Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your name is HOMESTUCK and you're a FANDOM PERSONIFICATION getting ready for the bi-monthly FANDOM MEETING. It is a relatively new idea, proposed last year by your BELOVED MOIRAIL. It was supposed to be a chance for the OTHER FANDOMS to get along and discuss things like POSSIBLE CROSSOVERS and SETTLE THEIR PROBLEMS, but really, if any fandoms have been fighting lately, getting along at the meeting is NOT VERY IMPORTANT to them and can actually be kind of ENTERTAINING TO WATCH.

You like to think you are KIND OF COMPLEX and have a bunch of INTERESTS. One of your main pastimes is SHIPPING YOUR CHARACTERS in various QUADRANTS. You also enjoy convincing OTHER FANDOMS to join you in the occasional FLARPING SESSION or WATCHING MOVIES OF ANY KIND. You have a SOFT SPOT FOR CATS, but would NEVER ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT. However, you cannot stand CLOWNS and refuse to eat anything made by BETTY CROCKER.

Your friends can GET ON YOUR NERVES sometimes, but you all stay in touch using a chat client called PESTERCHUM. Your chumhandle is dreamingTimeline and you TYP3 1N 4 W4Y TH4T C4N MAKE YOU A99EAR TO 6E ANNOYED ALL THE TIME.

Having just finished your breakfast, you got up to put your plate in the sink. You glanced over at your clock to see what time it was. It was almost 8:30, so ideally, you should leave in about fifteen minutes to be on time for the meeting. All you have to do is change out of your pajamas and run out the door. You felt like that was more than enough time.
You gave your cat a quick scratch behind the ears before heading upstairs.

When you got to your room, you were very surprised to see you had an intruder. Getting his attention, you screamed, "What the fuck are you doing here?!"

You froze when he turned around and you saw what he had in his hands.

~~~

Your name is DOCTOR WHO and you're getting pretty tired of waiting for this STUPID MEETING to start. It was supposed to start a HALF HOUR AGO, but since HOMESTUCK never showed up, you've had to wait.

You find happiness in your variety of INTERESTS, such as SPACE AND HISTORY. You enjoy HELPING PEOPLE, but can sometimes come off as ARROGANT or like you DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING when, in fact, YOU DO. You are also criticized for your AMAZING FASHION SENSE. Some people just don't understand how well FEZZES can go with BOWTIES, 3-D GLASSES, and SCARVES. The only thing you could possibly love more than your TARDIS is when people comment on how its BIGGER ON THE INSIDE.

Your main friends are SHERLOCK and SUPERNATURAL but you consider yourself friends with a lot of fandoms, even the annoying ones. Your chumhandle is extraterrestrialChronologic and you tend to type calmly, but 50metime5 y0u tend t0 ramble.

"Okay, has anyone heard from Homestuck?" you finally asked. Nobody had said anything at all for almost ten minutes now and the silence was starting to get awkward.

Steven Universe shook her head. "No," she said from the other side of the conference room. She sighed, obviously as bored as you and everyone else in the room. "He's always on time for these, I don't know what could be keeping him."

"He probably ditched us to hang out with Hetalia," Supernatural huffed, ruffling his wings behind him.

Hetalia often slept through meetings. He didn't mean to, but he can be rather lazy. You thought it was kind of funny, since these meetings were Hetalia's idea in the first place. You had all agreed that instead of waiting for him, you'd carry out the meeting, and if he showed up, great, if not, it didn't really matter too much. "I doubt it," How to Train your Dragon -who you all just called Berk- pointed out. "If he went to wake Hetalia you know that he'd just drag him here." He had a point, that was what he did last time he went to Hetalia's on meeting day.

"Maybe someone should text him," Tumblr suggested. You heard someone on the other side of the room complain about nobody thinking of that sooner.

Tumblr wasn't a fandom personification like the rest of you, but a site personification. The only reason they came to your meetings was to keep it from turning into a riot. You've actually needed them to step in once or twice before. Despite just being a blue person with a white 't' on their chest and a pair of sunglasses, everyone always looked up to them and were honestly willing to do whatever they said. They also had a knack for calming down an angry fandom.

"That's a good idea, I'll do it," you said, pulling out your phone and opening Pesterchum. You saw that he wasn't online but you figured the notification tone would probably get his attention and started typing anyway.

-- extraterrestrialChronologic [EC] began pestering dreamingTimeline [DT] at 9:53 --

EC: Hey, are y0u c0ming 0r n0t? Y0u d0 kn0w there'5 a meeting t0day, right?

He didn't reply, and after a minute or so Yuri on Ice asked what he said. "Nothing. Not yet, anyway." You thought he just might not be near a computer or left his phone somewhere.

You all sat in near silence until the door to the conference room flew open. You all were expecting it to be Homestuck, but the cheap gray paint that left some paler skin visible instead of actual gray skin told you it was one of Homestuck's fans instead.

"Can we help you?" Tumblr asked. You could tell they were getting ready to send the fan away unless this was important.

"Have any of you seen Mr.Homestuck?"

Everyone in the room collectively murmured "No," and shook their heads.

"What happened?" Sherlock asked the fan who was obviously starting to panic now.

"Nobody can find him!" she cried, her voice full of worry, "He's not answering his messages, and when someone went to his house to see what was up with him, the place was a mess!"

You all agreed that someone would go look for him. But you didn't want to send a ton of people looking. If the fans realized that a fandom had gone missing they would freak, so you agreed that the rest of you should keep going on with business as usual to keep them from suspecting that anything was wrong. After a few people went to go look for Homestuck, they'd all carry on with the meeting. Tumblr assured the fan that they would find Homestuck, and told her to keep the incident to herself. The fan calmed down a little and seemed to understand, and quickly made her way out of the meeting hall.

Now you all had to deal with the situation. It went without saying that the best course of action would be to go to Homestuck's house and see if you can figure out where he went. Hopefully, it wouldn't be a very big incident and you would have Homestuck safe at home by tomorrow. With your luck that's probably not how it's going to work out, but you can hope.

You all picked the best fandoms for the job. You went, of course, because you know a lot about time and temporal anomalies and aliens and such things. Time is a major part of Homestuck's comic so that could very well have something to do with his disappearance, and you know there are at least two different kinds of aliens somewhere in that comic. Sherlock went because finding clues and piecing together what happened was his specialty. He was very good at making accurate deductions. He seemed a little too excited about being chosen, though. You decided to bring Gravity Falls along too, because she was very good with paranormal occurrences, which is also a very big possibility if Homestuck is involved. That, and she was like a paranormal version of Sherlock, picking up on a bunch of supernatural clues and solving puzzles with relative ease. Supernatural decided to come too, because he said he was good with demons and could help track Homestuck or something like that. You've all given up on trying to explain that Homestuck isn't a demon a long time ago, but you all let him tag along because he could still be helpful. He also said wanted to punch the person or whatever it was that was responsible for kidnapping him because he said he's the only one allowed to hurt Homestuck.

You and a few others teased him for saying that, since he always insists that he hates Homestuck but occasionally would proceed to do something protective like this, making it blatantly obvious that he actually did care about him, at least to some minor degree. Sherlock also pointed out that we didn't even know if he'd been kidnapped or hurt yet. He grunted and ignored all of you, and proceeded grumpily out into the hallway. The rest of you followed suit.

Once you were all outside, you headed straight to the Homestuck District. Every fandom has its own district, a place where the fans live, merch is sold everywhere, and most importantly, where the fandom itself lived, its house always sitting in the very middle. Luckily, Homestuck was one of the Top Five (the rest of them being you, Doctor Who, Supernatural, and Hetalia), meaning his district was right outside of Central, where the meeting hall was.

It was an odd stroll to Homestuck's house as always. The graffiti at his place was strange. Not bad strange, no no, just strange. And since his comic involved a lot of symbols and numbers and other stuff like that, there was a lot of it and a lot of different colors. You recognized the zodiac signs but you didn't know the meaning of the other symbols and things you saw or what they were supposed to represent. It was all pretty interesting to look at though. Maybe you should ask Homestuck what they are sometime. He'd probably love to tell you, since he loves it when people actually want to know about his comic.

"So," Gravity Falls started, obviously not comfortable with the silence that they had kept since they left the meeting hall, "what do you guys think happened to him? Think he's okay?"

Without looking over, Sherlock gave her a blunt answer. "We won't know until we get there."

Supernatural shrugged. "I doubt the guy's hurt, he can hold his own." His hands never left this pocket, but unlike Sherlock he had enough manners to at least give Gravity Falls a sideways glance.

You nodded and actually looked at Gravity Falls as you answered. "Supernatural is right, Homestuck is a very strong fandom, I doubt something truly terrible happened. As for what happened, who knows? Maybe some kind of time thing. Seems likely, knowing him. We can't be sure yet, of course, but I'd say it's as good a guess as any."

Gravity Falls fiddled with the brim of her hat and smiled. "You're right. Homestuck's a pretty tough guy, huh? Haha, he's probably not even missing, he probably just tore his place up looking for something and left the house and forgot his phone at home!"

"If that's the case I'll kill him, making me come all this way to find he's fine," Supernatural huffed. You all chuckled and continued on your way.

When you got to Homestuck's house, they saw the fan was right. The place was a mess. Chairs were overturned, there were a few scuff marks here and there on the floor, and the pillow that belonged on Homestuck's bed upstairs was thrown in the corner of the kitchen. The table had even been moved. Something bad had obviously happened here. Sherlock wasted no time and started looking around instantly. You all figured he knew what he was doing at left him to it. You and Supernatural decided to search together while Gravity Falls went upstairs.

You went into the living room, which was actually pretty neat compared to the kitchen, aside from the blanket Homestuck usually draped over the back of his couch being thrown on the floor and his chair being flipped over. Homestuck's weird four-eyed cat snuck out from behind the couch and over to you. The cat seemed to be a little shaken, but it knew you and was happy to see you. You knelt down and scratched it, hoping you could calm it down a little.

"If only the cat could tell us what happened," Supernatural joked. He scratched it behind its ear and it began to purr. Despite it having four pupil-less eyes and being Homestuck's cat, he didn't damn the thing and call it a demon, which you thought was nice. You certainly would have, if you were him.

You had just started looking around (you hadn't found anything useful yet) when your pocket and Supernatural's vibrated. You took out your phones and you both had a message from Gravity Falls.

-- paranormalJournalist [PJ] began pestering extraterrestrialChronologic [EC] at 10:37 --

PJ: /( | )\ Guys come upstairs i think i found something!!!
PJ: /( | )\ Or more like theres something missing!!!!!!

You exchanged looks and hurried upstairs.

~~~

Your name is SHERLOCK and you are currently in the middle of an INVESTIGATION. You tend to enjoy things like this, as your main interest is SOLVING CRIMES. Specifically MURDER CASES. When you don't have a case, you tend to get REALLY BORED, and people say you're REALLY ANNOYING. You would have a longer introduction, but you are REALLY BUSY AT THE MOMENT. Your chumhandle is serialDeductions and you type properly and don't have time for silly typing quirks. -SH

Being the closest to the stairs, you were able to go right up. You didn't see the Supernatural or Doctor Who anywhere but you figured that Gravity Falls must have sent them a message as well and they would be here in a second. You found Gravity Falls in Homestuck's room, which had the biggest mess you had seen so far, which didn't totally surprise you. You noticed what her message was most likely referring to before she mentioned it.

Homestuck's juju chest was wide open. And empty.

Of course, that didn't stop Gravity Falls from pointing it out to you. "Look!" she frantically pointed towards the empty chest, "His juju thing is gone!"

Chapter Text

Seconds later, Doctor Who and Supernatural hurried into the room and Gravity Falls pointed the same thing out to them.

Doctor Who was more confused than shocked, but he did understand that it wasn't good that Homestuck's juju was gone. "I thought the juju was supposed to stay locked in the box at all times?"

"Think he took it out to bust some heads? It's pretty obvious he was attacked, he probably fought back with it," Supernatural suggested. He, on the other hand, didn't totally get it.

Gravity Falls pouted and put her hand on her side. "Don't you remember that really long lecture he gave us about not letting him even touch it? Why would he fight with it if he couldn't touch it?"

They didn't know as much about Homestuck's juju as you did, so it is understandable that they don't get it -except Supernatural, you don't know how he could assume Homestuck would use it as a weapon. You, on the other hand, have actually read Homestuck (you'd be damned if you let Homestuck being a troll keep you from properly deducing him) so you know what Homestuck meant and why he was so set on not touching it. You let them argue for a minute or two before you decided it was time for you to jump in. "If you're all done, would you like to hear what I have to say?"

"Sure!" Gravity Falls answered for the three of them.

"Well," you started, glancing around the room for the umpteenth time since you've arrived, your eyes stopping on the window, "I don't believe there was even a struggle."

Doctor Who didn't seem convinced. "Sherlock, are you certain about that?"

Of course, Supernatural wasn't either. "You have seen the place, haven't you? Of course there was a struggle!" He gestured at the mess you were all standing in the middle of to emphasize his point.

Gravity Falls didn't actually say anything, but you could see skepticism all over her face and her head was slightly tilted to the side. She didn't get it either. Which was understandable, it certainly did seem like there was a struggle if you didn't look around the house too thoroughly. However, aside from this room and where Doctor Who and Supernatural were looking downstairs, you did get a pretty good picture of what had happened. If anything, the missing juju confirmed your theory and pulled everything together.

You looked back at them and continued with what you were saying. "If you were being chased with something you couldn't touch, what would you do?"

They all gave you the same answer. Run.

"Exactly. Now, I would imagine that to keep from being touched by his juju, Homestuck did whatever he could to keep his attacker away. Pulling things out and putting them in the way, holding things between them, throwing things, things like that. Of course, the attacker was throwing things out of his path as well, but that would certainly explain the mess, now wouldn't it?"

"That makes sense," Doctor Who agreed, "But there's no way to be sure that's what happened. And if Homestuck ran, I still think he would answer his messages. You know how he's always making sure he has at least two things to text with on him at all times."

"I'm not saying he successfully got away, Doc, I'm simply saying he ran. And there is a way I can be almost certain of it. You all know Homestuck's fighting style. So isn't it funny how there's not even a single, small bloodstain anywhere? A go-for-the-throat guy like Homestuck not making or taking a single scratch?" You started to pace around a little as you talked out of habit. You paused so they could add something in if they wanted, but when you were met with silence you just continued on. "And, while everything looks thrown about and damaged from that, nothing appears to actually have been scratched or hit, no scratches, no dents that can't be traced back to another object in the room, nothing like that, which is also rather unusual to see after one of Homestuck's bigger fights."

"Hang on a second," Gravity Falls interrupted, stepping forward a little, "This makes sense, yeah, but I do have one problem with your idea. You're basing this whole thing off of Homestuck being a kinda reckless fighter, right? Which is true, I agree, he can be. But you're also basing it on him running away. Homestuck doesn't usually run off like that unless he has to though. I doubt any big, bad, dangerous intruder who came after him would be able to get in his room like this if Homestuck saw them because he's a reckless fighter. Your whole thing basically sounds like it relies on the intruder having his juju the whole entire time." Despite the fact that she sounded rather sure that those were flaws in your argument, you noticed her fiddling with the sleeves of her sweater. You're very much aware that she knows you're not typically wrong when it comes to things like this. She was waiting for you to prove your theory.

Supernatural nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's true, he'd probably try to go at them first if someone shifty came at him."

"I take it you've already considered this, haven't you?" Doctor Who asked.

You glanced over at Doctor Who before walking over to the window you were staring at earlier. "That's my job, isn't it? Of course I have. Even though it is certainly possible for someone to have snuck past Homestuck, I have an idea on how they got to the juju first." When you ran in the room earlier, you had also noticed something different with Homestuck's window. His screen was gone. "So if I'm right..." You opened Homestuck's window easily, which was a big red flag all on its own. Homestuck always locks the window. "Mmhmm. Just as I thought, the lock is broken. And..." You stuck your head out and looked at Homestuck's backyard down below you. "There's a ladder out there as well. It's definitely tall enough to reach up here."

"Alright, Alright, Sherlock, so we'll assume Homestuck tried to get away," Supernatural conceded, "But do you have any idea who the attacker is?"

You paused for a moment and tried to take one more glance around the room, as if you'd find one big clue that would unravel the whole case. You know it never works that way. You wouldn't find one even if you actually bothered to comb this room for clues. Those kinds of clues always show themselves much later, if they show themselves at all. You sighed before giving him his answer, "Unfortunately, I don't."

~~~

Your name is GRAVITY FALLS and you think you all might have hit a DEAD END.

You're currently on a QUEST to find a MISSING PERSON. You were picked to help find your missing friend because of your PRIMARY INTEREST and SKILL, SOLVING PARANORMAL MYSTERIES. You also happen to enjoy KNITTING your own special sweaters, the cute chubby faces of PIGS, and a good old fashioned game of DUNGEONS, DUNGEONS, AND MORE DUNGEONS. You also can be a little bit PARANOID at times. But that's not important at the moment. You're working with some of the TOP FIVE today and you want to be EXTREMELY HELPFUL. Did you mention that one of your friends is missing? Because HE IS, and he seems to be in MORE TROUBLE THAN YOU THOUGHT.

But before you get back to all that, your chumhandle is paranormalJournalist and when you type, /( | )\ You make sure to give yourself a reminder that hes always watching you.

Well, you thought this was gonna be solved pretty quick since Sherlock seemed to figure everything out so easily. But really, the information he had didn't help a ton in the long run. He unfortunately has no ideas on who it was that actually did all this, and you think that is the more important piece of the puzzle. You aren't going to say anything, of course, but it still bothers you a little. In the grand scheme of things, whether Homestuck ran and got caught or fought and lost doesn't change all that much, does it? He still got caught either way, and that's obvious enough from just taking a quick glance around the house.

You suppose it means he's less likely to be dead. Not like you were worried that he died in the first place. You are worried that he's hurt, though. You think it's pretty likely that he's hurt. Again, you won't really say anything about it, though. Everyone else probably feels the same, you're sure. No need to actually draw attention to something that obvious.

Supernatural sighed, breaking the silence that had just started to settle around you. "I can't believe he got caught because he didn't want to touch his stupid juju. I mean, it can't actually be that bad, can it?"

You and Doctor Who were quick to point out that he probably had his reasons. You didn't know what that juju thing was all about, and it could very well be 'that bad'.

"Yes, he certainly did have his reasons," Sherlock agreed.

Supernatural shot him a curious glare. "You sound pretty certain." You and Doctor who also gave him some kind of curious face, but you two were far less skeptical and chose to remain silent.

"Well, I happen to know what his juju does, so I suppose that does make me rather certain."

"Were you going to tell us?" Doctor Who asked, arms crossed, but not coming off as hostile or totally frustrated. He's learned to be patient with Sherlock like most of the rest of you.

Sherlock shrugged. "You would have figured it out eventually. Especially with how everything's going."

"Well, what's it do? Why can't he touch it? Is it dangerous?" You figured if you just threw questions at Sherlock he would have to answer them.

And he did. "Just touching it alone doesn't do anything, but if he touches it, or even looks at it for too long, he gets an uncontrollable urge to lick it." Not quite the answer you were expecting, but, hey, you'll take it.

Supernatural seemed to be a little underwhelmed with that information and raised a brow. "I take it when he licks it is when the bad thing happens?" You could tell he would be disappointed if the answer was no.

"Yes. When he licks it, he goes into Trickster Mode."

"Trickster Mode?" Doctor Who pressed, sounding rather interested.

"It's hard to explain. But, I would imagine he's off somewhere, annoying the absolute hell out of someone."

"Doesn't he always do that?" Supernatural added, probably louder than he had intended to.

"Oh, I can guarantee you that he's worse now."

Sherlock spent a little more time explaining what Trickster Mode was like, and he even showed you all some pages from Homestuck's comic about it so you could all get a basic understanding of it. There was a thing or two that he didn't get around to telling you, you were sure, but you didn't exactly have the time for a full-on lesson on tricksterism at the moment. Now you understood what he meant when he said it was hard to explain. And you couldn't deny, Trickster Mode did look very annoying.

You scribbled a few notes about it down in your Journal as you listened. You had to completely start over with the Journals because of reasons that you would rather not think about; therefore, this Journal bore no number on the golden hand. Like you said earlier, Sherlock didn't tell you a whole lot about Trickster Mode, but you figured this was worth making a note of. You tend to do that when you hear things like this.

You also spent awhile trying to figure out what anyone could gain from making Homestuck go Trickster. Besides having Homestuck make terribly poor choices and probably mess himself up quite a bit, you couldn't really think of anything beneficial this could cause. There had to be something, you all knew, but you just couldn't think of anything.
"Well, alright," Doctor Who started again, "I don't suppose the motive matters all that much as long as we get him back."

"But what if the other guy still has him? We can't find him if we don't even know who has him," you reminded everyone, swinging your legs over the side of Homestuck's bed. You sat down sometime during Sherlock's lesson. Supernatural had sat down next to you and occasionally when he shifted his position, his wings would brush against your back or over your hand. It felt weird.

"That is true, if he's still with his attacker that is certainly going to cause us some problems in tracking him down," Doctor Who agreed, although it was more like he was thinking out loud. "But what if he isn't?" He looked up at the rest of you when he asked the question. "Thinking about it, based on what we saw, I doubt anyone would want to willingly spend time with a Trickster. Maybe he just turned Homestuck loose?"

Sherlock nodded. "It would make sense."

"But what if we can't find him?" you asked, "That still means he could be anywhere. What if we just can't track him down?"

Supernatural looked deep in thought. "What if," he started, sounding like he was still pondering whatever it was that he was suggesting in his head, "What if he went to Hetalia's? I mean, in the comic they all seemed to go straight to their friend's or romantic interest's place, right? Everyone else is at the meeting and Hetalia's his closest friend anyway."

You took your phone out and opened Pesterchum. "Hang on, I'll ask if Heta's seen him." Everyone gathered around you and looked over your shoulders as you tapped Hetalia's name.

-- paranormalJournalist [PJ] began pestering multilingualMochi [MM] at 13:44 --

PJ: /( | )\ Hey talia!!
PJ: /( | )\ I got a question for ya
PJ: /( | )\ Have you seen homestuck today
MM: Yeah Ive seen him
MM: Hes here right now actually
PJ: /( | )\ He is???
PJ: /( | )\ Thats great!!!!!
PJ: /( | )\ Hey
PJ: /( | )\ Wait
PJ: /( | )\ Hang on a second
PJ: /( | )\ How come youre not doing that thing you do when you type??
MM: What thing?
PJ: /( | )\ You know!!
PJ: /( | )\ The
PJ: /( | )\ The thing!!!
MM: Oh that
MM: I dunno, I dont really care about it. It's fuckin stupid to be honest
PJ: /( | )\ Oh uh okay
PJ: /( | )\ Supernaturals looking over my shoulder and says to say that youre not as enthusiastic as you usually are
PJ: /( | )\ Sherlocks here too and he has this weird look on his face
PJ: /( | )\ I think hes concerned too
PJ: /( | )\ Yup see he just said he is
MM: Ok, I get it, Im acting strange and you guys are noticing. You can fuckin stop with that now hun
MM: But I dont think Im acting strange
PJ: /( | )\ Well is anything wrong or something
PJ: /( | )\ Is it homestuck?? Hes kinda sick so itd make sense
PJ: /( | )\ Is he bothering you?? Did he do something weird???
MM: Nah, were actually having a really good time
MM: So can you stop naggin me?
MM: Hello? Did you just leave or something?
PJ: /( | )\ No sorry were still here
PJ: /( | )\ Well can we come see you guys
PJ: /( | )\ Youre at your place right
MM: I guess so, and yes we are
PJ: /( | )\ Ok then see ya soon!!!
MM: Yeah

-- paranormalJournalist [PJ] ceased pestering multilingualMochi [MM] --