Chapter Text
It had been a steadily escalating series of conversations and messages that led up to Karl bursting through his office door--actually making him jump a little--and declaring with an utterly grave tone, “It’s happening.”
Vio stares at him for a few seconds before letting his breath out in a long, tired sigh. “Karl, you’re not dying.” There’s a slightly wild glint to the former time traveler’s eyes as he strides forward to slam his hands down on Vio’s desk. The alien resists the urge to avert his gaze (every time he looks at him he superimposes a mangled face and the light leaving his eyes and the guilt is almost more than he can bear--) as Karl tells him, “I’m dying, Vio. I’m literally dying .”
Vio suppresses the flinch he almost has. “Karl, you’re exaggerating.” “No, I’m not! Vio, please , I’ll die ,” Karl protests, a slightly wild look to his eyes.
“Karl Jacobs, you will continue to live and breathe just fine. Me not taking you to meet yourself but as a cat will not, in fact, be what kills you.” Karl scowls at the other for several moments, before he pulls back a little. Expression growing determined he intones, “Fine. You leave me no choice.”
The man pulls out his com, taps something out, puts it away, and then collapses onto the floor in an actually rather impressively dramatic way.
The sinking feeling in Vio’s gut is proven right as several others enter his office, and sit next to Karl on the floor. He steeples his fingers as he watches Niki, Skeppy, Sapnap, Tommy, Ranboo, Orph, Atlas--actually, it’s starting to look like most of the SMP are trying to cram themselves into the room to sit down on the floor or lean against the walls.
“...What the fuck are you all doing,” he asks, in hopes that he’s wrong about their goal. He’s not. “Were fuckin’ doin’ a sit in protest! We want to meet all us but we’re cats!” Tommy answers for the group, and at this point Vio notices the shock of lime green in a corner. “Seriously? Even Dream is in on this?” Dream raises his eyebrows a little. “I like cats,” the admin says, slightly defensively.
Vio lets out another sigh and rubs his forehead. “I’ll...I’ll ask. But--” The inhales of breaths for cheers is cut off by his sharp addition, “If cat world Antfrost says no, that’s the end of the discussion. I’m not forcing all of you on the poor man, no matter how much everyone wants to cuddle the cats.”
There are a few grumbles of unhappiness at that. Vio pointedly ignores them, and pulls out his com. He had organized the list of worlds and contacts within them based on a few factors, which made it fairly easy to locate the world he wanted. He put in the earpiece and dialed the number, resisting the urge to just hold his head in his hands.
“Uh...hello?” “Hello, Ant. It’s Vio--do you have a minute to talk?” “Oh, hey. What’s up? Are you looking for more videos of the cats? It’s really sweet that everyone is so curious about them, the weirdness of all of that aside.” “Well...there’s no easy way to say this. I’m being held hostage in my office via most of the server staging a sit in protest. It’s over my continued refusal to drag them all to your world to see the cats. I’m happy to give you whatever you want from here--I know you expressed some curiosity about magic, enchantments, and potions. Just...for the sake of my sanity, please let me drag these idiots over so they’ll stop all of this.”
He hears Ant’s surprise at that. “...That’s...hmm. Uh...for how long?” “Just a few hours. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy them.” Vio looks up as Niki says brightly, “I can bring some stuff from the cafe! And recipes!” Bad raises a hand, beaming at the idea. “Oh, me too! I’ll bring muffins!”
“...And now there are offers from both Niki and Bad to bring food,” Vio sighs, and he hears a little laugh on the other end. “As long as they don’t...I don’t know--try and go out sightseeing, if they look anything like you...yeah. That sounds fine. I’ll take them up on the baked goods, and on you giving me some of your magic stuff to look over. Let’s plan on doing it in..three days should be good. Are Theo and Day going to be coming back…?”
Vio snorts at the question, looking over at the two as they leaned against a wall. “Day’s other kids will be there, so the they would literally rather die than not be there with them.” The immortal grins at him. “Tell Ant I said hi.” “Yeah! Tell him that he’s fuckin’ pog!”
An eye roll follows that. “They say hello, by the way. They’re a part of this, because Prime forbid we all go a single fucking day without some new form of chaos and anarchy popping up.” “Yeah, I’ve, uh--seen the videos and pictures you’ve sent. It...certainly seems like an interesting place you have,” the man tells him, audibly a little hesitant to speak too badly about it.
Vio laughs a little. “To put it mildly. Thank you, Ant. I’m sorry in advance for whatever they all get up to. I’ll let you go, just--maybe try to warn anyone else that might be there about this.” “Yeah, probably a good idea. My helpers already think I’m insane, so...I’ll likely have them over, just to get them to stop the pitying looks.” “That’s fine. Thank you again, and see you in three days.” “See you then!”
The call disconnects, and Vio looks up at the group as they burst into cheers. “Congratu-fucking-lations on breaking me. We're going in three days. Niki, Bad, he said that he was interested in you both bringing food over. All of the rest of you get to organize the payment for this. Figure out amongst yourself who gets buff potions--normal only , not splash--some enchanted books, and a netherite shovel with good enchantments. I don’t want to see any weapons-- including axes --or debuff potions, nor anything with curses or thorns. Someone also should get some more standard valuables--netherite, diamonds, gold, emeralds. If I’m not happy with whatever I get shown before we head over, the entire trip gets cancelled. Now everyone can get the fuck out unless they have actual business in here.”
Day laughs at him as people start filing out. “Definitely not a dad, huh?” “Shut up, DayDream. I’ve stabbed you before and I’ll do it again.” Day only laughs more at the threat. “Have fun with trying to do that!” He grins, giving a little wave as he leaves with his small gaggle of kids in tow.
This was going to be a nightmare, probably, but...well, at least everyone seemed excited. So it...might go well. Possibly. If he was lucky, the stars aligned, and could stop Dream from doing anything stupid.