it doesn't matter what. Maybe getting his blood sugar up will make him stop acting like such a drama queen."

Jack muttered something unintelligible and most likely obscene, and Droll hurried off down the the hallway to find something edible.

"I'm not eating it. They're poisoning my food."

"You've said," Draconian muttered, leaning on Jack's desk and gazing down at him flatly. "Jack, we need to talk."

Jack leaned back in his chair, and the corners of his mouth twitched briefly into a cruel smile. "About your office?" The smile faded as quickly as it had come. "You know, if if someone had done his job and killed the boy when I ordered him to, we wouldn't have had to move her and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

"About your archagent. She's our prisoner, or did you forget? Why put her in a position of power... to spite me? To teach me a lesson for bringing her here and forcing you to talk to her? This has to be the pettiest, most irrational thing you've ever done; I hope you realize that." Draconian shook his head. "Jack, when I told you to get an archagent, I meant-"

"You meant yourself." The Sovereign Slayer's tone was icy, distant.

"Of course I did. I already do most of the work around here; I might as well be on the payroll for it."

"Of course you did," Jack echoed. "Of course you did. Who else is qualified; who else could I... trust?" With a tired sigh he closed his eyes and put a hand to his temple, his voice slurring slightly. "Who can I trust...?"

The Dignitary's eyes flickered to the ring on Jack's finger, gleaming small and deceptively innocent against the dark chitin. It's killing him. He's not the queen; he can't handle it, and it's killing him.

"Take off your ring, Jack," he said aloud, for what must have been the fiftieth time.

"Why should I?" Jack asked softly, eyes still closed.

"Because I can tell it's exhausting and no one ever said you had to wear it around all the time."

"That's not the reason," came the hissed reply, and Jack's eyes snapped open again. "Tell me the real reason, Draconian. Tell me why you want me to take this ring off so badly. Why that's so damn important that you can't stop talking about it. Say it, and stop acting like I haven't figured this out!"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Draconian began, but Jack had already gotten to his feet (swayed dangerously for a moment, and seized the desk to steady himself), and shoved his palm in the tall Dersite's face.

"Why don't you take it?!" Jack muttered through gritted teeth, his face taught with rage. "Take it if you want it!! Earn it like I did and kill me for it and cut it off my goddamn corpse!!"

For a moment the room was dead silent.

Then the door creaked open again and the Courtyard Droll strolled inside, carrying a plate of cookies. "Will this be alright? They just finished making these down in the kitchen, and they smell so good!" He wiped the crumbs from around his mouth and glanced down at the plate in genuine confusion. "There were a lot more cookies on here when I started walking back! I don't know what happened to them."

Jack and Draconian stood frozen, Jack's arm still outstretched, and stared at him blankly.

"Yes Droll, that's fine," Draconian said after a stunned minute.

"It is not," Jack snapped, his arm dropping at last, but only so that his hand could hover dangerously over the hilt of the sword in his chest. "I'm not eating those. They poisoned them. They're poisoning all my food!"

"No one is poisoning your food." Draconian snapped back. "Everyone in the palace knows you don't eat the palace cooking, and regardless, no one would be stupid enough to try. Droll ate some; they're fine."

"Then why are you trying to force me to eat them?" Jack's voice was rising in pitch, his hand trembling slightly just above his sword. Droll looked from one man to the other with apprehensive confusion, not sure of what was going in.

"You think I told the kitchens to poison your food?" Draconian said disbelievingly. "Stop being such a paranoid... idiot, Jack! I'm not trying to kill you and I don't want your ring."

"YES YOU DO." There was a ringing crack as Jack's chitinous hand abandoned his sword and struck the side of Draconian's face, hard enough to send the Dignitary stumbling backwards. "I know you do! You hate me; you hate that I have power now, and you're still just a pawn! You hate that it wasn't you!"

"What I hate has nothing to do with your ring and everything to do with your sudden transformation into a manic, unbalanced wreck! Get a grip, Jack!"

"Pawn!" Jack shouted back at him, a fatigue-drunk thrill crossing his face at the word. "All you'll ever be, because it was me, Draconian. I'm the king, I'm the one with the ring, and you will never touch it!" One tentacle wrapped itself loosely around Draconian's throat again, and the Sovereign Slayer seized the hilt of his seppuku blade.

The thought: I'm probably going to die here ran through Draconian's head with alarming calmness. He'd never even considered being afraid of Jack, no matter how powerful he got. They were a crew; they bickered with each other and they trusted each other and they didn't kill their own. But as he thought of Hegemonic's corpse lying somewhere somewhere on the battlefield, of how Jack had never even bothered to mourn... He wasn't the same person anymore, and they were his pawns, not his crew.

I'm probably going to die here.

And then, somewhere off to the side, the plate fell from Droll's hands and shattered against the tile, scattering cookies across the floor of Jack's office.

Draconian automatically turned his head. Droll was standing rigid, a look of shock on his face as his hands clutched his throat, and then, even as the Dignitary watched, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, his body convulsing helplessly.

"Oh god," said Jack, releasing Draconian, and the two of them exchanged looks of pure panic before rushing over to where the Courtyard Droll lay spasming, froth beginning to fleck his lips.

Draconian's knees hit the ground beside Droll and he grasped the little Dersite by the shoulders. "Droll, can you hear me? Droll! Oh god, you were right, they were poisoning your food-" He was cut off when a cookie struck him in the side of the head and shattered into crumbs. Draconian looked up just in time to see Jack lob another one at him.

"Now look what you did!"

"What I did?"

"You poisoned him! You killed him!"

"Jack Noir, I am not trying to kill you." Rather franticly, he gathered up the convulsing Droll. "He's not dead yet! We have to... We have to..."

"Have to do what?!" Jack demanded, throwing another poisoned cookie.

"Would you stop that? I am trying to think!" His mind was working wildly, and Droll was beginning to go still in his arms. "The kitchens! He got them from the palace kitchens. You don't store poison around food without some kind of failsafe; that means one of the cooks has to have an antidote!"

And then they were both sprinting through the palace, Draconian carrying Droll as they made their mad dash towards the kitchens. Two long hallways, a staircase, a transportalizer that jumped them from one massive tower to another.

"How do you know that? How could you possibly know that if you're not the one trying to kill me?!"

Three more flights of stairs, another transportalizer, another hallway.

Draconian grimaced. "I don't. I'm guessing."

A hallway, a staircase, a hallway, and at last the Sovereign Slayer thrust the vaulted wooden double-doors of the palace kitchens aside with enough force to tear one of them off its hinges. "Who. Was. It."

The ballroom-sized kitchens, filled with massive, industrial-sized ovens and all those gleaming, stainless steel machines associated with feeding an entire palace, went silent. The army of pawns staffing the great room paused to take in the scene with varying degrees of fear and confusion on their faces. With a scowl, Jack pointed to the little Dersite twitching in Draconian's arms. "Who did that? You have two seconds to turn him in. One. T-"

The staff nearest the door scrambled backwards, and almost immediately a pawn was shoved rather violently into the empty space they left behind by someone in the crowd. Jack grabbed him by the collar, and in a flash his vicious black blade was at the man's throat. The pawn gaped at him, terrified.

"You're the one who poisoned Droll?"

"Your highness, I never-"

The sword drew a thin thread of blood. "Tell me."

"Yes! Yes!" he babbled. "But it wasn't just me! There are others! I can point them out, I can tell you who they are! There's a woman; she comes every couple days to bring us more poisons! I swear it wasn't just me! Don't kill me and I'll tell you everything I know!"

"Did this woman bring you an antidote?" Draconian demanded.

"Yes! Yes!"

Jack shoved the pawn back into the crowd. "Go get it."

They laid the now nearly motionless Droll out across the floor, and Draconian held his head up while Jack uncorked the proffered glass bottle with his teeth and poured the dark, syrupy liquid within carefully down Droll's throat.

There was a tenseness in the air as the two of them crouched over Droll, oblivious to the mass of pawns all around them, just waiting. Draconian with a hand over Droll's faintly beating heart. Jack cursing, too low to be heard.

After what seemed like eons, Droll gave a shuddering cough and focused his eyes. "Draconian... Hegemonic says he likes the streamers."

"That's good, Droll," Draconian answered quietly.

Jack nodded shortly and stood up, sword held loosely at his side as his eyes swept over the watching pawns. "Draconian. Get out."

The Dignitary looked up at him. "What?"

"Take Droll and get out. I'm not going to kill you and god damn it I can't bring myself to exile you, but if I ever see you again I'm running this sword through your chest." His voice was cold, steely, dead serious. "You have until everyone in this room is dead to get out of my palace."

For once, Draconian didn't argue. He lifted Droll, who was still too weak to stand, and walked slowly towards to doorway, hearing the rise of frantic protests from the pawns behind him.

"Been meaning to hire some new kitchen staff anyway," Jack muttered.

They were halfway down the hallway outside when the death-screams began. Draconian broke into a run, and didn't look back.

- - - - - - - - - -

Rose looked up serenely from the documents she'd been working on as Jack Noir wandered exhaustedly into her office, his wings dragging on the floor behind him, his carapace spattered in someone else's blood. He sank heavily into the chair across from her without speaking, and folded over onto her desk, burying his face in his arm and smearing blood across her carefully sorted files.

"Jack, can I help you?" Rose asked softly, trying to hide her shock. "What happened?"

"They're gone," he murmured, his voice muffled. "Draconian, and Droll. You were right."

"Oh, Jack," she said consolingly, reaching out and touching his shoulder, trying her best not to think about the slick blood under her fingers. It was a mark of how far she'd come that this time, he didn't jerk away. "I tried to warn you. You can't trust them. You can't trust anyone but me."

He told her, shakily, brokenly, what had happened, and little droplets of blood made patterns on the dark purple tile.

Oh, Jack, why are you so crazy? I continue to be impressed by how much I sympathize with Draconian and Droll. They really do care!

[BPrinny]

It's not John x Vriska. It's Trickhands ♠ Mindfang. And I don't even know how it happened.

whatevs

[sebastian]

Hey, I've been getting annoyed having all of my non-school time be working on my Heirman stuff, as well as all these sadfics, so here's something I came up with when I was trying to clear my mind last night. (Yes, most of my inspiration comes at the absolutely most inconvenient times. But w/e)

Naughty Little Fly (<-- Yes, that is a LOTR reference. Get at me.)

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I screwed up.

I'd complain that she's being underhanded, but this is par for the course, concerning her. I should have been more careful. When she decides to show up, she's gonna be "soooooooo" happy.

Mind you, that's pretty much the reason I'm here, isn't it? The fact that we'd be bored if we weren't at each other's throats all the time is the very same reason why I let my guard down today. It's kind of ironic, actually. I'm sure Dave would approve of this. He doesn't approve of what I usually do when it comes to her, but he'd approve of this.

Oh, here she comes, dressed for show, as usual. Ever since I started outdoing her theatrically, she's been extremely focused on looking better than I do. Can't say I don't like the competition. It's fun. But now that I'm at her mercy, it really does get annoying to see her flaunt that side of the battle.
"Well, well, well. Look who we have here."
"Mindfang."
"Nice to see you made it on time, Trickhands."
"I've been told it would be more gentlemanly not to show up fashionably late to this."
And here it starts. This is the only thing she does that I can't understand. Whenever I'm actually helpless in front of her is when she starts acting... nice. Here she comes, leaning against the web she set up, right in front of me. She's playing in my hair this time. She must be pretty excited if she's playing in my hair.
"You even let yourself get caught in my trap. It's nice to see how courteous you're 8eing tonight."
I don't know if it's her eyes, or just the way she looks at me, but I've always been kinda hypnotized by her when we're this close. It's not actual hypnotism, though. I built up an immunity to that. At this point, it's hard not to smile, you know? Even at the mercy of the marquise, I can still feel in control, even if it's only slightly.
"Well, you know how much this means to me."
"Hmm. Well, I can't just take these gifts without giving you something in return."
I've closed my eyes. We both already know what's going to happen. I can feel her hands on my cheeks, her lips on mine, straddling the line between delicate and forceful. I'd hold her, but I'm kinda stuck in a web right now. Ah, well. It's not the last time this is going to happen. I open my eyes around the time I expect her to begin walking away. And there she goes, egging me on.
"You should be more careful, Thomas. There are maniacs about."
She's gone. I'm getting my special card out from my sleeve to cut this damn webbing. I better hurry, though. It's not polite to keep a girl waiting, and it's unwise to annoy Spinneret. But all the while, I just can't stop smiling.

This date's going a lot better than I expected.

A/N

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I started with "Colonel Thomas Trickhands" (John's persona) in a tight spot against Mindfang, but suddenly it turned into HOLY CRAP ON A STICK WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I actually have no clue how that happened.

Now, the chums as pulp heroes, and the trolls as pulp villains. that is an idea.

Someone that can write should get to it ASAP.

[Nickie]

RED PEN
STOP MAKING ME FEEL EMOTIONS
AUGH

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Please never stop you beautiful person

[egregiousBass]

It was probably a bad idea to write a fic about Crowbar struggling with his homosexuality

Oh wow.

It's not much, but wow. You actually did that.

I feel like I need to write a John/Vriska fic now to compensate.

[BPrinny]

Please do.

[Layra]

Sure, I could write sad Brofic. Hell, I might even try to tie it back to This Merciless Absurdity for kicks, but instead I wrote this pointless snippet:

Raise

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"Raise."
It started with Jade, Nepeta and Feferi. A long, lab-wide game of Tagkind came to an exhausted halt and the three curled up together on the floor, utterly unguarded and defenseless.
And thus Dave, Equius and Sollux found themselves sitting at a nearby table. Three pairs of shades trying to read each other and occasionally glancing over at the girls.
Equius wiped some of the sweat from his brow. "Fold."
---
Next came John and Karkat, arguing about movies and pranks and the appropriateness of buckets. Karkat's calm, collected, utterly rational tirade came to a halt when Nepeta wrapped herself around his head and wrestled him to the floor before falling asleep again. John laughed until Jade did the same to him.
And Rose and Terezi joined the table.
"No, Pyrope, you can't lick my cards. That's why the last ones dissolved, remember?"
"You do realize that the tealblood can smell what we each have even if we're not holding the cards toward her."
"That's the reason that she's sitting at the far end of the table and we've got the ventilation system activated. Hopefully that will also help with your perspiration problem."
"I thought I was placed over here because nobody liked me, hehehe."
---
"Aww, why does this game hate me so much! Nothing I ever do comes even close to success!"
Rose rolled her eyes. No wonder Kanaya had elected to join the cuddle puddle on the floor rather than continue listening to Eridan. His theatrics did tend to give rather good insight into his hand, though.
"Raise."
"Match."
"Match."
"Match."
"Match."
"Match!"
And as they all prepared to flatten the poor sea troll, his whining suddenly ended and he grinned. "Full hive!" he declared, slamming his cards down on the table and gloating as the others groaned. "You all thought I was being transparent! But though troll tactics have long been those of strength and forward aggression, I have absorbed the best of human strategy as well. Behold the power of deception! Behold the-"
"Four of a kind."
"-power of-wait, what?"
Vriska laughed, spreading her cards on the table. "Four 8s. Four of a kind, Dualscar. Read them and engage your ocular hydration glands."
And there they were, the eight of hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds, and the jack of spa-and a smoking hole where her fifth card used to be.
Dave smirked. "Thanks, appleberry. I really only wanted 51 cards in my deck."
"You hate him just as much as the rest of us, asshole. Besides, you can just alchemize another one."
"This will upset the probabilities of the various card combinations." Aradia informed them.
Vriska shot her a glare, but was too busy gathering up her winnings and laughing at Eridan's wail of defeat.
"And now Serket has all the chips." Rose grumbled.
"All of them." Dave added.
"Yeah!" Vriska leered over her hoard. She turned to the side. "Hey, Tavros!" No response from the cuddle puddle. "Taaaaaaaavros!" Still no response.
Tavros and Aradia had come in to talk to Equius about tune-ups for their mechanical portions, but Tavros' legs had stopped functioning abruptly and Equius was too absorbed in the game to help. So Vriska, who had not been following Tavros not at all where did you get that stupid idea, dumped him on top of the sleepers and sat down at the table.
As Vriska's one-troll celebration waged on, Rose took a quick count of the players, and then of the slumber party. 12...13...14...15. Who was missing? Who was still-oh.
"Hey, a motherfucking pile of motherfuckers!"

Really, this entire thing was only for that last line.

[c_rowles]

Unhinged - part 13

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Feet pounding against the tile floor. Had to tell Draconian, tell Jack, tell his real friends how his fake one had betrayed them. Heart pounding against his ribcage. Had to warn Jack, couldn't stop, couldn't think, because he'd forget, he knew he'd get distracted and forget... Thoughts pounding through his head: it was my idea, it's all my fault, the one time they listen to me and I ruin everything...

Droll stumbled breathlessly onto the platform of a transportalizer and felt that disconcerting weightlessness as his body was jerked ten stories up. On the floor where the throne room could be found his feet struck tile and he was off again, sprinting down the wide purple hallways. In a panic his hands struck the great double doors of the throne room and he swung them open with manic hysteria and ran straight into Draconian's back.

He found himself lying on his back, winded and staring at the ceiling, and then Draconian leaned over him and pulled him up by the arm, setting him on his feet again. "Watch where you're going."

"Sorry, Draconian, I didn't see..." Droll blinked, shook his head, and resumed his expression of urgent panic. "I mean, wait! I have to tell you something important!"

"It can wait," Draconian said shortly, striding away from him down the long red carpet of the massive, vaulted chamber. The Courtyard Droll trailed after him, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet in nervous excitement.

"But Draconian, I have to tell Jack-"

"It can wait," the Dignitary repeated, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice, and it was only then that the Droll remembered how furious his friend was. Draconian reached the vacant throne and glared at the velvet seat with his hands clasped behind his back, his mouth twitching into an annoyed frown. "He's not here."

"Oh no, I need to warn him about-"

"What part of 'it can wait' did you not understand?" Draconian snapped, his fleeting acid temper flashing to the surface for a moment as he spun to face the little Dersite. He started walking purposefully towards the double doors again, forcing Droll to jog in order to keep up. "You may not have picked up on this, but Jack and I are at each other's throats right now. He just put a thirteen-year-old in a position of power and I think his ring might be tearing him apart; now forgive me if I think this is slightly more important than whatever inane idea you've come up with today."

He stormed through the doorway and set off towards the transportalizer, Droll trailing slightly behind with a rather hurt look on his face. "My ideas aren't insane. Sometimes they're really good."

"Inane." As he walked, Draconian took a deep breath and let it out in a hiss. "Listen, Droll. I'm not annoyed at you. I'm annoyed at Jack. If you don't want to be caught in the crossfire then I suggest you go do something else for a few hours until we've both finished shouting at each other."

"The memorial was my idea," Droll said quietly, having some trouble letting go of the topic.

"Go away, Droll," Draconian muttered, stepping onto the circular platform of the transportalizer. Droll quickly hopped on after him.

"Where are we-"

"-going?" he finished, as they abruptly appeared several stories away.

"I am confronting Jack about this... archagent thing. I want my office back."

The tall Dersite started walking again, and Droll hurried after him. He had the vauge impression that he was supposed to be telling Draconian something important, but with all this walking around he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. "But he wasn't in the throne room!"

"You and I both know where he is."

- - - - - - - - - -

The foul reek of old blood hung heavy and rank in the air as Draconian carefully pushed open the door of Jack's former office, but it was an old stench; the smear on the floor had long ago dried and turned and ugly brown, and still no one had bothered to scrub it away. Jack was seated at an empty desk now void of its familiar strata of paperwork, his eyes closed, his forehead pressed to the violet wood and his shoulders sagging under the weight of his wings, exactly the way they'd found him before. Draconian stepped forward cautiously.

"Jack."

No answer.

"Jack?" he said again, some of the anger draining out of his voice when the Sovereign Slayer didn't stir, and a moment later he was rushing forward and shaking Jack roughly by the shoulder. "Oh god, Jack, don't-"

Jack Noir's head snapped up, and one of his tentacles shot out and pounded Draconian into the far wall, wrapping itself around his throat and constricting. The Dignitary, his feet suspended a good six inches off the floor, struggled and clawed at the thick black tentacle crushing his windpipe. "Jack it's... me you... idiot..."

"Don't sneak up on me!" Jack hissed, his eyes wide and wild. "Don't you ever dare sneak up on me!!"

"We weren't sneaking up on you!" Droll protested, trying without much success to tug Jack's tentacle away from Draconian. "Stop it; it's just us!"

After a moment, Jack's eyes glazed over, and he sank back into his chair and let the tentacle go limp. The Dignitary dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

"Never do that again," Jack muttered, looking away. "Just walking in like that. You know how many people want me dead?"

"And how many of those people know you come here to sulk?" Draconian spat, pushing himself to his feet and rubbing reproachfully at his throat. "It's not my fault you were passed out at your desk. Go to bed, Jack. It will solve so many of our problems."

"You want that, don't you?" the Slayer snapped back, glaring at him with unconcealed loathing.

"Yes, I want that," said Draconian, meeting his gaze cooly and silently cursing himself for jumping almost immediately to his inner "is Jack taking care of himself" checklist. "I'd appreciate it if you weren't jumpy and exhausted all the time. Did you eat anything today? That would help."

A tired grumble from Jack, which was as close to a "no" as he was going to get. The Dignitary nodded and with the slightest bit of irritation cast a glance over at Droll. "Run down to the kitchens and grab something for him; it doesn't matter what. Maybe getting his blood sugar up will make him stop acting like such a drama queen."

Jack muttered something unintelligible and most likely obscene, and Droll hurried off down the the hallway to find something edible.

"I'm not eating it. They're poisoning my food."

"You've said," Draconian muttered, leaning on Jack's desk and gazing down at him flatly. "Jack, we need to talk."

Jack leaned back in his chair, and the corners of his mouth twitched briefly into a cruel smile. "About your office?" The smile faded as quickly as it had come. "You know, if if someone had done his job and killed the boy when I ordered him to, we wouldn't have had to move her and you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

"About your archagent. She's our prisoner, or did you forget? Why put her in a position of power... to spite me? To teach me a lesson for bringing her here and forcing you to talk to her? This has to be the pettiest, most irrational thing you've ever done; I hope you realize that." Draconian shook his head. "Jack, when I told you to get an archagent, I meant-"

"You meant yourself." The Sovereign Slayer's tone was icy, distant.

"Of course I did. I already do most of the work around here; I might as well be on the payroll for it."

"Of course you did," Jack echoed. "Of course you did. Who else is qualified; who else could I... trust?" With a tired sigh he closed his eyes and put a hand to his temple, his voice slurring slightly. "Who can I trust...?"

The Dignitary's eyes flickered to the ring on Jack's finger, gleaming small and deceptively innocent against the dark chitin. It's killing him. He's not the queen; he can't handle it, and it's killing him.

"Take off your ring, Jack," he said aloud, for what must have been the fiftieth time.

"Why should I?" Jack asked softly, eyes still closed.

"Because I can tell it's exhausting and no one ever said you had to wear it around all the time."

"That's not the reason," came the hissed reply, and Jack's eyes snapped open again. "Tell me the real reason, Draconian. Tell me why you want me to take this ring off so badly. Why that's so damn important that you can't stop talking about it. Say it, and stop acting like I haven't figured this out!"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Draconian began, but Jack had already gotten to his feet (swayed dangerously for a moment, and seized the desk to steady himself), and shoved his palm in the tall Dersite's face.

"Why don't you take it?!" Jack muttered through gritted teeth, his face taught with rage. "Take it if you want it!! Earn it like I did and kill me for it and cut it off my goddamn corpse!!"

For a moment the room was dead silent.

Then the door creaked open again and the Courtyard Droll strolled inside, carrying a plate of cookies. "Will this be alright? They just finished making these down in the kitchen, and they smell so good!" He wiped the crumbs from around his mouth and glanced down at the plate in genuine confusion. "There were a lot more cookies on here when I started walking back! I don't know what happened to them."

Jack and Draconian stood frozen, Jack's arm still outstretched, and stared at him blankly.

"Yes Droll, that's fine," Draconian said after a stunned minute.

"It is not," Jack snapped, his arm dropping at last, but only so that his hand could hover dangerously over the hilt of the sword in his chest. "I'm not eating those. They poisoned them. They're poisoning all my food!"

"No one is poisoning your food." Draconian snapped back. "Everyone knows you don't eat the palace cooking, and regardless, no one would be stupid enough to try. Droll ate some; they're fine."

"Then why are you trying to force me to eat them?" Jack's voice was rising in pitch, his hand trembling slightly just above his sword. Droll looked from one man to the other with apprehensive confusion, not sure of what was going in.

"You think I told the kitchens to poison your food?" Draconian said disbelievingly. "Stop being such a paranoid... idiot, Jack! I'm not trying to kill you and I don't want your ring."

"YES YOU DO." There was a ringing crack as Jack's chitinous hand abandoned his sword and struck the side of Draconian's face, hard enough to send the Dignitary stumbling backwards. "I know you do! You hate me; you hate that I have power now, and you're still just a pawn! You hate that it wasn't you!"

"What I hate has nothing to do with your ring and everything to do with your sudden transformation into a manic, unbalanced wreck! Get a grip, Jack!"

"Pawn!" Jack shouted back at him, a fatigue-drunk thrill crossing his face at the word. "All you'll ever be, because it was me, Draconian. I'm the king, I'm the one with the ring, and you will never touch it!" One tentacle wrapped itself loosely around Draconian's throat again, and the Sovereign Slayer seized the hilt of his seppuku blade.

The thought: I'm probably going to die here ran through Draconian's head with alarming calmness. He'd never even considered being afraid of Jack, no matter how powerful he got. They were a crew; they bickered with each other and they trusted each other and they didn't kill their own. But as he thought of Hegemonic's corpse lying somewhere somewhere on the battlefield, of how Jack had never even bothered to mourn... He wasn't the same person anymore, and they were his pawns, not his crew.

I'm probably going to die here.

And then, somewhere off to the side, the plate fell from Droll's hands and shattered against the tile, scattering cookies across the floor of Jack's office.

Draconian automatically turned his head. Droll was standing rigid, a look of shock on his face as his hands clutched his throat, and then, even as the Dignitary watched, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, his body convulsing helplessly.

"Oh god," said Jack, releasing Draconian, and the two of them exchanged looks of pure panic before rushing over to where the Courtyard Droll lay spasming, froth beginning to fleck his lips.

Draconian's knees hit the ground beside Droll and he grasped the little Dersite by the shoulders. "Droll, can you hear me? Droll! Oh god, you were right, they were poisoning your food-" He was cut off when a cookie struck him in the side of the head and shattered into crumbs. Draconian looked up just in time to see Jack lob another one at him.

"Now look what you did!"

"What I did?"

"You poisoned him! You killed him!"

"Jack Noir, I am not trying to kill you." Rather franticly, he gathered up the convulsing Droll. "He's not dead yet! We have to... We have to..."

"Have to do what?!" Jack demanded, throwing another poisoned cookie.

"Would you stop that? I am trying to think!" His mind was working wildly, and Droll was beginning to go still in his arms. "The kitchens! He got them from the palace kitchens. You don't store poison around food without some kind of failsafe; that means one of the cooks has to have an antidote!"

And then they were both sprinting through the palace, Draconian carrying Droll as they made their mad dash towards the kitchens. Two long hallways, a staircase, a transportalizer that jumped them from one massive tower to another.

"How do you know that? How could you possibly know that if you're not the one trying to kill me?!"

Three more flights of stairs, another transportalizer, another hallway.

Draconian grimaced. "I don't. I'm guessing."

A hallway, a staircase, a hallway, and at last the Sovereign Slayer thrust the vaulted wooden double-doors of the palace kitchens aside with enough force to tear one of them off its hinges. "Who. Was. It."

The ballroom-sized kitchens, filled with massive, industrial-sized ovens and all those gleaming, stainless steel machines associated with feeding an entire palace, went silent. The army of pawns staffing the great room paused to take in the scene with varying degrees of fear and confusion on their faces. With a scowl, Jack pointed to the little Dersite twitching in Draconian's arms. "Who did that? You have two seconds to turn him in. One. T-"

The staff nearest the door scrambled backwards, and almost immediately a pawn was shoved rather violently into the empty space they left behind by someone in the crowd. Jack grabbed him by the collar, and in a flash his vicious black blade was at the man's throat. The pawn gaped at him, terrified.

"You're the one who poisoned Droll?"

"Your highness, I never-"

The sword drew a thin thread of blood. "Tell me."

"Yes! Yes!" he babbled. "But it wasn't just me! There are others! I can point them out, I can tell you who they are! There's a woman; she comes every couple days to bring us more poisons! I swear it wasn't just me! Don't kill me and I'll tell you everything I know!"

"Did this woman bring you an antidote?" Draconian demanded.

"Yes! Yes!"

Jack shoved the pawn back into the crowd. "Go get it."

They laid the now nearly motionless Droll out across the floor, and Draconian held his head up while Jack uncorked the proffered glass bottle with his teeth and poured the dark, syrupy liquid within carefully down Droll's throat.

There was a tenseness in the air as the two of them crouched over Droll, oblivious to the mass of pawns all around them, just waiting. Draconian with a hand over Droll's faintly beating heart. Jack cursing, too low to be heard.

After what seemed like eons, Droll gave a shuddering cough and focused his eyes. "Draconian... Hegemonic says he likes the streamers."

"That's good, Droll," Draconian answered quietly.

Jack nodded shortly and stood up, sword held loosely at his side as his eyes swept over the watching pawns. "Draconian. Get out."

The Dignitary looked up at him. "What?"

"Take Droll and get out. I'm not going to kill you and god damn it I can't bring myself to exile you, but if I ever see you again I'm running this sword through your chest." His voice was cold, steely, dead serious. "You have until everyone in this room is dead to get out of my palace."

For once, Draconian didn't argue. He lifted Droll, who was still too weak to stand, and walked slowly towards to doorway, hearing the rise of frantic protests from the pawns behind him.

"Been meaning to hire some new kitchen staff anyway," Jack muttered.

They were halfway down the hallway outside when the death-screams began. Draconian broke into a run, and didn't look back.

- - - - - - - - - -

Rose looked up serenely from the documents she'd been working on as Jack Noir wandered exhaustedly into her office, his wings dragging on the floor behind him, his carapace spattered in someone else's blood. He sank heavily into the chair across from her without speaking, and folded over onto her desk, burying his face in his arm and smearing blood across her carefully sorted files.

"Jack, can I help you?" Rose asked softly, trying to hide her shock. "What happened?"

"They're gone," he murmured, his voice muffled. "Draconian, and Droll. You were right."

"Oh, Jack," she said consolingly, reaching out and touching his shoulder, trying her best not to think about the slick blood under her fingers. It was a mark of how far she'd come that this time, he didn't jerk away. "I tried to warn you. You can't trust them. You can't trust anyone but me."

He told her, shakily, brokenly, what had happened, and little droplets of blood made patterns on the dark purple tile.

YESSSSSSSSSSS I knew checking this thread first thing in the morning would pay off!

oh god, I literally put my hands over my mouth when Droll walked in with the plate; I thought for sure he was going to get killed off and that might just about have broken my heart. I sympathize with all the characters in this story, even Jack, a little bit, and that's so awesome. Even when it's agonizing; Hegemonic likes the streamers, oh... oh god... /dabs at eyes with a tissue

Droll is the sweetest little thing and if everyone just cuddled him and talked with him for a bit all their problems would go away. Do you hear that, Unhinged characters!? Give it a try and end this fic in one chapter!

Speaking of, I can't believe we're almost at the end! Aughhh there's still so much I'm curious and/or nervous about; I hope these last few chapters are long ones! And that Rose and Dave somehow get out of this clusterfuck alive... which of course they will. They'll use their noodles.

[Shadow of the Lotus]

Another excellent chapter of unhinged; great as always Red Pen .

[raequiem]

@saras: Oh man. I've been known not to cry at the death of family members, and you made me weep like a child. Fuck you. Fuck you for doing this to me.

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And thank you.

@RedPen: Well, things have taken a decided turn for the dark, haven't they? Droll, you darling little shit, you.

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And that last bit with Rose was unusually creepy - which I kinda like a whole lot.

@Layra: You are a good person. Sometimes we need pointless ramblings. And cuddle puddles.

[Ember]

Red Pen: Putting up with you? Pff, don't be ridiculous. Because that is ridiculous. Unhinged is quite possibly my favorite thing this thread has produced, and I know very well I'm not alone in that sentiment, and you know it too! I'll be sad when it's over, but I can't wait to see how it ends.

Layra: That's fine, the last line did get a chuckle out of me. As did several of the ones before it.

[IncredulousToast]

That was amazing. That's all there is to it.