Chapter titles will always be song lyrics. This is from Little Pistol by Mother Mother.

Your name is Dave Strider, and the buzz of the bar is music to the heightened senses of your demon ears.

Neon lights flash on the walls and glasses clink together; a melody lacking music that you can never get enough of. Even as you sit, you can't help but tap your fingers against the wood of the counter to the beat of some muffled, human pop song. The smell of alcohol and human food fills your nose and throat. It's a welcome feeling.

Though this is a demon-only place, people dance and drink wearing humans forms, with human voices. Not that you can complain too much. You kinda get it, even if it's fuckin' dumb. Gotta make sure humans don't know.

You hear the bartender's footsteps before you see him, and then you watch as he moves into your field of vision, striding (ha) with the smoothness of one of the few people in the bar left that were sober.

"Hey, dude," you call, leaning forward and resting your chin on your fist, "can you grab my a bit of beer?"

The bartender quirks a 'brow, pretty clearly amused. "How old are you? Thirteen? We don't serve minors."

You almost smile. Alright, this guy's got a sense of humour. You can dig that. "Sixteen, but it was worth a shot. I like you. You got a fuckin' sense of humor. The other guys get all fuckin' weird and bullshitty like I forced them to watch me eat a Kit-Kat the wrong way, y'know?"

The bartender nods, but doesn't humor you beyond that, and instead goes to tend to some drunk fuckers demanding the strongest shit they've got.

You let a small sigh escape through your nose, and rest both arms across the counter, then rest your chin on them. You can almost feel the vibrations of the music through the wood. Wicked.

You let the music and the talking turn into nothing but white noise in your head. You let yourself feel the vibrations and play a game with yourself to guess when the chorus is, the verse is, the end is.

Your game is (very fucking rudely) interrupted by a tap on your shoulder and a murmur in your ear.

"Come dance with me."

You swing around on your seat, and you're immediately greeted by the displeased face of your sister. She puts a hand to your shoulder, which trails down to your wrist, which she grabs with cold fuckin' fingers. Before you can even answer, she yanks you with surprising strength from your seat, even though the action is seemingly effortless.

She pulls you away from the counter and into the crowd, literally the last place you want to be. Neither of you know how to dance, but seeing as most of the crowd are drunk fuckers, you don't think it'll matter. You put your hands on your hips and she wraps her arms around your shoulders, her chin pressed against your shoulder so she can talk into your ear. It's something you've done many times before, in many situations similar.

"So, what shit in your dinner this time?" You snort.

Rose leads your steps, and the both of you move slowly around a drunk couple.

Rose hums for a moment. "Something that's going to shit in your dinner too, no doubt."

You move the both of you around in a circle, slowly. "Oh please dearest sweetest loveliest graciousest humblest sister tell me more."

"Graciousest isn't a word."

"Fuck you."

Rose makes the tiniest amused huff, which you'll take as a win any day. She doesn't, however, elaborate. Fucking rude, right? She moves so that her forehead is pressed lightly against your shoulder, and she closes her eyes.

You don't mistake this for vulnerability. Sure, demons are taught that you gotta stick close to blood above everything, but this is hardly an intimate moment. You both have physical contact with eachother, sure, but it barely qualifies. As she moves and you follow, you two barely touch, apart from your hands against her hips and her arms around your shoulders, but neither of you press hard enough to feel it, really.

Some drunkass nearly bumps into you, but with your mad reflexes you spin the both of you around and out of the way. You don't snap at the guy or anything. Not really his fault.  A small bit of frustration crawls into your throat, despite that knowledge.

"Really wish we didn't have to be in human forms, here," you say quietly.

"Oh, what I would give to strip myself of this disguise and free myself of this frustratingly fleshy prison," Rose agrees, "if it were just the bar's restrictions we had to worry about, I have no doubt that we'd be able to formulate a plan to at least stretch our wings..."

"But we gotta deal with Bro, yeah, I know." For such a cool guy, being so protective felt kinda dickish, even if you understood it.

Rose slaps the back of your head lightly. "You ruined my dramatic and tension-inducing pause."

You roll your eyes, but it's not like she can see, behind the shades.

As music fills the silence between you, you both opt to just sway lightly to the music. Much more comfortable that way.

"So, speaking of Bro..." Rose starts.

You groan, loudly, but she ignores you.

"I caught word that-" she says.

You cut her off. "Did he call you edgy again? I'll kick his ass. I'll give him so many ass kickings it'll be like fucking Pain Christmas in his ass. He should really learn that the right term is goth, and that it's not a phase, it's just who you are."

She rolls her eyes. "This is serious."

There's something in her voice that tells you this isn't a joke, or a prank, or some mind-fucky bullshit, so you shut your yap and listen.

"I caught word that he's going to try and make peace with the angels." Her voice is barely audible, but audible nonetheless, and can you just say, what the fuck.

"Well, that's clearly bullshit," you say, because really, that's fucking bullshit.

"Is it really that surprising? Bro's been favoring his angel-winged smuppets lately, didn't you tell? Along with the fact that they have a position of power over us, what with a competent king and trusted citizens. Bro actively wrote down in one of those little journals-"

"You read his journals?"

"-one of those little journals that he knew of this, and that he might need to forego his pride to make peace."

You're skeptical, but fuck, why would Rose lie about this? "You're shitting me. You're shitting me so hard right now, Rose. We're gonna have to ring up the human police to take you to fucking jail, Rose, for your crimes against my shit."

"Well, despite your skepticism, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?" Rose moves back slightly, literally just so you can see that smugass smile of hers. She even dares to let her demon teeth out, for a second, gleaming in the neon lights around you.

"Yeah, I guess, but jeez, fuckin' weird conversation topic there," you mutter.

"You asked me, and I quote, 'what shit in your dinner this time'," Rose recalls, "it would've been rude of me not to answer, and you'd have coerced me into answering, anyway."

Alright, so maybe she's not wrong there. You stand on your toes to rest your chin on her head. You don't need to stand on your toes, but it makes you feel tall, and it makes Rose annoyed. Making Rose feel annoyed is your life and blood.

Unfortunately, before you can run off into some bullshit ramble for the peak of Annoy Rose Time, your phone vibrates, buzzing against your leg.

"Oh, shit, better take this," you say, pulling away from Rose, "five bucks it's Bro."

"If it's not Bro, then color me surprised," Rose huffs, watching you only for a moment before disappearing into the crowd.

You twist around people and narrowly avoid getting bumped at least three times before you reach the door leading outside. The knob is really fucking cold when you twist it, but the air that comes through when you open it is colder.

You step out, watching as the neon lights fade from your vision and the noise becomes muffled. Your breath turns into ghosts as you exhale, latching onto the cold and climbing into the dark, night sky. You tilt your head up, gaze on the sky. There's no stars. Shame. Only dark clouds.

The noise from your phone snaps you out of your thoughts, and you raise it to your head.

"Finally," a voice growls.

You walk down the alley in which the club is situated and lean against a cold, hard wall. "'Sup?"

"Bro. Home. Now."

"Shrimp. Heaven. Now," you retort, trying to mimic his tone.

"Don't fuck with me," he says, voice emotionless as always, "got important shit t'do. Need you here now."

"Alright, alright, don't get your sick little smuppets in a twist-"

"Get your sibs, too."

"Shit, dude, it's gonna be like a fuckin' party up in there. Like one of those cliche human movie ones with the red cups and all that shit and-"

He hangs up on you.

You lower the phone. One of your hands goes to your chest, and wow, is that your heart beating so fast? Whatever the fuck.

You slip your phone back into your pocket and retreat back into the club, where all those drunk fuckers are even more intoxicated. Dancing's still going strong, though, even if they're stumbling like all hell.

Now you gotta find your sibs in this place. Great.

You slip into the crowd, ignoring how close all the other fuckers are, and try to listen out for your sibs' voices, or keep an eye out for them. God, you wish they weren't so elusive sometimes. Or at least wore brighter clothes.

Speaking of which...

A flash of light pink appears in the crowd, accompanied by a cheer from a familiar voice. You wriggle through the crowd towards it. At least she wears bright colors, huh?

Roxy dances like a drunk, but she's sober. That's a surprise, but hey, you ain't complaining.

You press your shades up to your face and grab at her wrist.

"Roxy, we gotta go," you say above the noise.

When Roxy realises that it's you, she pouts. "Aw, come on, we just got here."

That's a pretty blatant lie, but you're gonna let it slide. "Bro wants us back, pronto."

Before she can argue you yank that fucker out of the crowd by her wrist. She's taller than you and could probably overpower you if she really wanted to stay, but hopefully she just recognizes that this is a Bro Thing and you gotta tend to Bro Things quickly.

"You know where Dirk or Rose are?" You ask.

"Prolly off bein' emo somewhere to be honest," she says, and yeah, you can't really argue with that.

"...So we gotta check all the dark spots here."

"Yup."

Still holding on to Roxy's wrist, you head off to check the corners. Your Emo Radar is practically screamin'.

Sure enough, as you approach a corner that's only lit up by shitty neon signs, there they are, in all their glory. Dirk's sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, and Rose is also leaning on the wall, but standing up. Damn emos and their leaning on walls in shittily lit corners of buildings.

Rose shoots you a peace sign, and Dirk just says, "hey."

Rose gives you and Roxy a lazy, unamused gaze, and you'd bet your dick that Dirk'd be doing the same if he didn't have his shades on. He's got those kind of vibes.

"Bro, right?" Rose guesses.

"Man, you read my mind," you say, "no shit. The guy wants us back. Dude's impatient as fuck. Didn't even say what he wanted from us."

Dirk and Rose exchange a Look™️ and promptly straighten up. Or stand up, on Dirk's part. The neon lights reflect off of Dirk's shades. It's such a fuckin' aesthetic, but you're not about to get lost in the thought.

As soon as you turn around and let go of Roxy's wrist, you can hear her talking loudly to Dirk about irrelevant shit. Whatever. You gotta twist and dodge through the crowd again, and as annoying as that is, it's gotta be done.

The smell of alcohol absolutely fucking reeks as you go through. You're kinda glad that you weren't allowed alcohol. As fuckin' stupid as it is that you can go wherever you want because of your royalty but you can't get some fuckin' booze, seeing this shit makes you think that maybe it's a good thing.

You don't need to look back to know that your sibs are following you. Hell, they're probably better at navigating through the crowd than you are.

Rose gets out of the crowd before you, and has to pull you out. That's embarrassing as fuck. You try to ignore it.

The cold air outside is sweet as anything, now. It's music to your ears, ironically, because there was actual music in there but the silence is a lot better. Hell yeah.

As the cold hair hits your face, you stand there and soak in those cool, cool vibes, ignoring as Dirk and Roxy push past.

"Hopefully he's not making us come home so he can do dumb shit," Dirk says. You know the sentence is aimed at you, but he doesn't face you.

"I mean, I could message him." You shrug. No big deal.

Roxy makes a sympathetic face at you, but you steel your face and shrug again.

"If you think it's not gonna annoy him, then sure," Dirk says.

You take this as an okay to slip your phone out of your pocket. Well, you didn't need an okay, but...

When you look up again, the other three have started walking. You didn't even notice. And they didn't tell you. Rude.

You jog to catch up to them. Dirk and Rose are really embracing their emo by looking off into the distance while Roxy rambles about some bullshit in the club. You look down at your phone and hope that you don't run into a wall or some shit.

- - turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering (ERROR) [TT] at 4:13 - -
TG: sup dude
TG: mind givin us a lil explanation on why you want us home and shit
TG: idk about you but i like knowing what im gonna do
TG: i mean if im walking into one of those horror house things obviously i dont wanna know but shit
TG: this is more like
TG: walking into a fuckin human store you know
TG: if you dont know what youre doing youre just gonna stand there
TG: some people are gonna come ask you if you need anything
TG: bad times bro
TG: bad times

You go to type out the next sentence, but Pesterchum informs you that Bro's typing. Fucking finally. For a dude that can fight super quick he sure is super slow at replying to shit.

When he does reply, you have to read it. You have to read it over and over and over for it to register in your brain.

TT: Fine, since you're being such a little shit about it.
TT: I thought you'd got some appreciation for the element of surprise. Apparently not.
TT: We're makin' peace with the angels, little man.
TT: And you guys are gonna be a super fuckin' cruicial part of it.