002 | Accidental Video

[stridercentric]

[There comes a time in every Strider's life where the buildup of emotional frustration becomes so great, their usual pokerface cracks and a breakdown happens. For Bro, this is that time. He'd already been having a tough week, what with losing Lil Cal and Davesprite not remembering a single thing about him. He hadn't been sleeping well either. Without Lil Cal around, he'd been like a little kid without a nightlight.

As the clock struck midnight, signifying the 15th of April, the curse ended and he regained the things he'd lost. Both the good and the bad. Cal was back in his sylladex, but he was too preoccupied to notice. Despite the time of night, he'd been sitting on the roof of the Yutopil apartment building when the full force of his 'lost' memories hit him like a ton of bricks. He could see the scene unfolding in his mind's eye again. That damned Jack Noir growing wolf-like features, gaining powers not even Bro could fend off. His own sword being turned against him, being jammed through his chest before he'd had a chance to move out of the way. Blinding pain, blood soaking his shirt... And Davesprite. Davesprite staring down at him with a horrified expression as he blacked out for good.

During the curse, he hadn't been sure if these were memories he could do without, but now he realized he'd been better off not remembering.

Still, the end of the curse meant Davesprite had regained memories as well. He'd just have to rub that in the kid's face and hope the dust would settle nicely. He made his way into their apartment, but the moment he entered the living room he could tell something was off. It was too quiet. Too empty. The only one around was the robot puppy he'd adopted from Jade Harley a while ago. So he'd checked his SFC to skim the contact list, to come to that mindnumbing conclusion he'd really hoped he wouldn't come to.

Davesprite's gone. Just like Dave.

The SFC is flung with such great force, it hits the wall across the room, activating the video function. As it tumbles down to the ground, coming to rest on its back with the camera directed towards the ceiling, it records Bro's thundering voice.]

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!

[Silence. Then the skittering of little feet across the floor. A robot puppy's face hovers over the SFC for a few seconds, before its jaws close around the little device and it's lifted off the ground. More skittering of feet, the SFC moves along the living room until it's close enough to catch a glimpse of Bro, who's holding a hand over his face, the other curled into a fist by his side. He notices the SFC soon enough, though.]

Goddammit Barkbeast, I ain't playing- Gimme that! [He snatches the device from the puppy's mouth with one quick swipe.]

Comments

Video;

[rebull]

[Wow, inside of a robot dog's mouth, this is new.]

Go pooch go- awww, come on, don't want to make a game out of it? [A laugh, once he sees the view change as Bro catches it.]

Video;

[stridercentric]

[Oh great. Great The damned thing is on. Now he has to pretend nothing's wrong and he is so not up for that. He'll just glare down at the device with a moody scowl.]

Dogs need to learn that a communicator ain't a chewtoy. Discipline and all that shit.

Video;

[rebull]

[That scowl's, something alright. Bro doesn't emote much and when he does it's hardly anything like that. Summoner gives an odd look right back, sitting back a little. He himself isn't in the best mood either, with Pyral Spite being gone now, just now even, but the return of his wings evens it enough.]

Then try your hand at it, but since it's uh, a bot, you might be able to get a program somewhere to fix 'im up.

Video;

[stridercentric]

His programming's fine!

[He programmed Barkbeast to be playful and mischievous, so it's not like he can blame the little guy for fetching anything that Bro flings across the room. He brought the hilariously bad timing of it upon himself.]

Video;

[rebull]

Uh- alright, so then what's the problem?

Video;

[stridercentric]

There is no problem! [That sure is a believable claim from the guy who was just cursing and snapping at his robot dog.]

Video;

[rebull]

Okay, well, uh, certainly sounds like something's up. [Someone's expressing himself a bit more than usual.]

video;

[goodlifechoices]

[ Marie doesn't reply to this until well into the morning. ]

Bad morning, huh? I know how that one goes.

video;

[stridercentric]

[In turn, Bro's reply doesn't come until early in the afternoon. He may or may not be hungover from a night of boozing.]

Yeah, I ain't exactly a stranger to rough mornings either. [Granted, they were usually mornings of waking up with his face pressed up against the keyboard after a night of working on his ironic puppet website. This morning is rough for entirely different reasons.]

[video]

[findsrisks]

[This is another reply that comes in the morning.

Normally Nanaki would have left Bro to his own devices, since he is clearly having problems and a stranger intruding on those problems wouldn't help. But there's something familiar about Bro, something that makes Nanaki take a second look at him.

Then she also realizes that the apartment looks vaguely familiar, and she puts 2 and 2 together.]

Ah!

[She makes that exclamation when she realizes just who Bro is, or rather who he knows. Davesprite had mentioned a brother, after all.]

Are you alright?

[video]

[stridercentric]

[And this is another reply to Bro gets to in the early afternoon. He was KO for most of the actual morning.]

Fine. 'M fine. Just fucking dandy.

[video]

[findsrisks]

[Yeah, he doesn't sound fine. Nanaki feels the urge to push back against the attitude, but she tries her best to keep herself from doing that. It's better to be polite with new people.]

I mean, if something happened, maybe someone could help, right? If you're having trouble with something then I might be able to...

[She trails off there as she realizes that she doesn't even know what she's volunteering herself for. Oops.]

[video]

[stridercentric]

[Ohhh boy. When will people learn that offering to help only aggravates the situation in certain contexts? There's nobody who can help him. This is the kind of trouble that can only be accepted as reality.]

Nope. Nice try, but you're better off not worryin' your pretty little head about it.

[text]

[ohshellno]

holy carp another one
[Striders be everywhere.]
u doin ok big shades?

[text]

[stridercentric]

[Oh. Colored font. Another troll? Well, it doesn't matter. He'll happily take text conversations over video, right now.]

fan fuckin tastic.

just another one of those days.

[text]

[ohshellno]

p much every day here is one of those days aint it
what happened
you get fucked over by a curse?

[text]

[stridercentric]

yeah.

got fucked over so bad my ass is gonna be sore for weeks. if you catch my drift.

[text]

[ohshellno]

im surfin that drift yo
this place is balls
there aint a chill thing about it

[text]

[stridercentric]

kinda surprised we aint got a support group around here yet.

the vatheon took a good long piss all over my life group.

[Filtered, Text]

[shippingmath]

[Breakdowns are a well-timed phenomenon among Striders, it seems. Dirk is in the midst of one himself, though rather than anger, he's slipped into a kind of numb self-hate.

His first instinct isn't to reach out and talk to Bro. Instead, it's to check on what could even cause a reaction like that, and although the network reveals nothing of use, the residency list does.]

Fuck this city.

[Filtered, Text]

[stridercentric]

[A filter, huh? Bro vaguely wonders if Dirk knows about Davesprite. Probably. This kid tends to be on top of the information pile.]

fuck it with a rusty poker.

[Filtered, Text]

[shippingmath]

[He's been on the bottom of it until Bro's post prompted some looking, admittedly.]

And then set fire to it and blast it into the goddamn sun.

[Filtered, Text]

[stridercentric]

and hide a huge stash of fireworks in here. makes for one hell of a blast.

[Filtered, Text]

[shippingmath]

That shit'd be entertaining, at least.

[Filtered, Text]

[stridercentric]

true facts.

this shit right here aint funny anymore.