Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’re in your childhood apartment, the one you’d lived in until you met Rose online when you were ten and the two of you decided to leave your fucked up lives and go off and adventure together. Some things are eerily familiar and others are completely unrecognizable, feeding into your confusion.

One minute and three and a quarter seconds later, someone else appears; he’s as pale and blond as you are and he’s wearing a snapback, a white polo, a set of very familiar shades, and a pair of fingerless leather gloves. He’s in a fighting stance, but one that would require a sword. He holds the stance for a second and you see him notice you in his peripheral vision. The stance changes to an unarmed one but otherwise he doesn’t move as he surveys the room, keeping an eye on you for the remainder of the minute and three and a quarter seconds until someone else appears.

This time, it’s a kid, a teenager. He looks very much like the last guy, but he’s wearing a maroon getup including pantaloons and a cape- and anime shades, very important to note that this new visitor also has the same shades you’d left in the apartment for your bro when he finally arrived. After the second it takes him to take in his surroundings he adopts a defensive position but seems less tense than the man who appears to be his older counterpart.

Unsure how many more Striders to expect, you figure you may as well start to break the ice; anyone else popping in may as well arrive to some pleasant conversation. “Yo, I’m Dave.” You pause for a moment, expecting at least one of them to speak up and introduce themselves, but after a second too long of silence you decide to keep going. “I’d welcome you to my humble abode but this hasn’t been my abode for a long-ass time, and quite honestly I’m not sure what a bunch of this shit is so I’m not sure how much I really should be saying that.”

After another few seconds, the younger one finally speaks up, shooting a glance at the older as he does. “I’m Dirk. This was also my apartment, some of this shit is mine. I assume you’re the one who got it ready for me… Thank you for that, it served me well.”

As he spoke, another Strider appeared, and this one looks- well, like you. A younger you, Stiller shades and all. He’s wearing an outfit similar to Dirk’s, but a brighter red and normal pants. He does a sweep of the room and says, “Shit, looks like we got a motherfucking family reunion going up in this bitch,” as he stands prepared to draw his sword from his strifedeck.

“Hello Dave,” Dirk says, holding out his fist and getting a bump in return.

“Sup, bro.” Dave responds. After he says it, he tenses and glances toward the other guy. The other guy also looks at him. He’s yet to speak, and he’s sporting an impressive Strider-brand poker face so you have no idea what could be causing the tension.

“So, Silent Bro,” you start, drawing the attention away from baby Dave, “if he’s also Dave, can I assume that you’re also Dirk?” The two teenagers keep their eyes on the other guy as he shakes his head at your question. Dirk looks curious; baby Dave looks almost scared. “Care to introduce yourself then?” you press.

Instead of answering, the guy opens the door to the crawlspace and backflips into it, pulling the door closed behind him all in seemingly one swift movement.

“What- can he even get anywhere through there?” You ask, fairly certain that the crawlspace had only ever been just a crawlspace.

“Nah,” the younger you confirms, “he just needs to regroup, I reckon. He was already pretty freaked out based off the fact he wasn’t talking, and then you went and probably correctly guessed his name. I doubt he was expecting any of this, and he ain't used to being caught off-guard.”

You were not expecting any of this yourself, but honestly you’re used to not having any idea what’s going on and just rolling with the punches. The teenagers seem to have at least some understanding of how you’ve all ended up here. “I guess all this means you guys won? The dragon’s been slayed and now we all get to live happily ever after?”

“Pretty much,” baby Dave confirms. “I guess part of the prize is… everyone comes back.”

You nod. “Yeah it is pretty messed up meeting an alternate version of myself, I gotta say.” Younger you lets out a snort that makes you furrow your brow but you continue, “I feel like I should go check on him.”

Both teens look up at the crawlspace. Dirk's eyes stay fixed on it while Dave turns back to you and says, “I don’t know if he’d like that. Scratch that, I know he wouldn’t like that. I don’t know if it would help. It might, but… I mean he was never really… You know what, yeah man, see what happens. Hey Dirk, let’s go check out our room, see what sweet loot carried over.”

Dirk’s eyes remain locked on the door to the crawlspace. It takes the younger Dave repeating his name for him to flinch out of his trance and nod, first in response to his request and then again at you, apparently in farewell as they close the door to ‘their’ room. Shit, you barely even got a chance to say hi to the kid. Did you say hi to him?

You sigh as you look at the door to the crawlspace. You feel bad invading the dude’s personal space when you just met, but what the younger version of you described as ‘needing to regroup,’ you were pretty sure translated into a panic attack.

You knock first and wait to see if there’s a response. When there isn’t, you need to figure out what to say. He shook his head when you called him ‘Dirk’, but baby Dave said you had probably guessed right. And that ‘probably’ confused you too; if he knew this guy well enough to describe his mannerisms and explain his reactions, how did he not know his goddamn name? “Hey- hey, Bro? Can I come up there?” You make sure to speak loud enough that he can hear you through the door, but still get no response. You pull the door open, in case he can't hear you and also giving him a nonverbal way to tell you to fuck off. Hearing a scuffle above, you continue, “I know sometimes you just want some privacy, so if you want me to go just close the door or tell me to leave. But if you don’t, I’m gonna assume you’re just too embarrassed to say, ‘Hey homie, welcome, get on up here so we can get properly acquainted,’ and I’m gonna hussle on up there.”

You hold on, listening for any kind of reaction, eyes on the door still dangling ajar. You try your best not to feel nervous as well as disappointed as you begin hoisting your way up; you hadn’t been hopeful for any particular reaction, but you had expected some kind of passive acknowledgement of acceptance or dismissal. Your legs follow the rest of you through the hole in the ceiling and you hoist them onto the floor in front of you, pulling up the door and latching it closed underneath you; it feels sturdy enough, and you don’t think he would appreciate you getting as close as you would need to in order to not be sitting on the door.

“Sup?” You ask as you get comfortable. You’re met with a poker face that you would’ve found impressive in your younger years, but now you just see it as a frustrating cover for insecurity. “I feel like the kids are probably the ones with the answers right now, but I think I’m gonna need a little while before I’m able to process those answers, y’know?” You’re trying to lure him in with promises of an easy conversation, but for now you’re met with a continued deadpan. Little you had confirmed that the not-talking was because he was freaked out, so if you could get him to talk to you you’d know he at least calmed down a little. However, there was still one barrier you need to cross first. “I would like to know what to call you though.” He bristles a bit at this, so you keep talking instead of waiting for a response. “At this point it's curiosity almost more than practicality. Little me didn’t seem to know for sure either, which is kinda weird since he seemed to know enough about your mannerisms and personality.” He shifts a bit at this, which you decide to take as a good sign. Hmm. “Do you know any sign language?"

“Call me Bro,” he says quietly.

“A'ight, I think we can make that work,” you say with a grin. It’s not a name per se, but it’s something to call him. “It really is pretty sweet to meet you, I know you said that’s not your name but I’m pretty sure you are some AU version of my little bro down there, and that’s dope. Also that flip you did to get up here? Sick as hell.”

“One second I’m fighting some beetle looking motherfucker, then suddenly he turns into a dog and then I’m popping up back here next to some grown-ass version of my- my little bro. I had t'do some kind of acrobatic fucking pirouette.”

“As is our way,” you nod sagely. “I hate to be the one to break it to ya, but I think the beetle dog probably took you out. Last thing I remember things were pretty dicey, can’t imagine I made it out of that alive.” This, apparently is somewhat more distressing news for Bro than it was for you, because he returns to silence after your statement. “But they won, and now we’re back, too.”

The prompting works, it seems, because he responds. “They won. Looks like he’s grown about a foot, too.” And oh shit, that wasn’t something you’d thought about. You had never met Dirk, you missed all of his life so whenever this is that you’re plugged into, you’re going to take it. Bro actually raised baby Dave, apparently. Up until a certain point it seems, and then Sburb took that away, and dropped him back in… hopefully not too long later, the kids are young enough as it is to have gone through something like that, and the longer they’ve spent playing the younger they were when it started- not that your childhood could have been much better.

It’s a pretty depressing train of thought, and that’s not really the vibe you were going for so you try to change it up. “Now that you’re back, you can get caught up. And trust me, young adult Dave Strider gets up to so much bullshit, it’s gonna more than make up for whatever happened in that game. Bro’s gonna have such a sick life you’re not gonna be able to keep enough cameras on hand to catalogue it all. CVS will be constantly backed up in the photo department because of your sweet memories, except no they won’t because I’m gonna hook you up with a home dark room to get those babies developed on the fly. I’ll-”

“Dave already has a dark room,” he cuts you off. “By the way, you should talk to him before you try an’ buddy up with me,” Bro states, head pointed down at his feet. “You’re not what most people would refer to as, ‘keeping good company’ right now.”

“I told him exactly why I wanted to come up here,” you tell him with a shrug. “He just said he didn’t know if it would help. Kid looked nervous but he looked like that as soon as he saw us so I figure it’s more about the situation in general than the idea of me talking to you.”

“Yeah, that's one way to say it," Bro says ominously.

You wait for him to elaborate but when after twenty-three seconds he doesn’t, you prompt, “Then how would you say it?”

Bro’s head turns back toward his feet. It's a while before he responds, “He's scared of me.”

You take a second to process that. That's a fucked up thing to admit about the kid that you raised. “Why do you scare him?” you ask. Apart from his hasty exit from the living room, Bro seems like a pretty mellow guy; soft-spoken and riddled with anxiety, a lot like you were before the old folks pulled helped you pull your head out of your up-tight, insincere asshole.

Bro shrugs with his hands. “Hadda get him ready for the game. If he was gonna be weak, he’d be dead. I don’t-” he stops mid sentence and his fists clench. He’s tense as he tries to continue, “I can’t remember why I- shit!” He stops again and clenches his head, like he suddenly got the worst headache of his life. Before you can figure out what to say Bro keeps going, apparently cutting to the chase. “I should’ve been arrested.”

“Whoa,” you say to start. Hearing an alternate version of your bro, who’d actually raised an alternate version of you, state that he should have been arrested for how he approached the scenario, was quite the statement to process. Sure, there were plenty of people involved in your own upbringing who probably should have been arrested, but that was always for reasons completely apart from you, or at least not focused on you, personally. Still, you don't know what you would've done if you actually been responsible for Dirk, who looks a lot like this guy. Who had been responsible for a kid who looks a lot like you. “I’ve never stopped wondering what it would’ve been like to actually have to get yo- uh, D- uh, my bro, yeah my bro, to have to get my bro through the game. Probably have to teach him a lot of hard lessons early-”

“He has scars,” Bro cuts you off again. “I taught him not to smile. I don’t-” this time, the apparent pain in Bro’s head was enough to make him fall on his side, his knees jerking away from his chest then back, and hands now yanking his hair.

It takes you a few seconds to realize you are not looking at a rapidly worsening headache but an actual fucking seizure holy shit you’ve been alive for less than an hour and now you have to give emergency medical care in a crawlspace? He’s already on his side, and the stash of swords and ninja stars that are up here are on the other side of the door, out of range. So not much to do other than wait it out really, but still can’t a guy catch a break? You’re sure Bro, also less than an hour into rebirth and actively seizing, would agree with you.

It’s over by the time you’re done spiraling, one minute and 48 seconds later. Bro is still and his muscles are relaxed. Unsure what else to do, you put two fingers on his neck and take his pulse. It’s racing. You figure that’s to be expected. Now that you’ve already touched him, you figure it can’t hurt to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as well. Damn you’ve been itching to get your hug on with all these cool-ass Striders you now have the pleasure of calling your family, but until y’all get settled you’ll have to take what you can get. The younger Striders hadn’t seemed all that much better adjusted than not-Dirk here, after all.

By the time you realize you should be worrying about something like this happening to the kiddos, Bro wakes up. “That sucked,” he says, readjusting his hands over his face.

“You remember what happened?” You ask. He doesn’t seem as confused as you think you would be in his situation, maybe this is normal for him.

“I was trying to remember why I was such a piece of shit to Dave and then my body decided to show me what it would feel like if I was the one who fell down the stairs,” Bro says.

“When did he fall down the stairs?” You ask. You can’t imagine no one warning you about the stairs. They’re supposed to tell you, dog!

“About twice a week,” Bro responds, “When we’d strife. That’s fucked up. I don’t know why I thought that was necessary.”

“Yeah dude, I really can’t find any way to argue on that one that is pretty fucked up.” You don’t quite know what to make of Bro’s open admittance of pretty harshly abusing the version of you he raised, let alone his guilt about it. “I feel like you probably shouldn’t stay up here alone right now though, how about we migrate back down to the living room? The kids went to get their room together anyway.”

Still on the floor, Bro nods. He moves his hands from his face to the floor and pushes himself to a sitting position. He jerks the door open and starts forward but you put your hand on his shoulder again, noting how he tenses when you do.

“I figured I would go first so I could help you down and make sure you don’t crack that screwed up head of yours in two.” You resist the urge to pat his back as you say it and simply lower yourself through the hole before he can argue or comment.

You’re nervous he’s going to do something stupid like jump straight out and end up knocking himself out from the impact but after a moment Bro’s legs dip out of the crawlspace and you grab his hips to help lower him into the living room.

“Sit down,” you tell him, moving toward the kitchen. “I’m gonna start trying to find something for-” unfortunately, you’d been about to say dinner without realizing the true nature of the fridge, and are assaulted by an avalanche of blades. You jump out of the way with war-honed reflexes.

“There’s swords in the fridge,” Bro says helpfully, still standing.

You look at Bro, then at the pile of swords, then at the teen’s bedroom. “I’m ordering takeout."

Chapter Text

This guy seems to think he’s good, but since he’s not his cockiness is just another weakness. Unlike mine, which is real and therefore very cool and sexy of me. Cal laughs, which is pretty weird because I’m about to whoop this guy’s ass and win the game for Dave- sorry lil man, too damn slow, try harder next time. I let it distract me and I hesitate for a second, and in that second the guy crackles with green fucking lightning and his head turns into a damn dog. Like I’m suddenly fighting fucking Anubis or some bitch. I adjust my stance to start a jab and-

You’re back at the apartment. Some things have been moved, some have disappeared and who’s this asshole? And where’s your sword? You adjust yet again so you’re prepared to move if this guy attacks, but you don’t think he’s going to. His eyebrows are raised but he looks more unimpressed than surprised. He’s wearing a suit with a red tie and a pair of aviator shades like Dave’s but more expensive looking and therefore less cool. He looks like he could be your father. Not the asshole who kept you alive until you were able to escape from him, but like. If two people saw you on the street, they might think that. He seems familiar.

After you’ve gotten your bearings but before you can actually process the situation, a teenage version of yourself appears. He’s wearing some kind of asshole costume, but that’s fucking you. What the fuck are you supposed to do with this? You’d rather get back to that dog motherfucker, even if he hands your ass right back to you. You don’t like this.

The old man introduces himself as Dave (what the fuck), and he talks like Dave too, and then chibi-you introduces himself as Dirk. That’s funny, at least you don’t have that in common. That’s never been your name. People might have tried to call you that, but you never accepted it.

And now Dave’s here. Real Dave. You think it’s your Dave, but he’s… older. You don’t know what to think. Dave had barely stood up to your shoulder the last time you saw him, earlier today, and now he’s up to your nose. His hair’s longer, and he’s also wearing an asshole costume but his is pretty cool looking, actually. And his voice is deeper, and he sounds a lot more confident than you can ever remember him sounding. He calls Dirk “bro” and the two of you make nervous eye contact. He’s been ready to defend himself since he popped in and his nerves are clear on his face. You’re sure he can see through you too, but you don’t think the others can.

Now old man Dave is asking your name. As a way of politely declining, you abscond. You’d been right under the crawlspace, after all, it would’ve been a shame not to take advantage of the situation. At least, you assume that’s what you thought because in reality you’re sitting in the corner of the small storage area with your head between your knees before you even realize you've moved.

Your breathing sped up at some point, so you work on bringing that down. Before you’re as successful as you’d like to be, there’s a knock from below. You pull your physical form into an appropriately unperturbed mask, your posture rising to something respectable. Pretty harsh way to put it, actually, there’s some shit going down here. You were a bit over-dramatic yeah, but maybe freaking out a bit is justified this time. Who’s judging you, anyway?

Oh.

Cal’s supposed to be judging you, reminding you to judge yourself before anyone else could. Old Dave is talking down there but you’re not listening.

You sense (which sense, you’re not sure) the door opening and flinch hard enough that your head slams into the wall behind you. Your head is spinning, it’s been hurting since that kid Dirk popped up and only getting worse, and if old Dave says anything before inviting himself into your makeshift panic room, you don’t hear him.

Fuck, he’s talking again, rambling in a very Dave-like manor. It makes you feel almost fond, which is a disturbingly unfamiliar feeling for you. When you tune in enough to understand what he’s saying he’s asking about your name again, and you’ve always refused to claim a name for yourself; Cal’s told you your entire life that your life is not your own, your identity is based on Dave and making sure he survives. There was never a ‘you’, just Dave’s Bro.

When he starts trying to figure out alternate means of communication you manage to tell him to call you Bro. And then you tell him a whole bunch of other shit that you’d never really given a second thought in the past but now feels so viscerally wrong and you can’t get your head clear enough to remember why you thought it was a good idea when it happened. Cal would’ve told you if what you were doing was fucked up, right?

The pain in your head spikes- it had spiked a few times already, but those were tiny little ballpoint needles, this is a goddamn awl. You jerk awake because apparently you passed out, and you're on your side and every muscle in your flesh prison is sore. And you’re thinking about how Dave probably felt like this a lot.

Old Dave is still suspiciously nice to you despite confirming your newfound belief that your past actions were certifiably Not Cool™. You’re a little out of it still, so you flinch when his hand lands on your shoulder. He wants to help you down from the crawlspace. God, when did you become so weak? The answer is clearly five minutes ago when you had a fucking seizure, but since when do you have fucking seizures?

Old Dave falls into the trusty fridge-full-of-swords trap (which you now think might be a terrible trap), preventing you from delving deeper into your thoughts. “There’s swords in the fridge,” you say because you’re not sure what else you could say. Fuck, you’re shitty guardian.

Maybe having old Dave here is actually a good thing. He takes charge of the situation, looking toward where Dave and Dirk are presumably holed up talking about Sburb Things and announces, “I’m ordering takeout.”

“There’s menus in that drawer over there.” You point at the appropriate drawer, then make your way around the couch to have a seat.

Old Dave makes a disgusted face. “I’m gonna order online. What’s good around here nowadays?”

Your head is spinning again, from your change in position as well as the mention of ‘nowadays’. What is nowadays? Had you been dropped back in right where you left, or did the world progress along with the kids? Is this even the same world anymore? You shrug in lieu of a response. This would be easier if Cal was here, you think. He’d help you see the reasoning of your past actions, and pick a reasonable choice for dinner. Also, he could see the future. He liked to make it seem like he was omnipotent, but you could see his cracks. When you were able to make yourself look, at least.

“Oh cool, Doordash is a thing right now, apparently,” old Dave had started his own search. “I’m just gonna get a fuck-ton of Taco Bell, should we ask the kids if they want anything in particular?”

You think old Dave knows as well as you do that the proper answer to that question is yes, but is also hesitant to actually approach them.

“Just get a bunch of Crunchwraps and Cheesy Gorditas. They’ll love it,” you say. You know those are Dave’s favorites, and if Dirk is supposed to be you then he should like them too. You should probably feel bad for the kid, having to deal with being you and all, but your displeasure over his existence doesn’t leave any room for that. Or maybe your displeasure over your own existence doesn’t leave any room for anything.

The bedroom door opens as you discuss dinner, cracking slowly as if the kids are assessing the situation before they approach. You realize that you’re going to need to figure out how to interact with them pretty quickly, you can’t exactly keep up the silent treatment. Dave deserves better than that. They approach in silence and you start to worry that you’re supposed to be the one to break it. Fortunately, old Dave swoops in to save your ass.

“Hey little bros,” he says, and you try not to bristle externally about him calling Dave “little bro”.

“Sup, geezers,” Dave responds. You let discontentment show on your face at being compared to old Dave in that regard; you were barely old enough to be Dave’s actual dad before, and even if you had aged with him during the game you’d still be closer to his age than old Dave’s. Dave raises his eyebrows at you playfully and you’re taken aback by the ballsiness. And impressed, as well as somewhat hopeful that it means he doesn’t completely hate you, despite all the reasons you gave him to do so.

“He’s getting Taco Bell,” you hear yourself say. You’d wanted to say it, you’re just surprised it actually worked. “You down to get fat on Cheesy Gorditas?”

“Hell fuckin’ yeah,” Dave replies with a grin. “Let’s get motherfuckin’ gluttonous up in here, Dirk you pumped to taste the holy Eucharist for the first time in your life?”

“Hells yeah. I'm still trying to get my head around the whole living amongst civilization thing, if I'm gonna be honest. It’s weird that I can like, touch you. And see you without a fourth-wall breaking temporally adjustable camera.”

Wow, and you thought you’d had a fucked up life. Civilization may not have wanted you but you’d been a part of it regardless. To be deprived of human contact is one thing but to have never tried Taco Bell? That’s inhumane.

Old Dave, apparently, shares this sentiment. “Whoa, right bro, the ‘Bell would’ve been long gone by the time you were around. A’ight new plan, a bunch of Cheesy Gorditas and Crunchwraps, and also one of everything on the menu.”

You look from the kid to old Dave and back. “When are you from that you’ve never had Taco Bell?” you ask. It’s your first time addressing Dirk and his head snaps to you, and then glances at Dave before answering.

“2424,” he says. You whistle. “Humanity had wiped itself out centuries before. Most of this building was underwater; this was one of the only habitable apartments. Our friend Roxy had landed at the same time in New York City, we stayed in touch online.”

“Roxy,” you repeat, not on purpose. You hadn’t heard that name in a long time. You suppose you should’ve expected to, but even knowing Roxy was raising one of the other players, you had refused to let yourself think about your old friends since you cut ties over a decade ago. When you were just about Dirk’s age, as a matter of fact. Actually, when you were exactly Dirk’s age, to the day.

Having heard him talk a bit more, you’re not surprised he grew up without anybody to talk to aloud. He’ll start talking at one volume, then apparently hear how loud he is and immediately over-correct so he’s difficult to hear at all. He also speaks pretty slow, like he’s thinking about every word individually. That might be that is just naturally intrinsic to you, actually. Dirk is the only one of you without a southern accent, which you suppose makes sense if he was the only person alive in the south.

“What’s Roxy like?” you ask, surprising yourself. You find you’re almost overwhelmed with the need to hear more about this teenager’s experiences with someone who had never been your best friend and you held no emotional connection to whatsoever.

Old Dave replaces his phone in his pocket and comes to sit next to you on the couch, closer than Dave ever dared. Dave is looking at you, poker face strong but the very action betrays his confusion anyway. Dirk tells you about his friend Roxy. The stories he tells are unfamiliar but it’s easy to imagine the person you knew making those decisions in the situations he describes. You remember growing increasingly fed up with certain actions and choices as you grew up, but now you’re having a hard time keeping your face straight as you think about them. Pesterchum unblocks someone as soon as you go offline, so you haven’t been offline since you were sixteen. Maybe it’s time for a reset.

“You had one cool friend out there, at least. Or out then, I guess,” you say. You don’t feel right saying anything about your Roxy- it’s been so long, and you were such an asshole. Why is that so easy to see now?

“Yeah, Roxy’s cool as hell,” Dave chimes in. “They’re funny but still smart as shit, they can hack into anything, they hacked into Jade’s grandpa’s shit from 400 years in the future just to fuck with him. And they’re a pretty sweet artist, too.”

This time you can’t help grinning. “They hacked old man Harley? That is pretty fucking awesome. You seem pretty sweet on them- got a crush, lil’ man?”

Dave turns as red as his costume and bleches. “Dude, that’s my mom!”

That’s news to fucking you. Dirk’s over there smirking like this is some kind of joke and not breaking fucking news. “I beg your pardon?” you ask. You had not been told that that was how it fucking works. Because if Roxy is Dave’s mom, then it would only be logical to assume that you are Dave’s dad. Which you already had, to some extent. He looks like you. He was delivered to you on a meteor by mechanic of some pre-destined video game. You never bothered to try to find them, but you never saw any sign that you or Dave had any biological parents to begin with. You were always too afraid to have your DNA compared, because the fact that it makes sense doesn’t erase the fear of what it would mean to know it's true. And Roxy being his mom on top of it? That just makes your fucked up no-longer-existent relationship that much more fucked up. Also, if Roxy is Dave's mom-

“Oh yeah, I guess that might not be common knowledge. In order for us to uh, exist, John had to go to a slime lab and collect slime copies of you, Rose’s mom, his grandma, and Jade’s grandpa. Then he used it to spit out babies of you guys. Then he mixed them up to make me, Rose, John, and Jade. And that’s how the babies were made,” Dave concludes.

“Mixin’ slime,” you nod. Clones, you guess, for the guardians, and then the kids are, in fact, your kids. You have a daughter. Roxy's daughter. You are not going to be able to process that alongside the 8,000 other things you are going to need to process tonight. It's getting filed away for now.

The food arrives soon enough and you and Dirk eat quietly while Dave fills you in on what he knows about your current situation, old Dave asking for clarification once in a while. Y’all had reappeared in a recreation of your old world (not Dirk and old Dave's world) that had taken on the addition of trolls- an alien species they had teamed up with, and carapaces- the species of the thing that had killed you (before it got merged with an actual dog god, Dave confirmed, making your fatal ass kicking feel like less of an epic fail).

The bulk of the time he’d spent in the game had been hanging out on a meteor with a few friends and waiting to meet up with the rest of their friends. They fucked up early on which gave them a way harder boss than they should've had to beat (and you ended up fighting), but they won anyway. They had to scratch the disk or something to reset and give themselves time to level up, which is why the copies are here. It looks like most of all of your possessions from both sessions had carried over, and that Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff is in fact a multi-million dollar movie franchise as well as a shitty webcomic made by a 13 year old. There are conspiracy theories. Some of them are disturbingly accurate.

There's still food left but nobody has touched it in a while, so you carefully move what’s left to the fridge while Dave tells old Dave about the brutal animosity between their two fanbases and reclaim your seat on the couch. You want to hear about the game even if you have too many questions to voice right now.

Dave has been talking for a while. You’ve learned all about troll romance (you get the idea that he got close to someone on that meteor but he seemed to be dancing around the details), and how the game let them make a bunch of cool shit with literal alchemy, and their frequent meetings with different versions of themselves, particularly Dave in his role as Knight of Time.

Now that he’s given you a fairly solid foundation, Dave's starting to give more details about the things he tells you about. Before he can get into the intricacies of stable time loops, old Dave cuts him off. “Okay baby Dave, that's a lot of information to process in one night. Maybe we-”

“Don’t call me baby Dave!” Dave interrupts, looking properly scandalized as he does. “That's just offensive, man.”

“Well, we need to differentiate somehow!”

“I've been calling you ‘old Dave’ in my head,” you chime in, “Let’s just keep that one going”. You get the feeling this is a battle that's going to turn into a war, and you want to make your loyalties clear from the get-go.

“That is so offensive, dude-” Dave starts without finishing. You hear something in the stairwell to the roof, and assume that’s why. All four of you look at the door. Not wanting to wait to find out what's there, you stand up and grab a sword from the kitchen. Whatever's there is trying to be quiet and probably isn't expecting to be confronted. You swing the door open to find… Dave?

Chapter Text

After the beta version of yourself hightailed it into the attic, Dave called you away to assess the rest of your living situation, leaving your bro to deal with his. You found two beds in the room, two computers at the desk crammed in between them, and two sets of turntables blocking the closet due to lack of space. You stand by the door for several seconds while Dave boots up his computer.

Dave’s talking about how weird it is that it’s all over now. It was such a weird way to live and a lot of shit that he grew up knowing and doing were actually a result of the game- either the game itself's influence, or Bro’s affected actions. And now Bro’s back too, and according to Dave he looks exactly like he did when the game started- when he died. And you know that Bro is you, yet another version of yourself and this is one who is presumably going to exist on the same plane as you, one who’s probably going to exist in the same apartment as you, depending on what you guys end up doing about your living situation. He hasn’t made much of an impression on you so far; Dave seems to think that Bro was unnerved by the situation and needed time to regroup. You think that that is a very polite way of putting it; you know when you’re caught off guard, Bro had done an acrobatic fucking pirouette into that crawlspace.

Dave starts talking about Cal. You had loved Cal, he was your best friend from when you were born and for a very long time the only one you had to keep you company. You know that Dave did not share this experience; the lil' Cal in Dave’s timeline was possessed by Lord English. He spoke to his brother through the puppet and poisoned his thoughts. Now that he’s gone, you're all going to find out how much. You always get uncomfortable when Dave talks about his Bro. You suppose that’s going to start happening a lot more now, along with other people mentioning him and interacting with the man himself. He’d been awful to Dave, and even if he wasn’t in control of his thoughts at the time, you still had to live with the knowledge that a version of yourself did all of that. You’re afraid that you’re going to understand him a little too well, and you imagine he may hate you outright. Dave’s afraid that he’s going to want to forgive him, or that he’s not going to be able to forgive him. Or both? Both could make sense, now that you think about it. Dave talks with a lot of words and you’re not used to his accent, so you have a hard time following him sometimes. Also, complex emotional issues in general are not your strong suit.

All your important shit seems to be here, barring anything you made or got during the game, and Dave says the same. The room is going to need some reorganizing, but that can wait. Dave does some research and finds that you’ve jumped ahead in time from when he left, but that history until that point seems to match his timeline- not yours. Obviously he looks at his comic, finding that your bro’s movie franchise also exists, and that the fans hate each other, often claiming that D. Strider plagiarizes from turntechGodhead, despite TG’s neglect to slap a lawsuit on him. He’s only ever responded to comments and questions on the matter with screenshots from the comics or the movies, sometimes using images from both to make jarring statements that have nothing to do with the question.

Eventually Dave decides he’s had enough poking around his room and the two of you return to the living room to see if his bro has left the crawlspace yet.

As it turns out he has, and your bro is providing dinner. It’s a big deal because you’ve never tried Taco Bell, apparently. There are going to be a lot of big deals coming up, if those are the parameters.

You’re caught off guard when Bro asks about Roxy. Dave does a wide look at Bro, and you catch him glancing at you in the process. He hadn't been expecting that either, it seems. Unsure what else to do, you start telling Bro about Roxy. You start with the first time you talked to each other when you were kids, and then about the game, how they were often your only level-headed compatriot but also often a hot mess that could not be reasoned with. This might be the most you’ve spoken at a time… period. You’d practiced speaking as a kid, in preparation for meeting the others, but when you actually met them you found out that reciting memorized lines and holding a natural conversation are two very different things. You’d gotten some practice, of course, but you’d also spent a lot of time alone in the game, and most of the people you’d been speaking to were your best friends with whom you already communicated with on a regular basis. This is a new game, and the more you listen to yourself the more anxious you get and the harder it gets to talk. Nobody comments on it, so you have no choice except to obsess over it yourself.

Apparently your description impresses Bro because he throws Roxy a compliment, which prompts Dave to add his own opinion of Roxy, which then spirals into The Talk. After being told the truth about where babies come from, Bro stays quiet until the food arrives.

Actually, he’s pretty quiet after the food arrives, but so are you; Dave has started telling your bros about the game. Your bro asks questions once in a while, but you and Bro stay quiet. You had your fill of talking earlier, and now you’re pretty focused on this sick feast in front of you. You pick a taco at random and dig in. This is the height of luxury.

As Dave talks, it begins to hit you that he spent three years in the game- you don’t remember exactly how long you were in, but it was definitely less than a year, probably closer to six months. And Dave is throwing out story after story, and giving some very graphic information about troll biology that you do not think you really need to know, but you do anyway, now. When Dave starts getting into the intricacies of time travel, your bro speaks up.

“Okay baby Dave, that’s a lot of information to process in one night. Maybe we-”

While Dave argues against his new title, something moves in the stairwell outside. Bro immediately stands up and grabs a weapon before opening the door wide.

Standing behind it is an even younger version of Dave. This Dave’s head comes up to your chin and he has a nervous energy to him. He’s skinny, possibly to an unhealthy extent, but you’re no expert. His hair is shorter than either of the older Daves and he’s holding a half-sword in a death-grip. His gaze is fixed on Bro.

“Bro?” he asks, voice breaking. “Why am I back here? What happened to John?”

Dave speaks up from next to you and younger Dave flinches, minutely, as if he was just noticing the rest of you were there. “John’s fine, he’s with his dad and a bunch of family, I messaged him a little while ago after we got out of the game.” Shit, he had? It hadn’t occurred to you to reach out to your friends yet, you’d been so caught up in trying to adjust to being around people. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“GC was trying to trick John into skipping to the last gate and getting himself killed. Actually, in my timeline she already did it, and Jade ended up getting killed, too, so me and Rose kept going for as long as we could to learn shit so I could come back and stop John from dying. And then I jumped into the sprite so I could be my own ghost of Christmas future and then I was on the roof. And you’re… me? And we’re out of the game?”

“Yeah man, we won,” Dave says, face blank. Easter Island-level stone-face happening there. “It looks like our guardians and any living players got to come back to Earth and enjoy the rest of our lives. You don’t remember anything about being a sprite?”

“Uh, no,” small Dave confirms (you doubt this one would appreciate being called ‘baby Dave’ either- maybe less). He pauses before entering the room, walking toward Dave and asking, “How old are you?” as Bro closes the door.

“Sixteen.”

“Is that how long it took you to win?”

“Yup,” Dave says with a pop.

Short Dave nods. “Who are these chucklefucks?” he gestures toward you and your bro.

Dave looks from your bro to you. “He’s an alternate version of us. He’s an alternate version of Bro. His name is Dirk.”

Your alt self has not moved from the door. He has his arms crossed and is looking straight ahead at the wall on the other side of the room.

“And all y’all just live here?” Dave III asks. It does seem like a small space for four, now five people to stay in, now that he mentions it.

“We just got here like four and a half hours ago. How ‘bout I catch you up on some shit real quick?” Dave says with a look to the bedroom. His petite counterpart glances toward the rest of you and nods slowly. The two of them walk away.

“Good to meet you, babier Dave!” your bro calls out.

“Shut the fuck up, old Dave,” Dave says before smaller Dave can, and shuts the door behind them.

You look at your bro and at Dave's bro. Kinda shitty of Dave to leave you alone with them, but you figure the new Dave needs his help more than you right now. You assume that was Davesprite, given his story of being Dave and then jumping into the sprite. There are now a frankly obscene number of Daves, as much as you enjoy their company. You find yourself doing your best not to think about the copy of yourself that you had written into software and then merged with a sprite. Surely, that’s not going to come back to bite you the same way this has come back to bite Dave. You figure you’ll find out in about four hours.

It’s quiet for a moment. Shockingly, old Dave is the one to break it. “So what was Sburb like for you, lil’ broski? Got any cool alien sex positions to share?” He’d been sitting at the computer while you all ate, but since Dave had vacated his seat next to you on the couch, he came to claim it.

You don’t have any cool alien sex positions to share. You’d said a little about your experiences in the game when you were talking about Roxy earlier, and Dave had given them so much information already. Hadn’t your bro just said that they’d gotten enough information to process for tonight? After several seconds of silence, Bro speaks up from your left, “Why don’t I give you two some time to get to know each other?” and rises.

Your heart speeds up; you’re not ready to be alone with your bro, maybe you could've been four hours ago but now you’ve spent so much energy interacting with the group, you don’t have enough left for a one-on-one. Thankfully, old Dave argues. “No dude, stay and hang! They can’t be gone that long, anyway.”

Bro looks at him, then he looks at you. His gaze lingers for a moment, then he grabs the remote and turns the TV on at a low volume. He sits down in the computer chair old Dave had been sitting in before, which is at a very awkward angle for actually seeing the TV, but you don’t question it. You scoot down on the couch so there’s a bit more space between you and your bro, and you’re glad for the audio/visual distraction. You look at Bro, trying not to make it noticeable- had he done that on purpose? Old Dave is visibly confused, looking from Bro to the TV and back, but doesn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you tell us about wherever the hell you’re from, old Dave? You said shit’s different, and Dirkie here missed all the good shit, tell us what’s what.”

Your eyes widen behind your shades at ‘Dirkie’. Roxy’s called you that before, along with a myriad of other nicknames. You assume you could pick out a time where Jane or Jake has called you that in the past. You did not expect to hear it coming out of Dave’s bro’s mouth. It was a bit condescending yes, but more of a tease than a jab. And if you had to guess, it was probably intended to piss old Dave off more than you. You had found, in the brief time you’d spent with the rest of the players, that it is very easy to get under Dave’s skin with a witty, unexpected comment. You’ve always been a master of irony, and it would seem you and your alt-selves have a lot in common.

Old Dave sputters for a moment before choking out, “Well, okay,” and giving Bro a run-down of your history of which you are already very familiar. It’s still cool to hear your bro’s actual version of what happened; not just anyone’s, but his personal account of Ben Stiller’s crucifixion.

Bro keeps a straight face throughout but when old Dave stops talking after describing fleeing from the scene of his dual political homicides, he lets out a chuckle. “You must have no idea how ridiculous that sounds in this universe.” He flips the channel and there is the antichrist himself, sitting in a red vinyl booth and raving about the potato soup in front of him. These must be simpler times.

“Holy shit!” old Dave exclaims, “This shit was dumped into a vault under 24-hour guard where I’m from and here it’s just… is this cable?”

“Yup.” The pop on Bro’s ‘p’ is not nearly as pronounced as Dave’s, more of a breath than a sound.

“Insane,” old Dave says as if he hadn’t just finished using that word to describe the posse of clowns he’d assassinated. For a time, you all sit in silence while the chef talks Guy through what sounds like a frankly disgusting recipe for a cheeseburger. “You know, it’s been a while,” old Dave says when a commercial starts. With a gesture to the bedroom he asks, “What do you think they’re talkin’ about in there?”

“Just about the same thing you and I were talking about earlier, I’d wager,” Bro answers. Well, it’s not really an answer for you, but old Dave takes it and you’re not going to ask. You note that it has been significantly longer than the Guardians had been in the crawlspace- over an hour now, at least- but opt not to comment.

Eventually, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives turns into Kitchen Nightmares and while you admire Chef Ramsay’s tenacity for food safety, your mind drifts back to Arquius. Hal was never human, but he was a copy of you. If a doomed Dave counted as a player, why not a codified version of your thirteen year old brain? But Hal never had a body of his own until he became a sprite (unless you count yours), and Davesprite didn’t remember his time as a sprite at all.

You realize that you haven’t tried your shades, and therefore you still haven’t messaged your friends, or taken the very simple opportunity to see if Hal was already here. Wouldn't that be ironic?

However when you try to login to Pesterchum, nothing happens. Your shades remain just shades. Apparently, the technology you had used to make them had come from the game, and therefore no longer exists. You never bothered to make yourself a phone because it seemed redundant. You really don't want to wait any longer- you feel guilty waiting as long as you already have. The computer behind Bro catches your eye. Dave's description of him when you first met made you wary of interacting with him, let alone asking him for a favor; but Dave also said that Cal had had an unknown impact on Bro, and that he didn't know what to expect now that he's gone. He’d seemed impressed by Roxy, and you're pretty sure he had gone out of his way to take the heat off you earlier with your bro, maybe he'd be down with helping you throw your friends a line. “Yo Bro, can I use your computer to message my friends? I haven't had a chance to fill them in yet and they get butt-hurt about that shit real quick.”

He looks at you quietly for a moment and just before you're about to backtrack and say it's no big deal he responds, “Yeah, I just gotta log out of Pesterchum first.” He drags a hand down his face and takes a deep breath before spinning around in the chair and clicking the yellow icon. He logs out rather anticlimactically and vacates the chair.

“Shit that’s a good idea, it didn’t even occur to me to check, Rosie’s probably blowing up my DMs,” old Dave says, taking out his reality-compliant smartphone. Bro takes a seat on the far side of the couch and fixes his gaze on the TV.

You login to Pesterchum and find yourself drowning in notifications, but none from your auto-responder. Hal is gone. Jane, Roxy, and Jake, on the other hand, are very much present and enthusiastic about their new situations. You apologize for ignoring them, using general chaos of the day as an excuse, as well as your lack of an actual means to contact them, and they’re all very understanding.

You only mention your concerns about Hal to Roxy. They're excited about the prospect of Hal coming back as a person, which makes it hard to feel like your anxiety is being taken seriously. They're also proud to hear that Dave's big scary bro thought they were cool based off your description of them, saying they'll have to give you a fist-bump in appreciation next time you get together, which better be soon. You consider messaging Rose to talk through your concerns about Hal, but your social battery is getting critically low as it is, and the only thing that will actually ease your nerves is waiting out the clock past the point where he’d be likely to appear. It’s been over two hours, so you're about halfway there.

“Everybody's all grouped up,” old Dave said after a while. “Old lady English is wreaking havoc with her grandson's alt self, and the Crockerberts are acting like one big, happy family. The Lalondes are of course the Kardashians to our Beverly Hill Billies.”

Bro nods as if that made sense. Again, you decide to take their word for it. Dave and Davesprite are finally coming out of the bedroom, anyway.

“I hear there's leftover Taco Bell?” Davesprite asks. He seems to be trying to look behind himself to make sure Dave is there.

“Let me get it out,” Bro answers, standing up. He enters the kitchen and opens the refrigerator door without aplomb. It takes him a strangely long time to remove the food that he had so recently placed in the fridge. “There’s two Crunchwraps, three Cheesy Gorditas, and a fuckton of miscellaneous shit here, what do you want?”

Davesprite looks at the pile Bro dumped on the counter. “Is there a Grilled Cheese Burrito in there?” he asks. Bro holds it out. “I’ll have that and two of the Gorditas,” he decides.

“Wanna wait for the toaster oven or just nuke it?” Bro asks.

“I’ll nuke a Gordita and heat the other two up like a civilized human,” Davesprite says, grabbing his choices. He approaches the toaster oven but Bro holds up a hand.

“I uh, haven’t gotten around to dismantling any of the traps in here yet, why don’t I put those in for you?”

Davesprite looks shocked. “You’re dismantling the traps? Why?”

Bro appears to think for a moment, looking at Davesprite. “You won the game. No reason to keep that shit around anymore. It's chill time.”

Davesprite glances at Dave before nodding, and hands over his food and takes a step back. Bro gives him another nervous glance before removing the cover for the outlet near the toaster oven, and taking something out of the casing. He replaces the cover and then opens the toaster oven, taking something else out before plugging it in and turning it on to heat up. The food goes in, and he repeats a similar routine with the microwave.

“Okay list of priorities for tomorrow morning,” old Dave starts, “Number one: breakfast. Number two: getting rid of every single one of these ‘traps’. Who are they supposed to be traps for, anyway?” he wonders.

Bro shrugs. “Anyone who tries to get into the fridge? Me and Dave, I guess? I was never too concerned about intruders… like I said I’m having trouble figuring out why I thought a lot of the shit I did was a good idea. I’ll take care of the rest of this shit tonight, I can clean up my own bullshit.” The microwave beeps behind him and he turns to take out the plate and hand it to Davesprite, who sizes it up before opening it a tad, presumably to let some of the heat out.

“Nah, it’s late already, and you had a seizure before, you should rest,” old Dave tells him, much to your surprise. Both younger Daves voice their shock as well.

“Bro you had a fucking seizure?” Dave asks after his sputters. “When? What happened?” Dave is letting his confusion come through, but Davesprite is trying to hold his mask. It’s pretty good, but you’re pretty sure he’s scared.

Bro glances at old Dave like he’s hoping he’ll answer for him, but old Dave just raises his eyebrows. Bro takes a deep breath and looks back at Dave, then at Davesprite as well. “I was thinking about how bad I fucked up with you,” Bro pauses and you think you see his lips pull a tad. “I gotta apologize for all that shit I pulled… getting you ready or whatever. That wasn’t the right way to do that.” Bro puts his head in his hands and flinches, but doesn’t stumble. “And thinking about that shit has been making my head… fucked,” he finishes, poking his shades out from above his fingers.

Dave looks at Davesprite, who just looks back at him. Dave sighs. “We’re back for round two now. Let’s see how it goes from here,” he says. Davesprite nods.

Bro nods back. You suspect he is also thinking about how it feels like now would be an appropriate time to hug them, but while his hands are no longer covering his entire face, Bro is still holding his head as if in severe pain, likely dialing up the self-preservation instinct and making him unlikely to go out of his comfort zone to go above and beyond as a guardian right now. He does remove his right hand to ruffle them on the head one at a time, and Davesprite promptly returns his attention down to his food, housing the taco. Bro returns to the toaster oven, peeking inside. Apparently satisfied, he turns it off and walks over to Davesprite, putting a hand out for his plate. Davesprite hands it over wordlessly and Bro reloads it and gives it back.

Bro returns to his seat on the couch and Davesprite sits on the chest behind him. Dave perches on the edge of the chest after him.

“We need to figure out where we’re all gonna sleep,” old Dave states. Now that he’s said it plainly, you realize he’s right; there are two twin beds, one futon, and five of you, possibly a sixth on the way- you should probably mention Hal soon, the more time passes the more sure you are that he's gonna pop up.

“DS here and I can share for tonight but we’d rather get something else figured out sooner rather than later,” Dave says, gesturing to Davesprite. You suppose they worked out a nickname while they were talking.

“If Hal shows up I suppose we can do the same,” you say. When everyone looks at you, you clarify, “When I was thirteen I programmed a copy of my brain into a pair of sunglasses, and he lived as a sentient being in there until I threw him into a sprite in the game. Since DS- can I call you DS?” At DS’s nod, you continue, “Since DS has joined us, I believe there is a chance that Lil Hal will appear as well, four hours and thirteen minutes after DS did.

“One hour, thirty-seven minutes from now,” Dave supplies.

“Okay well, his sleeping arrangements are already taken care of, then. Tomorrow I’ll look into what’s going on with my property; I’m partial to my house in LA, but if you guys would rather I have a home in Houston too, it’s smaller but it’s… in Houston,” old Dave says.

Bro looks at him. “Futon’s not that small,” he says, “I can pull it out for once, so we can share for tonight.”

Old Dave nods. “That was pretty easy. Do we wanna turn in now, or stay up to wait for this potential Hal character?”

You’re exhausted, but you don’t like the idea of Hal popping up with nobody to confront him. “I’ll stay up a while,” you say. DS gets up from his seat to throw away his paper plate, then reclaims his place next to Dave. Technically, your guardians could still go to sleep now, but it would be a tad awkward with the three of you hanging out. As if he had the same thought, Bro takes the remote, as Kitchen Nightmares had become a dull home shopping show, and turns on MTV to let The Hangover Part 2 play.

Bro looks at you, turned around from the computer desk to face the rest of the group, and sighs. “Y’know that chair’s got wheels if you wanna move it somewhere else. Or just take the empty seat on the couch.”

You blush as you take the chair and roll it over to Dave and DS. It wasn’t that it hadn’t occurred to you that you could move the chair, you just… you certainly hadn’t been waiting for permission, but even though this has been your apartment your entire life too, it still feels like you’re intruding in their space. It would have felt presumptuous to have moved the chair before.

The movie passes in comfortable silence, with some mumbled commentary early on, but all of you are too tired by the end to come up with anything worth voicing aloud. You check the time; it’s been over an hour and 45 minutes, meaning Hal should’ve popped up by now, if he was going to.

The Daves are looking at you. Feeling unsettled, you decide to take action. “I’m gonna check out the roof.” That’s where DS popped up, after all, and if he’s not there then you’ll at least get a moment to yourself.

You are not so lucky. You ascend only to reach the top and see a younger version of yourself cowering by the broken air conditioner unit. While you believe DS is an exact copy of Dave at thirteen, there seem to have been some liberties taken with Hal; his hair is darker than yours ever was, as is his skin, and you can’t imagine you were ever that skinny. “Hal?” you call to get his attention.

Hal looks up. Relief crosses his face when he sees you. “Dirk,” he says slowly and lowly, “What is going on?”

“You merged with a sprite during the game. A bunch of bullshit happened and we won, and now we’re here on pre-scratch Earth along with Dave, his bro, our bro, and Davesprite, who is now going by DS. Do you wanna go down and meet everyone?”

Hal glances at the door. “Can we hang out here a little longer?”

You can’t think of a good reason why not. Maybe you should pop down and let everyone know what’s going on, but you don’t really want to leave Hal alone; earlier, that had been because you were worried he’d stir up trouble. Now, you’re just seeing him as the same scared kid that you were when you first decided to copy your brain and it used so much power you were afraid you’d never be able to contact your friends again. Going through that period alone had been terrifying. This time, you’re here with Hal. You can get him through this.

Chapter Text

You were already stressed out being back at home with your bro. Now, thirteen-year-old you is also here, and while you hadn’t thought you’d done a very good job working through your trauma over the last three years, you see very clearly that you’ve made a fuckton of progress in that time. Maybe it’s just because he’s you that you can tell, but you don’t think he’s doing a very good job concealing his nervousness.

“So Bro’s not dead?” He asks as you close the door.

“Not anymore,” you answer. “He was, but pretty much everyone came back in duplicate after the game. Except us, we’re back in triplicate, but that was because of time shenanigans.”

Your younger self nods and slides down to the floor, lowering his head between his knees and breathing raggedly. You sigh, but you can’t hold it against the kid; you’ve had three years to process your feelings about Bro, and you had plenty of panic attacks in that time, yourself.

“Dave,” you say, your own name feeling strange in your mouth. You met plenty of Daves over time, but they always acknowledged that you were Dave Prime, and if you called each other by name it was ironic. This Dave used to be like that, but for one thing, Davesprite had his own life in the game, his own identity. Also, now that you’re back in the real world he seems a lot less like a copy of you and more well, real. “We’re gonna need to get you to settle back down to Earth here, man, can you name five things you can see?”

“Uhm, the fuckin’ floor?” Davesprite mumbles.

“Awesome, there’s one!” you say with as much enthusiasm as a Strider is allowed.

Davesprite sighs and lifts his head a bit. “Cinderblocks?”

“That works.”

“Uhh… is that Geromy?”

“Damn straight it is, Dirk has Bro’s propensity for puppets as well as well-deserved love for the multi-million dollar film series known as Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.”

“For the what?” Davesprite asks, picking his head all the way up to look at you. He’s no longer breathing heavily, so you congratulate yourself on a job well done.

“In Dirk’s timeline, yours dual-y took SBaHJ to the big screen and made some fat stacks off it. Starred Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. And now it exists here.”

“Okay that’s actually pretty fucking awesome,” Davesprite says. It’s quiet for a moment before he asks, “There are two Bros now, too?”

“Yeah,” you confirm. “Dirk’s a cool guy, and he’s kind of an asshole about it but in a funny way. Almost like Rose. He’s also mads awkward because he grew up on a post-apocalyptic version of Earth where he and Rose’s alt-Mom were the only two people alive and she lived in New York. Well, lives actually, they’re all holed up up there in their own reality TV show of family drama, too. Rose says her mom and her alt-mom’s mom have been getting into some passive-aggressive bullshit already. Bro freaked out when we all popped up here, because we all appeared in the living room about a minute apart from each other. Anyway, he jumped into the crawlspace and old Dave out there followed him up to have a feelings jam while Dirk and I searched the web and caught up with the guys. Actually I did the websurfing, and I’m not sure if Dirk reached out to his friends, either. Like I said, he was pretty much completely alone until he got into the game; he was freaking out just being around people, but he didn’t backflip into the ceiling about it.”

Dave’s quiet for a second after you finish. “Feelings jam?” is all he says when he finally speaks. Oh right, he never made it that far.

“It’s part of troll culture,” you explain. “Basically you and your best bro hunker down and get real. Not that they’re best bros, they haven’t known each other much longer than we have, from your perspective. A fuckton less, from mine. But you don’t remember any of that stuff, so I guess it doesn’t count.”

“Yeah it was pretty self-explanatory, I’m mostly just having trouble picturing Bro… feelings jamming.”

“Right, I can’t blame you for that. When he jumped up and old Dave asked if he should go up there, I was like ‘whatever man, your funeral,’ but when they came down they ordered us dinner and Bro asked Dirk about Rose’s mom, Roxy, and he was like… weirdly nice about it? Like Dirk was mumbling and stumbling over his words and talking slow as shit, because that’s how he talks because he never had anybody to talk to before, and Bro was just like, ‘Roxy seems cool,’ which they are, but for him to say it… I mean, you know.”

Davesprite nods. “They?”

You nod back. “Roxy’s agender. They decided they had enough of that bullshit so it’s they/them for them,” you explain.

“Does Bro know this?” he asks, and you understand why.

“Seems like it, he used the right pronouns. Freaked me out, too- if he’s cool with that, then what were we so afraid of, amiright?” Davesprite sighs. You remember exactly how you’d felt imagining people finding out that you were into dudes at his age, and you’re not even that into them. Just the aliens, really. And a lot of that fear was because of Bro, whom you had interpreted to have a distaste for queerness. With the experience you’ve gained over the past few years, you think that distaste may actually be a combination of irony, self-hatred, and Caliborn’s constant shit-talk. You want to tell Davesprite this, but that would mean outing Dirk and while you’re pretty sure Dirk’s going to mention it himself without a second thought the moment it comes up, it doesn’t feel right. “Bro’s a little different now,” you say instead. “He seems a lot more subdued than he did before, he hasn’t gotten up to any of his usual fuckery yet. I think he might even be scared, and I’m pretty sure I know why.”

“I’m having a hard time imagining Bro subdued and scared, too.”

“It’s because of Cal,” you tell him.

“Okay that makes it a bit easier to imagine,” Davesprite says, “But Bro was never scared of Cal, he was his best bro. He’s the one he should’ve been feelings jamming with.”

“Cal was evil,” you tell him. He shrugs, because that’s not that surprising, so you elaborate. “He was possessed by Lord English, the main boss in the game, and I’m pretty sure he was feelings jamming with Bro in his head for his entire life and making him more of an asshole. And now he’s dead.”

“So he’s gonna be normal now?”

“I don’t know man, we just got here a few hours ago. But I think I wanna give him a chance, it’s been really cool to get to know Dirk a little bit, not that we’ve spent much time together either. Bro might be chill too, if he’s able to actually be human. I just wanna see if he realizes how fucked up it was, they way he raised us.”

Davesprite nods. “I’d like to see that too.” There’s a pause, and then he continues, “This whole ‘us’ thing is pretty trippy for the real world, though. In the game it made sense, because that was a game, but uhh, I mean I guess we’re pretty much brothers now even though we’re… both Dave.”

You shrug. “You’re you. I’m me. What’s wrong with two cool guys named Dave?”

“Three," he reminds you. "Who are all brothers?” he asks. You shrug again. “I’ll be honest, I don’t like the idea of being just another Dave.”

“Well,” you say, “You were Davesprite for a while, but you’re still Dave. Be that Dave.”

“I’d kinda rather be Davesprite,” he says. “I’m over the whole ‘Dave’ thing.”

“I’ll call you Davesprite,” you say, deadpan. That’s what you’ve been calling him in your internal narrative, anyway.

“Isn’t that weird?” he asks, “It’s not like I remember being a sprite in the first place, as far as I remember jumping into it just flung me back here.”

“You told me the shit you and Rose went through in that timeline, are you really still concerned about being weird?”

“I feel like I’d get some looks walking into Starbucks and getting a frappuccino for Davesprite.”

“Starbucks baristas are not paid enough to give a shit.”

“What if I shorten it to DS?”

Why not? “Why not?”

“Okay. I’m DS now. You sticking with Dave?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah.” It really hadn’t occurred to you not to. Just because of that old bastard? He can pick a new name if he wants, this one is yours.

“Well, next order of business then,” DS starts. “Where’s everyone sleeping?”

You look around your room. Shit, there are significantly more people than beds now, aren’t there. “We’ll probably have to share a bed for tonight, and just figure shit out for real tomorrow, because yeah this is not gonna work long-term.”

“A’ight,” DS says. After a moment he asks, “You’re sure Dirk’s cool?”

You suppose he’s thinking about the other bed in the room. “Yeah, Dirk’s definitely cool, we don’t have anything to worry about if he’s bunking with us.” You are now considering the possibility that Dirk and his bro will agree to share on the condition that they get the bigger futon in the living room, which would mean that Bro would get the other bed in your room. You’ll have to try to telepathically project to Dirk not to make or agree to that suggestion. Actually, you might not have to worry; Dirk had put his bro up on a pedestal his entire life, and now that he’s faced with him in person he doesn’t know what to do. Dirk would probably rather share with Bro than old Dave. Y’all were really not designed for close quarters like this.

“John, Jade, and Rose are dealing with the same bullshit?” DS asks.

“Yeah,” you confirm. They all have fucking houses though, Rose and Jade have goddamn mansions. “I should let them know you’re here, too, this is pretty big news. I wonder if any of their sprites came back. Like, a fuckton of people got chucked into sprites, but you might’ve been the only one who was actually alive at the time. Most people were just severed heads. John’s grandma was ashes, I wonder if that counts. He might have a second nanna to force-feed him labors of love, now, I bet he'd complain about it.”

“Who else got chucked into sprites?” Davesprite asks.

“A fuckton of trolls, mostly. And Rose, eventually. Jaspersprite chucked her dream corpse into a fresh kernel and then fuckin’ glomped her and Jasprosesprite^2 was born.”

“Sprite^2? Damn, I didn’t think shit could get any more fucked up than it already was.”

“Idk if you wanna hear this buddy, but you became a sprite^2, too.”

“I did?” he asks, “Do I wanna know?”

“Do you remember AC? The troll who used cat emojis and liked to roleplay?”

“Okay I think I’m fine with that actually, they were chill. Uhh, I forget was that one a girl or a boy?”

“Well, Nepeta was a girl, but once you two fused you said you didn’t really give a shit about being either gender so you switched to they/them.”

“Oh,” DS says, taking a second. For once, you can’t read his face. “Cool.” Is all he says. Weird. But again, who cares about being weird?

“I should message everyone, let them know you’re here,” you say eventually. “Or do you wanna do it? I guess if I got the name, you should get the Pesterchum account.”

He looks at you. “They’re all from your timeline right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll make my own account. But I will use yours now to message everyone, I haven’t talked to John and Jade in a long time, and last time I saw Rose I was leaving her alone to die.”

“Oh yeah, she actually remembers your timeline because of Seer bullshit. I think she’s gonna be happy you’re here, you saved us all by going back.”

DS blushes. “It was the only thing left to try,” and scoots into the computer chair as a distraction. He shoots out a copy/pasted “yo say hello to the artist formerly known as davesprite. im DS, im 13, and i don’t remember anything that happened after i jumped into the sprite and saved johns [your] goddamn life apparently”

Rose and Jade are tickled pink to reacquaint themselves with you as you were when you were thirteen, but John maintains his trademarked smoothness, which is to say he makes an ass of himself. For one thing, he makes it a point to write ‘D.S.’ which is subtle, but it also means he’s doing more work to not match how he’d introduced himself. Also, for some reason John can’t seem to understand that DS’s memory just stops; he did not pass go, he did not collect $200. And John is bringing up several things that are making both his own and Jade’s conversation with DS increasingly awkward.

“Okay,” DS says eventually. “I’m fucking starving. Any chance there’s any food in this hellhole?”

“There is a fuckton of leftover Taco Bell,” you tell him. Walking out there earlier and hearing Bro state that food was on the way was fucking surreal, and getting to tell your thirteen-year-old self that yes, there was something substantial and easily accessible to eat feels really, really good. DS’s mouth hangs open as you gesture for him to follow you out of the bedroom.

He stands a step behind you and to the left, glancing at the rest of the room’s occupants nervously. “I hear there’s leftover Taco Bell?” he asks.

Bro jumps up to prepare it, shooing DS away when he tries to brave the appliances. You’re shocked when he states his intention to completely dismantle all of the traps. What’s home without cherry bombs in the ice maker? But Bro is insistent, and- according to Dirk’s bro he had a seizure?

First of all, fucking when? In the crawlspace? Just now, while you were talking to DS? Dirk looks as surprised as you do, so probably not. “When? What happened?” you ask.

And Bro… apologizes. Without prompting, without any excuses, he just admits that he fucked up, and apparently feels bad enough about it that it’s fucking his brain up on na physical level. You look at DS, and DS is looking at you. You sigh and tell him you’re willing to give him another chance.

Old Dave brings up sleeping arrangements. You let them know that you and DS had already come to an agreement, and Dirk announces that he’s pretty sure Hal is going to be joining you all on the Island of Misfit Toys. Alright, why not? What’s one more Strider in the high-rise, at least this one will have his own name. You, Dirk, and DS vote to stay up and wait for Hal by not leaving the living room, and Bro changes the channel to MTV. It’s playing the sequel to a movie you’d seen promos for before the world ended. Dirk moves to sit closer to you when Bro calls him out for being a loner sitting by the computer. You try to keep up some commentary throughout, but honestly you’re fucking beat and by the time the monkey gets shot you don’t have the juice to say anything about it.

After the credits roll and everyone realizes that you’ve passed Hal’s presumed arrival time, Dirk announces his intention to check the roof. It’s quiet, except for the intro to Catfish: The TV Show. As the awkward man and the woman who was eighteen years older than she was in her picture decide to give it a shot, old Dave speaks up. “Think he’s okay out there?” It is close to one in the morning, and you’re still not sure that Hal is even there. “I kinda wanna check on him,” he says.

You don’t think that’s a good idea. You could feel Dirk’s battery draining throughout the evening, and especially if he’s out there with Hal right now you can’t imagine that he’s going to react well if his bro goes out to ‘check on him’. Before you can think of a polite way to phrase it, Bro speaks up. “Yo man, I do not think that kid is ready to be alone with you. And the other one? The thirteen-year-old-turned-computer-program-turned-human? Probably not ready to chum it up either.” The pause between sentences feels like an eternity even though you know for a fact that it’s no longer than average. “I’ll check on them.”

You expect DS to relax a bit once Bro leaves the room, but instead he seems to stand even closer to you. He’s looking at old Dave with apprehension, and you can’t pretend you don’t feel it, too. It’s been a while since you’ve been around any adults, and your history seems to be enough to trigger your fight or flight instinct (which had been honed from a young age to suppress the flight, despite the bird imagery). You are ready to unlock your strife deck, even though you’ve made no conscious adjustment.

“So, DS,” old Dave says, “Wanna tell me a little about yourself?”

DS glances at you. “I’m him but three years in the past. Apparently I did some shit that helped them win but when the game ended it shot me back to before I became a part of it. I guess. I hear you’re also us?”

“Yeah, from a version of Earth where ICP and Guy Fieri became our most powerful government officials. I hear that’s a pretty wild concept for you guys.”

“It was, until I read who’s currently president in this timeline. Kinda makes me yearn for the juggalos,” you say.

“I know I’m going to have to find out, but I really really don’t want to,” old Dave says. “Do you know anything about Hal? You seem to know about everything,” he asks you.

You tell him Hal is basically Dirk but a bit more light-hearted, and more openly devious. He laughs at that, for now.

Bro comes back a few minutes and lets you know that a new player has in fact entered the game. Or exited. Dirk is going to fill Hal in before they come down, and they said not to wait up for them.

You decide to take them up on that and head off to bed, DS behind you. It feels weird crawling into bed together when there’s an empty bed right next to you, but Dirk and Hal will be coming down sooner or later. You don’t care really, you’re just ready for sleep.

Chapter Text

You’re over this shit already. Not only are you the third fucking Dave, but there are three Bros? Dealing with one was overwhelming. It was pretty trippy when he insisted on getting your food ready for you and making the apartment trap-free, and then he went and apologized for being such a dick.

You are so fucking pissed. Thirteen years of hell, of being terrified in your own home and not even realizing it half the time, and now, after talking to Dave Prime and Bro himself you don’t even feel like you can be mad at him. Lil’ Cal always creeped you out, and you couldn’t understand why Bro was so into him. You can picture Bro looking at Cal silently but intently, and it’s easy to imagine him listening to Cal spit some shit about you and then spitting it back in your face. You can almost hear Cal call you a weak piece of trash and urge Bro to force you to do something impressive, only to end with him handing you your ass on a platter.

You remember Calsprite, and imagine him laughing as you tumbled down the stairs and broke your leg when you were seven. You could hear him cackle as you fought through hunger pangs to search the kitchen for anything to eat only to be met with falling blades. You can almost remember hearing his never-ending “hee hee haa haa hoo hoo” as you considered looking up some gay shit on the internet but decided that Bro was way better with computers than you and could totally find out if he cared to track your history. Apparently, without his influence you can expect things to be different.

Dave was right about Dirk as far as his awkwardness, and if Hal is a thirteen-year-old Dirk who spent three years as a computer, then you can’t imagine he’s going to be any better. That’s good, you like awkward people; if you say something fucked up, they’re usually cool if you just acknowledge that it was weird and move on.

Old Dave is scary. Dave Prime seems generally unimpressed with him, focusing more on his relation to Dirk than anything else. You suppose he’s had plenty of experience with alt-Daves, but even with him in the next room you have a hard time picturing any version of yourself reaching middle-age. Your interactions with adults have been limited to Bro, take-out delivery people, and your teachers of varying credentials from over the years. The take-out people have by far been your favorites. Most of your remaining experiences were not pleasant. You don’t know this man, you don’t know his rules; what you’re allowed to say or do around him and what happens if you fuck up. Dave prime just brushes him off like he’s not there and you can’t help being jealous of that.

All of this boils down to you waiting for Dave Prime’s breathing to even out and then letting yourself break down in silent sobs. Your earlier panic attack had gotten cut short by your learning that the world had finally decided to recognize your genius, and now that you’re finally alone it’s all bubbling up. You wish merging with the sprite had been permanent, and that you were actually still in the game spriting it up like Dave Prime said you had been. You bet being a sprite was awesome. You bet you were never sad as a sprite.

Less than an hour later, you hear movement in the living room. You start calming yourself down through the continued shuffles and by the time the doorknob turns you feel like you’re set up to mime a pretty convincing sleep. Your eyes are slits, not because you’re trying to spy on Dirk and Hal, your eyes just do that. And you regret it, because as Hal lays down next to Dirk in the small bed on the other side of the room, your eyes meet and that confidence regarding your poker face is shattered. This kid can see into your soul. Not only does he know that you were just crying, he knows that you were crying about the prospect of meeting him, among other things.

Hal’s eyes remain on you, so you close yours fully as subtly as you can. You pass out pretty quickly, you think, and wake up just as quickly. The sun has just started to rise, and you can see Hal’s eyes are still open and facing you. “Hello, Dave,” he says when your eyes shoot open.

You look at him more closely now that you’re trapped in this introductory bro-down. Whereas you are literally Dave when he was thirteen, Hal looks more like Dirk’s little brother. His hair’s a little darker, as is his skin, and his eyes actually match yours. His speaking voice is a lot more even than Dirk’s, to the point of sounding robotic- which you suppose makes sense. “Hi, Hal. Call me DS. Good to meet ya.”

“DS. Good to meet ya,” Hal echos back. The echo fades to silence and while you yearn to break it, you don't want to risk waking Dave or Dirk, so you grab your shades and gesture toward the living room… where Bro and old Dave are… fully awake and making breakfast?

“Wassup broskis?” old Dave greets you.

“We made pancakes,” Bro states.

There are a fuckton of pancakes. They must have gotten up at like five A.M. to make all those goddamn pancakes. You walk over with Hal trailing behind you and Bro hands you a plate, dipping his head toward the counter which holds a bottle of maple syrup. Old Dave presents a plate to Hal, who stares at it for a moment before grabbing it stiffly and following you over to the syrup. You give a good squirt, making sure to cover a large surface area and maximize flavor. Hal grabs the bottle after you and mimics your method. Can’t blame him, it’s effective.

“Dirk and lil’ Dave are still sleeping?” old Dave asks. You feel like you should comment on the name, but Bro slaps him on the back of the head, so you figure that takes care of that, and simply nod in response. Old Dave has been pointedly not looking directly at Hal, but also clearly keeping him in the corner of his eye. “How did you guys sleep?”

“Pretty good, I guess, I basically just laid down and woke up,” you say.

It’s obvious to everybody that it’s Hal’s turn to speak, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stares at his pancakes, or alternatively, at your pancakes, flipping from one plate to the other as you and your respective bros await his response. You decide to prod, “How about you, Hal?”

Hal looks at you, then at the two adults who had finished fixing their own plates and were taking seats near the two of you. “Didn’t sleep,” he says evenly.

“Oh that sucks, man. You must be fucking exhausted,” you reply.

Hal shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” you ask.

“Don’t remember what it feels like,” he deadpans vaguely. “Been a while.”

Right, he spent three years as a computer program. Makes sense that he’s unfamiliar with physical sensations. He must be overwhelmed as fuck, no wonder he couldn’t sleep. “Fuck buddy, you must have a hell of an adrenaline rush going right now,” you say.

You get the feeling that Hal has a comment, but he doesn’t say anything. You dig into your pancakes and Hal follows suit, lips puckering, you suppose at the sweetness. “Syrup not your thing?” you ask. When Hal nods you tell him, “If you wanna grab some plain ones I’ll eat those.” Everybody turns to look at you, old Dave and Bro both with loaded forks. “There’s like a thousand pancakes over there, I’m doing y’all a favor by having seconds,” you defend.

Old Dave shrugs and Bro looks at you like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. You can definitely see some similarities between him and Hal, some that you’re not sure would’ve been there before. A certain nervous watchfulness that you know you also possess, but you like to think doesn’t come off so directly. They are both visibly aware of their surroundings and prepared to strife or abscond at any moment. You put your plate down on the nearest horizontal surface and rise to get Hal some fresh flapjacks.

He picks up a piece of the unsullied bread patty with his fork and inspects it for a moment before putting it into his mouth. His head quirks to the side as he chews and swallows, and then repeats.

“Looks like the cakes are a hit,” old Dave observes. “That was a good call, Bro. By the way, looks like my bank accounts are still working so that’s a good sign for my property. I figured we could visit both places and then decide which we like better. I tend to bounce around a lot between both, ‘cause of my job. Y’all can swap around, too, I’ll hook you up with a ride whenever.” You wonder if he realizes he’s offering unrestricted travel to a couple of middle school students. Bro seems to, because he’s letting the shock come through on his face and looking from old Dave to you and back.

“Your property?” Hal asks, drawing three sets of covered eyes to him.

Old Dave answers, “I’ve got a house in LA and a house on the other side of Houston. This apartment is a little small for the six of us, so we’re gonna relocate somewhere with a little breathing room.”

“That sounds like a sensible course of action,” Hal says. He is still as tense as he was when you walked into the room. He looks back down at his now empty plate.

Bro speaks up for the first time since announcing the pancakes. “You’re allowed to have as many as you want,” he says to Hal. “Just be careful not to make yourself sick, if your stomach isn’t used to that much food it’s gonna let you know, and it won’t be pleasant.”

Hal looks at him and squeezes his legs together. “It does kind of hurt.”

You watch Bro take a deep breath. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and then decide if you want more.”

Hal’s hands jump to his crotch, and he looks down before looking back at Bro and then standing up. He shuffles slowly toward the bathroom and you hear the door close behind him.

“That’s one crisis averted,” old Dave says. Sighing, he continues, “Poor kid’s all out of whack.”

“He’ll adjust,” Bro says confidently. “He’s just overwhelmed right now.” You assume that’s his old self-assuredness coming through, because looking at Hal you imagine he’s going to have a pretty hard time settling in.

Hal comes back after answering his body’s confusing pleas and grabs two more pancakes. Old Dave scrolls through his phone as you all sit in silence. You feel Bro’s eyes on you through his shades but he still doesn’t say anything to you. He finishes his (also syrupless) plate and moves it to the sink, washing the dishes accumulated from cooking. He must have already gotten rid of the fuse connected to the spout.

When the dishes are clean, Bro proceeds to move about the apartment, disconnecting some wires here, a switch there, all the little things you’ve learned to avoid in your time here. When old Dave realizes what he’s doing he starts following him around trying to help, but Bro has this layout built into his psyche, maybe even deeper than you’d thought before, and letting old Dave intervene would probably just slow him down. You watch his progress with nervous intrigue. He’s moved on to the bathroom by the time Dirk and Dave join you.

You can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu as Dirk exits the room at Dave’s elbow and follows him over to the syrup counter, mimicking Dave’s (same as yours) pour. They proceed to have an almost identical interaction as you had had with Hal earlier. When they’re both settled with palatable plates, old Dave gets down to business.

“After you guys eat, how about we all go across town to check out my house there? I figured we could stay for a day or a while and then once we’re kinda settled we can go up to LA and see how we like it there and see what we wanna do.”

You shrug. It feels fast, but the alternative to fast is another night sharing a bed with Dave as well as a room with Dirk and Hal. The sooner you get out of here the sooner you can get a minute to yourself.

Dave looks at him. “How are we gonna get there?” Bro’s truck is a two seater. The bed’s pretty big though.

“I’m gonna call a couple of cars,” old Dave answers. “I figure like two Suburbans, we’ll probably have a bunch of shit. We don’t have to take everything, it’s not like we’re never coming back here, or that we even know we’re staying there.

You don’t have much smaller stuff to take for a long-term stay, but your turntables and computer are pretty bulky. Uh, you guess those might be… Dave’s. You can probably talk Bro into getting you your own gear, and it’ll be some dope future shit, because it’s the future now. Either way, you figure they can wait until the next trip. And your dead shit is pretty fragile, that should probably wait for proper transport, too.

In the end, the four of you all end up with either a duffel bag or a suitcase (assigned randomly based on what you happened to find first) and some miscellaneous carryons.

“How you holding up, Hal?” you ask as you pile clothes into a bag. He’s been quiet since returning from the bathroom, which isn’t strange considering your experience with his clones.

Hal looks at Dirk and Dirk looks back at him. “I think I’m fine,” he says. “Felt a lot better after I took a piss.”

You laugh. “Yeah man, bet you’re not gonna forget that feeling again any time soon. Maybe you can get a nap in the car.”

“I believe that would be beneficial. How can I tell when I’m going to fall asleep?” Hal asks.

You’re a little put off by the way he phrased the question. “Well, usually you notice yourself getting tired and then you decide to lay down and let yourself go to sleep. Once you know how to recognize it you’ll at least feel tired before you fall asleep, even if you don’t decide to do it like usual, because that does happen if you ignore it too long. Unless you’re narcoleptic like Jade.”

“When I was that age I’d ignore it too long more often than not,” Dirk shares. “I’d stay up working on a project for a couple days and then next thing I knew I was waking up with a gear imprinted on my face. We’re not narcoleptic but you’ll still likely find yourself waking up after falling asleep accidentally more often than average.”

Hal nods. You finish packing pretty quickly; you really only have two peoples’ worth of possessions between the four of you. You exit the room to find old Dave and Bro mid-argument and decidedly not packed.

Bro looks at the four of you, noting your packed bags. “Whatever, let’s just get this over with.” He flashsteps around the apartment, shoving his belongings into a duffel bag that he had pulled out of nowhere. Old Dave follows suit at a more controlled pace, grabbing his own bag from you-still-don’t-know-where and putting away a variety of items you hadn’t recognized, and now you know why.

As he finishes getting his shit together old Dave addresses the room. “So I already called two cars. If we want to, I think we can fit in one and not be too uncomfortable. Otherwise how do we wanna split up for the drive? It’s only about 45 minutes.”

You all look around at each other. Eventually, your eyes and many others land on Dave Prime. He knows everyone here the best, overall. You figure you’ll leave your fate for the next hour in his hands.

Dave eventually realizes what the rest of you had silently but unanimously decided and speaks up. “Well, Bro’s gonna be quiet, and since Dirk and Hal aren’t used to being in a car at all, maybe they should ride with him, and then the rest of us can party it up in the other car?”

You and old Dave state your approval, and Dirk and Hal nod along with you. Bro doesn’t react, just keeps his gaze on Dave. Old Dave looks at his phone and states that the cars are just around the corner, so you all start to get your bags together.

“Yo Hal, you wanna hit the bathroom before we go?” Bro asks. Hal blushes but takes the advice. While he’s gone, Bro packs the leftover pancakes into two baggies and hands one to old Dave. “In case anyone wants a snack,” he says, taking a bite from the last one on the plate. Dirk seems to be eyeing the bag in Bro’s hand, and apparently Bro notices because he hands it to Dirk, who immediately takes a pancake himself. You, personally, are still stuffed from breakfast. Thinking back, snacks while riding in a car were one of the most consistent food sources during your childhood.

The cars are parked by the time you get downstairs, so you all just toss your bags in the trunk and buckle in. You get the feeling it’s going to be a long ride.

Chapter Text

You have no idea what’s going on. Dirk just threatened to kill you instead of keeping his promise to make you his sprite, then after you finally talked him out of it, he turned around and the sprite had already been prototyped with one of the trolls. He threw you, and you thought it would work, but now… it’s dark. And Dirk is nowhere to be found. From your interactions with sprites so far, they had become a fusion of both personalities, but you feel, if anything, more solidly yourself. You try to access the time and get nothing, only your own confusion at the change in the position of the sun.

You search your memory banks for what happened to get you here, but find them frustratingly limited to only your personal experiences for some reason. You feel… something physical. What the fuck? Is that wind? You guess it worked, and you’re a sprite and your sprite body can feel wind? You look down at yourself and you look human. You’re wearing the same black jeans and white tank top that you were when you… that Dirk was when he wrote your program. You’re also wearing shades, which are probably making it more difficult to see, but you don’t want to take them off right now. Instead, you crouch down on the ground and put your hands over your face. You’re getting too much data in some ways, and far too little in others. At least when you became Hal, you were part of the planning process. Yes, it was jarring the first time you woke up in the ether and smugly said ‘Hello, Dirk,’ only to be answered with, ‘Hello, Auto-Responder,’ but that had been the expected outcome. Now, you’re confused and alone and you’d probably even admit to being scared.

There’s a sound by the steps but you don’t care to acknowledge it until a familiar voice says, “Hal?”

It doesn’t occur to you to try to hide the relief in your voice or on your face. “Dirk! What is going on?”

“You merged with a sprite during the game. A bunch of bullshit happened and we won, and now we’re here on pre-scratch Earth along with Dave, his bro, our bro, and Davesprite, who is now going by DS. Do you wanna go down and meet everyone?”

You had hoped that you would get to live after the game, but you didn’t think you’d be living as a human. You’re going to need some time to adjust to the idea, not to mention the body. “Can we hang out here a little longer?” Your chest feels like it’s going to explode for a while but Dirk helps you slow down your breathing and focus your thoughts which were apparently what was causing the sensation.

As you’re getting focused, another man comes up the stairs- Dave’s bro, you’re pretty sure, from what Dirk’s told you so far. You have no idea what to expect of this version of Dirk. He takes his shades off as he enters the darkness of the roof. His eyes are exactly the same as Dirk’s. “Hey, Dirk. This must be Hal?”

“Yup,” Dirk says. You throw up a peace sign.

“Sup, call me Bro," he says to you. He asks Dirk, "Gonna catch him up on everything?”

“Yeah,” Dirk answers. “We might be a while, you don’t have to stay up and wait for us.”

“A’ight,” he says. He looks at you directly. “You need anything up here?”

You shake your head and Dirk says, “We’re good,” so he nods at you both and heads back downstairs. Dirk explains that Bro used to be brainwashed by Lord English through Cal, and you’re scandalized that Cal had been used for such nefarious means. You can’t believe you’re actually about to meet your own bro too, and it couldn’t be at a worse time. Hopefully he’ll understand that three years as a computer fucks with a kid and that’s why you are so profoundly lame right now.

You get as much background info as Dirk can give you- he’s pretty shell shocked, himself, and quite honestly you think that you, as a computer, practiced talking more in the last three years than he did. Soon enough, he runs out of steam and you sit in silence for a while. You’re looking at your hands, your knees, your stomach. You can't believe you have a body again.

Eventually, Dirk asks if you're ready to go inside. You can't imagine you'll actually be ready any time soon, so you decide to nod and get it over with.

Downstairs, Dave’s bro is sitting on the futon next to the real David Elizabeth Strider, in the flesh. You stare, transfixed for a moment, and Dirk pulls you closer, the warmth of his hand waking you up. “Hey, D-man,” he says to your bro, “This is Hal.”

You look at your bro and he looks at you with a grin. “Good to meet you, lil’ man, the suspense was killing me! I’m Dave.”

“Good to meet you, I’m Hal.” He already knows that, but you can’t think of what to say beyond parroting his greeting back at him.

Your bro must sense your awkwardness because he says, “It’s been a pretty long day, why don’t you two get to bed, we can talk in the morning,” and you relax.

You nod and follow Dirk into the bedroom. He’d let you know that you’re sharing a bed for tonight, so you crawl in behind him and face Dave’s bed. You think the Dave you’re looking at looks sad.

You continue to look at him through the night, due to a lack of other things to look at. You take a break when Dirk wakes up from a nightmare, but he’s not in the mood to talk so you go back to him pretty quickly.

The younger Dave wakes when the sun comes up and tells you to call him DS, then leads you out into the living room where your bros are making breakfast. Before you were a program, you never made an effort to eat at standardized times, and you know that Dirk never picked up the habit. Instead, you would be taken aback when your stomach started to cramp after not eating for most of a day, and then force down some of whatever was nearest. You’ve never had pancakes before.

Something doesn’t feel right. Your stomach feels tight even though you’re pretty sure you're still hungry, and it hurts every time you move. You finish your (syrup free, thanks to DS) pancakes and ponder your condition. Your distress must show on your face because Dave’s bro speaks up and tells you to eat until you're full but be careful not to upset your stomach. Is that what’s happening? You feel a pang in your gut and your legs clutch together on instinct.

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom and then decide if you want more?” Bro suggests.

You feel your face go hot as you realize he’s probably onto something. Your legs clench awkwardly, making you waddle toward the bathroom. It’s a whole thing, but you feel a lot better now. You eat a couple more pancakes and feel yourself slide into your own mind, tuning out the voices around you and focusing on your own thoughts; specifically, how easy it is to slide into your own mind and tune out the voices around you. You barely notice when Dirk and Dave join you. You feel different from the others, like some key feature was removed and now you can no longer connect to the internet. Actually that is exactly what happened to you, so the real issue is that it hasn’t happened to any of them, you suppose.

Apparently, that conversation you’d tuned out had been about moving to your bro’s house, so after packing your bags and mild discission, you get in the third row of seats in a rented Chevrolet Suburban. Bro is sitting in the second row directly behind the driver and in front of Dirk, who is next to you. The others are in another car. “Grab that piece of metal by your heads and plug it into the little nub with the red button on the seat,” Bro directs you both as he does so himself. To the driver he says, “They’re not really used to being in cars.”

You and Dirk buckle your seat belts as the driver introduces himself as Kraken and promises you a smooth ride. It’s quiet as the car starts moving and you look at Bro and Dirk. They are, as Dave predicted, silent, and you don’t have anything to say to break it. You continue glancing at them every once in a while, but mostly look out the window; Dirk seems to be doing the same, but Bro has his head tilted back against the seat. Right, DS recommended you try to take a nap. You’re still not sure about the whole going-to-sleep thing so you decide to put it off. After a while, the driver makes a turn off the highway and you feel your stomach flip. You let out a groan involuntarily, and in a second Bro has his eyes on you and states, “You’re gonna wanna pull over.”

Your pulse was already racing due to your sudden discomfort, and your confusion at Bro’s statement doesn’t help to calm you down. Fortunately, that part is eased when the driver responds, “On it, boss,” and begins to slow down. Unfortunately, the change in momentum causes your stomach to do another flip. You cross your arms under your chest and curl inward. The car takes a few more turns and soon comes to a stop.

You hear something click and then thud in front of you, soon followed by your door opening. “Come stretch out a minute, the car is giving you motion sickness,” Bro tells you. You comply, pressing the red button to release your seat belt as directed. “You too, Dirk,” he says.

Dirk lets himself out of the car and walks around to join the two of you in the parking lot. You feel the urge to get closer to him so you do, but Dirk steps away.

“Stretch a little bit,” Bro instructs, again leading by example. You follow suit and lift your hands above your head, but Dirk doesn’t; he’s leaning against the car with his face in his hand. After a moment, he lurches forward and vomits on the pavement. “Oh, shit,” Bro says. He moves toward Dirk but leaves a couple of feet between them. He watches from a respectable distance and when Dirk stops after a minute or so he asks, “You good?”

Dirk is breathing a little heavy, but he nods. After a few seconds, he opens his mouth but doesn’t speak.

“Water?” Bro asks. When Dirk nods, he walks toward the car and grabs a bottle. After he hands it over, he takes out his phone. “I gotta text Dave and let him know we’re gonna be a bit behind.”

You don’t think you’re gonna puke, but you're still not feeling good. You crouch in a ball on the ground and do your best to take deep breaths. You’ve been nauseous before, you’ve thrown up before, but it’s been a long fucking time. Everything you experienced as Hal feels like it happened yesterday, but all of your experiences as Dirk may as well have happened December 31, 1969. That bite of syrupy pancake had been downright offensive to your mouth and to your stomach; the pancake had gotten saturated and had an almost pasty texture, and the overwhelming sweetness made your face scrunch up. It was the first thing you had eaten in three years of regular time. The plain pancakes were much better, the fluffy texture going down your throat easily and filling your stomach instead of coating it.

At some point during your spiral, Bro walked over to you. He’s crouched down in front of you when he asks, “You need anything, kid?” When you answer him with a stare he tries, “What were you thinking about?”

“The last thing I ate before the pancakes was canned rice and orange soda,” you tell him.

“I’ll get the leftover pancakes out of the car,” he responds. You suppose he thinks you’re hungry. It’s pretty unsettling to not recognize what your body is telling you, not to mention embarrassing. You never had a very strong relationship with your physical form, and you know Dirk still feels that way. You get the feeling Bro does, too. You’re all the same person, after all. You wonder if they also feel as though everything has been amplified to the point of being unrecognizable.

Bro pauses by Dirk before returning with the pancakes. Your hand gets a little greasy holding them, but they feel like a sponge in your stomach, seeping up whatever it was that was making you feel like crap. “How do you do that?” you ask him.

“Do what?”

“Know what I’m feeling even though I don’t.”

He looks at you for a moment before responding. “We’re biologically identical so it stands to reason that we would have similar responses to external stimuli. Also, I know I did a pretty famously shitty job at it, but I did raise a child.”

You consider his statement. You were never raised. You somehow survived infancy and learned how to keep yourself alive, and after interacting with some other human beings, you think you may have missed a few things. A large part of you wants to hug Bro; you’ve never hugged anyone before, but you think it would feel good to get tactile confirmation that he is here. You remember Dirk scooting away when you tried to stand next to him before, and decide not to ask.

“You think you’re feeling up to getting back in the car? We should be more than halfway there.” You nod, and Bro stands and holds out his hand. You stare for a moment and he explains, “Take my hand, I’ll help you up.”

You tentatively grab on and start to stand, Bro pulling and taking some of your weight. He grabs your shoulder and pulls you into his side, and you feel warm. You don’t think this counts as a hug, but you lean into the contact and Bro adjusts his grip. You go back by Dirk and return to your seats so the driver can pull out of the lot and back onto the road.

Bro looks around as the driver makes a turn a while later. “Where exactly are we going, Kraken?” he asks.

He states the address and you see Bro go white. You look at Dirk but he’s got his head leaned up against the window. Bro takes his phone out and starts typing frantically. You’re not sure what about that address set him off; you knew your bro had a place in that part of the city, but you never knew where exactly, and it holds no significance to you.

The remainder of the ride is not long but you start to feel queasy again as you merge with residential traffic and there’s more breaking and turning. You lean back and take a deep breath, and you notice Bro is taking deep breaths as well. He’s put his phone away and is positioned similarly to Dirk, head back and visibly disconnected.

You sit quietly and try to ignore your discomfort until Kraken announces your arrival. Dirk sits up immediately, a hand on his stomach and a grimace on his face. Bro is a bit slower to rise, but the first to open the car door. You both follow him to the trunk, where he passes you your bags then gestures toward the house. “Aren’t you coming?” you ask as Bro stands in place without his bags. He shakes his head in response, and you look at Dirk.

Dirk shrugs. “They’re already in there?” he asks.

Bro nods.

Dirk shrugs again and gestures for you to follow him up toward the mansion. You glance at Bro as he leans against the car and lights up a cigarette. That makes sense, you think. You know about smoke breaks, you’ve seen television.

The two of you walk up to the door of the mansion and before you get a chance to worry about how to announce your presence, the door swings open and your bro greets you warmly. “Wassup lil’ bros, how was the ride? Not so great I hear. Where’s Bro?”

“Out smoking,” Dirk answers. “I don’t think he’s coming in.”

“Oh, he’s serious about that?” he asks.

Dirk shrugs.

Your bro sighs. “Okay, I’ll show you guys around then I’ll go get him. This is like, the main room. It’s the first room you walk into so I pretty much use it for everything. The kitchen is through this way,” he says, pointing toward a door. He starts walking toward it, so you and Dirk follow.

“There’s food in the fridge and cabinets, whenever you’re hungry, or if you want food food feel free to ask Andrew. Or just cook, if you want to. I’ll help too, if I’m around, but right now I don’t really want to leave Bro out there alone for too long. I mean, Kraken’s with him, but I meant like, family. Not that we have such an extensive history, but I still wanna get more info on what his deal is right now, he didn’t answer when I called on the ride over and his texts were pretty concerning.”

“He hasn’t spoken since Kraken told him your address,” Dirk tells him.

“That doesn’t sound good,” your bro says. “I’ll show you guys your rooms, they’re right across from Dave’s and DS’s. You guys can explore as much as you want, I’ll give you a full tour later. C’mon, they’re upstairs.”

Your bro leads the way and shows you and Dirk to your rooms, pointing at two doors across the hall and declaring them Dave’s and DS’s. He leaves you both to check up on Bro.

Your room here is about the size of the entire apartment on the other side of town. It has a minifridge, a microwave, a TV, and an instant coffee maker. There are two doors inside of the room, and you find one of them to be a walk-in closet and the other a bathroom. You’re not sure what to do so you simply look around until Dirk returns from his own room.

“I’m going to go talk to Dave and DS, would you like to come?”

You certainly like the idea of not being alone, so you nod and follow Dirk across the hall. They’re both in DS’s room, him in the closet hanging up some clothes, and Dave sitting on the bed.

“Oh hey fam, you made it,” Dave says as you enter. “How’s your tum-tum?” He asks Dirk.

“Needed a factory reset,” Dirk explains.

Dave nods. “Makes sense, I was getting a little queasy on the ride too, and I’ve actually been in a car before. How about you Hal, feeling okay?”

You still don’t really know how you’re feeling, but you don’t think you’d describe it as ‘okay’. Your stomach still feels off from the second leg of the ride, and your eyelids have been drooping which has made your vision blurry. You’ve been finding it pretty hard to stay grounded, which has made you feel disconnected from what’s been going on around you. “Something’s off,” you answer.

“Why don’t you lay down and close your eyes,” Dave suggests. “Let your thoughts turn off, maybe some sleep will help.”

You look at Dirk and he shrugs. He had trouble sleeping last night, too; he’d fallen asleep right away when you laid down, but woke up after an hour from a nightmare. He didn’t tell you about it, just curled away from you and closed his eyes again. You don’t know how long it took him to fall back asleep after that, but he hadn’t budged when DS woke up four hours later. Another hour, and he and Dave were up for breakfast.

“Take a nap, Hal,” DS says, exiting the closet. “I’m thinking about it, too.”

You glance at everyone one more time and then approach the bed. It’s at least twice the size of your bed at home, and the pillows are fluffy as fuck. You tuck in and close your eyes and for a moment you hear the conversation continue but you don’t really process their words, and then you’re asleep.

Chapter Text

You’d been surprised at how easily Bro had agreed to share a bed with you for the night, but when Dirk and Hal come down and turn in and he shows no sign of going to bed himself, you start to feel like you’ve been had. Bro gets up without complaint when you mention opening up the futon, grabbing a second blanket from somewhere and tossing it on the bed. Then, he takes a seat on the computer chair Dirk had left near the couch and looks at the TV. “Dude aren’t you gonna come to bed?” you ask.

He shrugs but doesn’t look at you.

“At least come lay down, your body needs rest even if you don’t get any actual sleep,” you tell him. It took you decades to learn that one, now you get to pass it along as one of your first acts of broship. You feel his glare on you through his shades. You’ve already taken yours off for bed, so Bro is getting an earnest look into your soul right now.

Bro takes your advice and joins you on the futon, and you immediately wrap your arms and legs around him to pin him down. He deflates instead of struggling like you’d expected, and for a second you’re not sure if you’ve triggered some kind of trauma response. However, a second later he sighs and asks, “You just never fucking change do you?”

You're not sure what he means, considering you only met the man nine hours ago. “What?”

Your grip loosens and Bro pulls away but doesn’t get out of bed. “Well, Dave,” he explains. “When he was a kid he’d find an excuse to sleep out here every other night and he’d cling to me the whole fucking time. Had to start kicking him out when he got too old.”

You think he sounds a little sad about that. “How old was that?” you ask.

Based on what you’d been told about lil’ Dave and Bro’s history, you’re expecting a toddler-range answer, but Bro says, “Six, maybe seven.”

“Oh,” you say.

“I know, I fucked up,” Bro says. “I fucked him up.”

“Whoa,” you backpedal. “Out of all the shit you’ve told me so far, I would not say that that fucked him up. If anything it was probably the one thing that let him know you weren’t a threat.”

“I was a threat,” he argues. “I let him think he could trust me and I fucked him up. I think it might be the one thing Cal teased me about that he actually had a point on.”

“Cal teased you?” you ask. You hadn’t thought much about how exactly he had influenced Bro’s thoughts, but you hadn’t expected teasing to be involved.

“Called me a pussy for not being able to say no to Dave,” He elaborates. “Said I was gonna turn him into a f- pussy like me if I didn’t make him grow up. But a lot of the time it was just a long fucking day and he’d come out without his shades on and look at me and I’d just cave.”

You feel like you should encourage Bro to keep talking now that he’s started, but fuck are you tired. You wrap your arms around him and pin him down to the bed again. “You did the best you could,” you tell him. “Get some rest.”

Some time after you’ve fallen asleep, Bro forcefully shoots straight up next to you and wakes you up. He seems to be attempting to sheath a nonexistent weapon.

“Yo dude, you have a nightmare?” you ask groggily.

Bro is breathing heavily, and you don’t really need or expect a reply. You touch his back in an attempt at comfort but Bro slaps your hand away violently, then points at you and lays his face in his open palm. It takes you a second to realize that he just signed, “Go back to bed,” at you.

You want to push, but you see tears threatening to fall behind Bro’s eyes, and you’re still very tired so you yet again decide to let him off the hook for the night. You lay back down and Bro sits up in bed next to you for at least as long as it takes for you to fall asleep.

When you wake up again, it’s still dark out but Bro is in the kitchen with the counters covered in baking supplies. “Morning, Sunshine,” you greet him. “What’s cooking?”

Bro glances over at you and opens his mouth, but when nothing comes out he finger-spells, “Pancakes”.

“Oh, sick.” While Bro makes breakfast, you confirm that both houses are still in your name. “I figure today we can drive across town to my house there, stay for the night, and then see about checking out the LA house?”

Bro rolls his eyes and makes a show of flipping three pancakes at once by flicking the pan. You research this new reality on your phone while Bro continues making pancakes far past the reasonable amount for six people. You don’t stop him, and he just keeps cooking until DS and Hal exit their bedroom, each looking exhausted. Bro tells them, “We made pancakes,” which you think is awful generous considering all you did was scroll on your phone and question his quantities.

You serve them breakfast, unable to keep yourself from glancing at Hal every couple of seconds, but also unable to make yourself talk to him. DS gets him to admit that he didn’t sleep last night and gets him fresh pancakes when he realizes he doesn’t like the syrup. You repeat your plans for relocation for the kids and Bro looks at you in shock despite your telling him the plan less than an hour ago. Hal asks you for clarification, and you tell him about your houses. You want to give him more details, but he’s looking down at his plate with a very uncomfortable expression on his face.

Bro speaks up while you fumble your words. “You’re allowed to have as many as you want,” he says to Hal. “Just be careful not to make yourself sick, if your stomach isn’t used to that much food it’s gonna let you know, and it won’t be pleasant.”

When Hal squirms a little more, Bro tells him to go to the bathroom and he does, returning with a much more relaxed expression.

You scroll through news articles mindlessly as you finish eating. Really, you’re thinking about how good Bro has been with all the kids so far. You’re pretty jelly; they seem to be holding you at arms length, despite claiming to be weary of Bro. You know that trauma is complex, and that victims can’t be expected to act in predictable ways, but it’s a little tough to see your new family already showing some bonds formed with each other and their apparent reluctance to form any with you. You’re feeling pretty shut out.

Eventually, you look up and find that Bro has migrated to the other side of the room. He’s got an electrical outlet cover in one hand and is pulling out a wire out of the wall with the other. He replaces the cover and manually opens a hatch, sidestepping a rain of… puppets. Okay. The puppets disappear and Bro moves on to the computer desk, repeats a similar process, this one ending with a puppet holding a shuriken, and continues. You offer to help (try to insist, really), but Bro physically blocks you from getting close to whatever he’s working on, and you don’t know where else you would start.

Soon enough Dirk and Dave come out and you basically have the exact same breakfast experience all over again, except Dirk excuses himself to go to the bathroom without question. You discuss travel plans a little more in-depth, and the kids run off to pack.

When the kids leave, Bro starts signing at you aggressively, way too fast for you to fully understand but you catch, “what the fuck,” “fast,” and “motherfucking shit to do”.

You hold up both hands toward him. “Whoa, listen man, lil’ Dave is the one who said he wants to figure something out sooner rather than later. It’s not even an hour long drive, and then we can just take it from there.” You’re tempted to take your shades off to try to pull on his heartstrings, but decide that would be playing dirty.

Bro doesn’t seem to have a strong response anyway, but as he turns away you see him sign, “Fucking tired,” and sigh.

“C’mon man, you really wanna keep sharing a bed with me?” you push.

Bro just shrugs, and then the kids come out of their room, packed and ready. Their tenacity is apparently enough to convince Bro because he starts getting his shit together, allowing you to get yours together as well.

As cool as you think it would be to ride to the mansion with your lil’ bros, you trust lil’ Dave’s judgement with the car assignments. He told you he’s not very comfortable around Bro, despite his trusting him to check on Dirk last night. DS had made it very clear that he was nervous around both of you, ducking behind Dave as a buffer whenever possible. While you, Dave, and DS all seem to regard each other as individuals, Bro, Dirk, and Hal have been laying much more heavily into the genetic clones aspect of their existence. Particularly, Bro apparently knowing exactly what they need to hear at any given moment, whether it be to get Dirk to relax or to prevent Hal from embarrassing himself. Yeah, you can see yourself overwhelming those two in your excitement.

You climb into the car with Dave and DS, Dave claiming the seat next to you and DS stretching out on the bench in the back. “Hey Nessie, what’re we bumpin’?”

“Let’s find out,” your driver says from the front. She throws on some tunes and y’all strap in and take off. You don’t think you’ve ever made this drive directly, and with the people you’re traveling with it feels truly fucking insane. Meeting your bro became a fantasy at some point, and now you’re deciding where to live with five of them.

You start telling Dave and DS about your universe. Dave had heard a lot of it from Dirk, but he’s using that to push the conversation forward rather than talk you down. DS is fascinated by the turns your reality takes, and seems to relax a little hearing you talk about your life. You talk about Rose of course, because you can’t really talk about anything you’ve done and not mention Rose. You try to skirt around her drinking problem, but something in lil’ Dave’s stare tells you he already knows.

You’re about fifteen minutes away from the house when Dave announces that your fellow travelers had to pull over so Dirk could puke, and so they are running behind. “Y’know, Bro never liked being in a car for too long, I never imagined it was because he got car sick. I just thought he didn’t wanna be cooped up,” Dave says.

“Dirk’s the one throwing up, not him,” you reply.

“Today yeah, but it makes sense looking back, too,” Dave says.

“Like when?” DS asks.

“Like the time we were taking the bus down to Dallas for that puppet show and he had us get off three separate times to walk to the next stop?”

“He did look pretty miserable despite being at what he described as ‘the happiest place on Earth,’” DS concedes. “Can’t imagine Hal is faring much better right now.”

“Yeah, probably. He’s definitely the type to like to fuck around with people so at first I thought he might be playing it up, but- oh, I’m getting a bunch of texts… from Bro.” Dave reads for a moment and asks for your number to give Bro, which you give him.

A moment later, your phone buzzes with what must be the same vivacity that had taken Dave aback a moment ago. You had not taken Bro to be the type to spam text, you feel a little proud.

Bro: Yo man I am not fucking going in there.

Bro: Fuck that.

Bro: I don’t know how you came to be in possession of that fucking hellhole in the first place, or what you know about it but I am not going back there.

Bro: I’ll fucking walk home before I set foot in there.

Bro: And if you try to make me go in I’ll fucking kill you.

Bro: Don’t let this pussy-ass save-the-children shit throw you off, I can and will destroy your fucking body and launch the remains into space if you test me.

Bro: I can’t go back there.

Bro: I won’t.

Bro: Fucking won’t/

You’re taken aback by the typo in the last text. He must be pretty upset about this.

You: what happened there?

Bro: It’s fucking hell.

Bro: I can’t get through that again.

Bro: I told him I’d never come back.

You: told who?

Bro: I’m not going.

You: i am incredibly interested in knowing what happened

Bro stops responding, and you don’t get the feeling spamming him back would be well received. You call him once and get the voicemail, but don’t leave a message (because the mailbox is full) and sigh. You’ve just about arrived at the house, and if Kraken was really far behind schedule he’d tell you himself, so you figure you can talk it out when they get here.

You give Dave and DS a bit of a tour until you get a notification on your phone that the other car has entered the grounds. You bring the boys to their rooms to start unpacking and hustle to the door to open it for your new housemates. You beat them by a few minutes and standby to swing the door open the second they approach. ‘They’ being only Dirk and Hal. “Wassup lil’ bros, how was the ride? Not so great I hear. Where’s Bro?”

Dirk confirms what Bro had texted you about not intending to come inside. You’re sure that whatever this place was like when he lived here was way fucking different, because you had some interior designers come in and completely redo the place as soon as you bought it, which was after extensive add-ons to the original floor plan. You rush through Dirk and Hal’s tour, only showing them the kitchen and their own rooms before running off to see Bro. Part of you is concerned that you’re spending most of your time helping Bro adjust, when logic suggests that the younger kids would need more support. You suppose they’re getting support from the older teens, as well as from Bro who, while struggling with his own well-being, has done pretty well with them. Dirk and Hal seem to be holding up okay despite the rough ride.

You rush out of the house and down to the driveway to the Suburban that brought the spikier haired Striders. You nod at Kraken as you pass him by the garage door and find Bro leaned against the rear bumper with a burned out half-smoked cigarette in his hand. He’s standing completely still, brow furrowed but shades hiding his true expression, as always. “Hey Bro, you made it! What’s holding you up, bad memories?”

He doesn’t even turn to acknowledge you. You can’t imagine he didn’t hear you. You take a step closer, getting in his personal space, and put a hand on his shoulder. When he still doesn’t react, you grab a shoulder in each hand and look at him face to face. You can just about see through his shades at this distance, and his eyes are open but look unfocused.

You squeeze his arms and get nothing. “Bro? You hear me?” you ask. “Are you there?”

Suddenly, finally, Bro jerks to attention. First he accidentally makes eye contact with you, and you see terror until he bodily pulls away and steps around to the side of the car to curl into a ball on the ground. “What the fuck,” he mutters.

“I’d guess you had some kind of episode. You were not there, Bro, it was fucking creepy.”

“I need a smoke,” he says. You can’t disagree with him on that one, and when he offers you a cigarette while taking out a fresh one for himself, you’re happy to accept.

“C’mon man, I at least wanna kinda understand what’s causing all this, even if I can’t do anything to help it. And if I can actually do something to help? Well that would make my damn day,” you tell him after a drag. After another you say, “Anything you wanna do, or tell me, or ask me- go for it, I really just wanna make this suck less.”

Bro looks at you. “Bad memories,” he signs.

You wonder if part of him had heard you while he was zoning out earlier. “I’ve owned this house for a long time,” you tell him, leaning into your age, “I bet it’s completely different from what you’re remembering.” Bro looks at you like you just insulted his Dave but you push on, “How about we just walk up the driveway and look around at the outside of the house, see if it’s similar?”

You don’t get a direct answer, but after a long hit of his cigarette Bro stands and looks down at you until you rise (slowly, carefully) and lead him to a better view of your house. He remains quiet, which doesn’t surprise you, but you feel a shift as you round one side and arrive outside of the kitchen, which you know to be the oldest part of the building. Bro freezes as the older bricks enter his sight, and you stop in tandem.

“This is the older part of the house, I guess you recognize it?” you ask. No shit, Sherlock.

As expected, you don’t get an answer. Instead, Bro turns on his heel and you jump to grab him bodily before he can make a run for it, both of your cigarettes discarded in the grass. Bro struggles violently, clipping you on the chin with his elbow and nailing your side with his fist.

“Bro, calm down for a minute. Nothing’s going to happen to you, we’re just looking around at the outside of the house. It’s me, it’s Dave.” You think that might’ve been the most effective thing you could have said.

He breaks out of his trance, but when he realizes exactly which Dave you are he shoves you away and gives you the finger.

“Bro, I promise it’s nothing like it was when this was the whole house, it’s been redone like eight times since then. I think the kitchen pretty much takes up the entirety of what used to be the house. I’ll set up the farthest room from here in the house for you, and we can eat in the main room instead of the kitchen. And then we can go to LA tomorrow, and we can keep the apartment, too. I just don’t wanna split up yet, and the apartment is way too small for all of us, and I think a plane ride today would be a little much for… those of our party who suffer from motion sickness.”

You don’t know for sure if Bro is part of that group, but regardless you doubt he’d be up for a flight today. The way his head pulls back when you bring it up strengthens that opinion. He starts rubbing circles on his temples and looks at the kitchen window.

“Wanna take a peek, see if it triggers anything?”

Bro snorts but breaks his stare at the window to glance at you. He nods and takes very slow steps toward the window, one at a time, and gives you another look before peering through your kitchen window. You don’t feel any shift in his mood this time, he just looks at you yet again and shrugs.

“Think you feel up to coming inside and saying hi to the boys?” you ask.

He holds his stare. There is a silence that you long to break, but you let Bro stew in his thoughts until he says aloud, “I swore I’d never come back here.”

“When was that?” you wonder. Would his time here somehow still overlap with your ownership through some fucked up time shenanigans?

“When I left. When I was ten,” he tells you.

You don’t know what you expected. You’ve had the house about thirty years, he’s about thirty. “Did you live here your whole life before that?” you ask.

Bro shakes his head. “Lived in an orphanage until I was three, then got fostered by that asshole. One day he pissed me off enough that I left.”

“What was his name?” you ask.

“He never told me,” he says.

He never fucking told him. This asshole raised a kid for seven years and never told him his goddamn name. You suppose it could be argued that Bro did the same thing to Dave, but Bro is maintaining that he doesn’t have a name so you feel he can’t be faulted for that. You want to find out who was living in your house and abusing your little bro, but for now you need to focus on just getting him into the house. “Don’t you think going back now after I fucked his house up and having a dope time with your little bros is better revenge than just never coming back?”

Bro sighs like he wishes he hadn’t dropped his cigarette. When you’ve just about given up hope of a response he says, “Whatever, just show me the fucking door.”

You punch the air in victory, exclaim, “This way!” and walk him back toward the main entrance. You are going to make this the least traumatizing experience of all of their lives. You’ve got to text Rose.