Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Winter 2011: Guilty vs. Guiltless

Dave’s chest tightened as the webpage loaded, the last empty space finally filled, supposedly by his literature teacher who must have preferred to input grades on late Sunday mornings rather than on the typical school-day. For a few moments his gaze was lost, not able to locate the new midterm grade amongst all of the others he’d received over the course of the week. Upon finding it on the page, he held his breath, blinked twice, and then exhaled slowly. He felt the impulse to pester Rose, but fought it down. Jade had casually told him that John hadn’t fared too well in his science midterm, actually his favorite class, to which John only added that the only thing he needed to ace was the final.

Which easily translated the fear Dave had felt towards his midterms to a crushing terror towards the end of term exams. He only needed to apply John’s logic: the only exam he needed to fail was the final. He breathed a sigh of relief now nonetheless, his current results could only mean that he had all the right tools to succeed later as well. Regardless, he wouldn’t contact Rose as they didn’t guarantee a good end of term score. His hands were still drawn to the keyboard with a slow-burning desire to alert the Harley-Egbert twins of his last grade. Though they had tried, a good number of times, to get his chumhandle or his phone number, he’d always managed to dismiss it through a few ill-timed jokes. He had yet to truly try to get Rose’s approval for befriending the pair, and as such kept them off both Rose’s phone and pesterchum account.

That only left one person to confide in. He straightened out the dress he, despite the couple of months he’d now been doing this for, had had a hard time struggling into. It was a lilac one with a turtleneck which, he could guess, would have truly brought out the beauty of Rose’s eyes, but instead had to settle with Dave’s current artificial browns. It was presentable enough for Sunday night which he knew meant that, as long as Dirk refused to participate in what had used to be their traditional weekly familial get-together, would be a night out in some high-end restaurant. Especially now that they had cause to celebrate. He wondered idly if Rose’s grades were usually celebrated, or if she kept that information under lock until the end of the semester, or even year, in the same fear that Dave had of messing up later on. He didn’t even care to check with Rose about protocole, his mother had had nothing but positive words all throughout his start of the tenth grade and, yes, though he’d thought of Rose, Jade and John first, he still yearned to share the good news with his mother.

He raced down the curve of the right set of stairs of the mansion-styled staircase, casually calling out for his mother and trusting the acoustics of the house to carry his message: “Mom! My last grade is in!”

As he approached the end of his trek down the stairs, he jumped with the intention of skipping the last five steps and landing on the ground floor. It ended poorly as he noticed the person who’d stopped in front of the staircase once they’d heard the call, crossing their arms over their chest. Surprised, Dave only managed to skip three of the steps and barely managed to keep his footing, thus narrowly avoiding stumbling forward and landing straight onto his face.

Dirk Strider looked younger than he usually did. Maybe it was the choice in attire, an obvious callback to the many photographs Dave had seen of his parents in their teenaged years. In fact, the denim jacket and Chuck Taylors he’d adorned seemed worn enough to actually be items he’d kept from the 1980s. Maybe it was the obviousness of his full head of hair, as he’d exceptionally forgone any of his hats from his baseball cap collection. Though he was wearing his infamous fingerless leather gloves, his extravagant shades had been settled over his head rather than over his nose, giving Dave a rare chance to see the expressive nature of his shockingly amber coloured eyes.

His chest tightened, not at all in the same way it had with the anticipation of receiving a new grade, but rather with an aching feeling that suspiciously felt like longing. This had been the very first time he’d seen Dirk since that fated day at the airport, the family splitting up in what had ended up being quite final. Now that he was before him, he wasn’t quite sure how to react, especially given the fact that they had been locked in a staring contest for an indefinite amount of time.

He opened his mouth to greet him, to find some snarky commentary, some ruthless remark that would truly be Rose, but instead nothing came up, his lungs feeling too full and his throat too tight. Dirk had titled his head slightly, his expression unmistakable. An expression of certain recognition. Dave’s vision blackened at the edges, panic his gut reaction to the turn of events.

“So, how’d you do?” Dirk asked steadily, not a syllable giving away his reaction to Dave’s presence.

‘The exam’, Dave’s mind supplied weakly over the chant of being found out by his guardian. Dirk had to know it was him. He’d looked at him as if he’d known it was Dave. He had to know…

“Perfect. Perfect grade,” he finally answered, not able to put any energy behind the words.

His reaction didn’t manage to bring any changes in Dirk’s stance. If anything, the look he wore was extremely familiar, the same he would sport whenever Dave told him about any of his new interests. In the past, he might have qualified it as mocking, but he currently couldn’t think of a more fitting word than ‘proud’.

If he had truly figured Dave out, he couldn’t feel more ashamed of the fact that he could wear something close to pride for a son that had totally played him for a fool and had more or less run away from home.

“That’s impressive, kid.”

Dave firmly looked down with what must have been a true air of horror. If he’d never particularly liked being called ‘kid’, he had noticed it was used by Dirk exclusively for him. Rose was called, at the closest of times ‘kiddo’, but never ‘kid’.

He hopped over the last two remaining stairs and as he did, Dirk’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder. Clenching his jaw, Dave managed not to flinch away from the touch, but knew that he’d already lost the battle in convincing his guardian that he was indeed Rose.

“I’m proud of you.”

His ears rang with the praise, not yet sure the man was playing a mind game with him, torturing him for what he’d pulled, or if he was speaking honestly. He eventually met his eyes when his touch did not immediately leave his body. The look they exchanged was intense at best, and not in the same way Rose’s gaze held intensity.

Again, he tried to find words, but the same feeling clogged his lungs and airway. Instead of asking how he’d been, why he was here so early in the day, if he would ever come back for their weekly gathering, Dave promptly turned and raced back to Rose’s bedroom without another word.

He made short work of securing the door closed behind him and rolling the computer chair over in a messy attempt of barring the door from all entry. He tried to catch his breath, but to no avail, he barely felt as if he was breathing at all.

“Ok. Calm down. It’s not as if he straight up admitted to knowing it was you. Maybe he has a weird relationship with Rose. That’s all it was. That’s probably all it was. And Rose is weird all by herself anyway, so it wouldn’t be super freaky if she ran out of a conversation like that, right? Right.”

He kept up a steady stream of hectic, only attempting to be comforting, words, as he booted up his pesterchum and pressed the video-call button without hesitation.

He spared a thought or two as the client ran as to what sort of work Rose might be doing at this time of the day, a Sunday, out on a mission to make a difference in the world. Probably nothing that entailed talking her twin off the edge and yet… He really, really, really needed her reassurance in that moment. He glanced manically at the bedroom door as the ringing continued, half expecting both his parents to break the door down in order to begin shouting their lungs out at him.

What would they say? He thinks he probably would have been quite ashamed if he’d simply been caught wearing a dress without any explanation, but this? Embodying his sister? For weeks on end? Unapologetically posing as her and tricking every person he met? He was going to hell. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t believe in hell in the first place, he would believe that a special place in the afterlife would be created just for his sake, just to punish him.

As soon as the video connected he launched into frenzied words.

“You have got to come back home. Like right now, right right now. I don’t care what it takes, I’ll pay for your flight ticket, I’ve got savings. I don’t care. You need to come back right now. You’re killing me, I’m dying out here. Please, please come home.”

He only stopped once he could no longer muster any other words, playing the ones he’d even uttered over in his head revealed just how pathetic his plea had been in the first place. He blinked the tears away, yet again glancing at the door, and exhaling shakily as he tried to concentrate on the image of Rose. The video showed that she was outside, probably using Dave’s phone to answer the call. Everything seemed sunny around her, illuminated, and by the minimal tank top she was wearing, it seemed the temperature must have been just as warm as that strong sunlight might indicate. Rose herself though seemed mostly unchanged, her hair had grown a little longer, her eyes were back to the mystical purple he’d grown up with, but she still seemed herself. Dave, in contrast, was clearly falling apart.

“Dave? I didn’t catch most of that… What’s wrong? Is it school? Don’t worry about that, I’ll fix it once I get home, you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself.”

She too was speaking in hushed tones, but Dave was unsure if it was to avoid their mother hearing the total fallout and meltdown or if she too was trying not to disrupt surrounding people on her end of the line.

The softness of the words did nothing to change Dave’s reaction though. Her talk of putting too much pressure on himself was deeply reminiscent of their mother telling Dave of how much pressure Rose put on herself, thoughts that were expressed by Jade and John as well, and that on a near daily basis. Both thinking of Rose’s supposed day-to-day problems and of the twins he theoretically must have been banned from befriending, only managed to pile onto his guilt and distress. The edges of his vision darkened even more so as he tried to find the right words to bring Rose home.

“No, Rose. Bro knows. He one hundred percent knows. He’s going to kill me. If not now, then later. He’s going to kick my ass until I’m dead. Rose, don’t do this to me.”

“What? He knows? Did you tell him? How could he know?”

She looked a bit more concerned, but only slightly so, glancing off to the side probably towards someone, as if she had somewhere else to be and Dave was holding her up.

“No, course not. But… He’s here. In the house. Right now. He looked at me and… Rose, he knows. Just trust me, he called me ‘kid’ and everything.”

The concern slowly left her features and Dave felt as if he was effectively drowning as he too looked off screen towards the bedroom door. Rose wasn’t going to believe him. Rose was going to leave him there to handle the charade all by himself.

She sighed longly.

“So, he didn’t say anything? Dave, calm down. He doesn’t know, you look perfect. And, this may be a shock to you, but I do happen to be his kid as well. You’re just feeling stressed out. Take the day to relax and stop worrying about this.”

“Of course I’m stressed out, are you kidding me?” he breathed in through his nose, mildly aware that he hadn’t shared with Rose any of these distressed feelings in the past months, and even more distantly so, aware that he hadn’t quite felt this strongly up until crossing paths with his guardian. “It’s too much stress for me. Usually, my life is zero stress. I don’t want to do this anymore, alright? I want out!”

Rose seemed bewildered and, in the small window in the corner of the screen, he recognised the very same expression on his face as well. Maybe he’d gotten a bit too good at impersonating his twin, as they seemed to be a mirror image of one another in that moment. She hadn’t expected the outburst and, frankly, neither had he. In fact, thinking of the ‘out’ left him strangely melancholic as he thought of school, Jade, John, the fire escape route where they shared most of their lunches, his mother, long car rides with her where no words were exchanged at all… Really, ‘out’ didn’t seem all that exciting, unless he was thinking of Dirk and the way he had looked at him, as if he’d known everything about their plan, to the very last detail, and had no qualms or feelings about it.

“I’m stuck here too, alright? So just take a deep breath. You’ve been doing great so far. It’ll be over before you know it. But right now, I need to go, alright, Dave? Don’t freak out on me. You can do this.”

Dave fought with himself to nod his head, his resolve weakened by the surprisingly biting edge to Rose’s tone. He barely picked up on Rose’s soft ‘I’m sorry’ as she hung up. He had had no problem, however, picking up on the misery that had coloured her words as she had compared Dave’s situation to hers. He pressed his fists to his eyes, taking the deep breaths Rose had recommended. She must have been right. He was halfway through the semester after all and nothing terrible had happened. His current average was comparable to Rose’s preceding reputation and he even felt as if he had friends. Friends he’d managed to make without staying in his bedroom, hidden behind his keyboard. Perhaps, he had to do it hidden under the mask of his sister’s identity, but it was still something new and exciting.

He turned on the webcam, all the while continuing to take deep breaths. Finally, he kneeled down in front of the desk, only now realising he hadn’t been sitting for his cry for help, and fixed his hair and the headband he’d chosen to wear in the morning, before his impending emotional breakdown, with the help of the screen’s image. He closed his eyes for a moment and, once opened again, pretended his reflection was his sister.

“You’re fine. It’s just about Dirk, you don’t want to let him down. Forget about it, you can deal with that in like… Half a year. Concentrate your efforts on the mission at hand.”

Satisfied with his faked air of composure, he stood up and rolled the chair he’d pressed against the door back into its rightful spot. “Take two,” he whispered to himself, as he left the room.

Take two seemed wildly unsuccessful once he arrived in the salon and took note that Dirk had left, leaving him solely with Roxy, who was leafing through a new issue of her favourite interior design magazine, surely left behind by her long-time best friend.

He curled his hands into light fists, wondering if Dirk had told her or not. Was she about to forbid him from ever setting foot in her home again? Were they going to send him away? Would he have to go live on the street because of his betrayal? Did she even know in the first place? He straightened his posture, just in case and cleared his throat to gain her attention.

“Has my father left already? I expected that he would join us for supper.”

Roxy actually jumped, seeming shocked out of reverie. Though once she seemed to realise her surroundings and her approaching ‘daughter’, she became all smiles.

“Rose! Dirk told me about your grade. That’s fantastic news! That’s nearly perfect grades across the board, you must be so happy.”

Dave swallowed thickly, the relief he felt at seeing her genuineness crushing his previous worries. He took a seat, as elegantly as he could, next to his mother.

“I suppose, though as you said that’s nearly perfect, not perfect.”

She smiled, in the sort of adoring way Dave had often seen her look at Rose, but something was a little off. It was like looking at a house you often saw, and though all the lights seemed on, at closer look, you noticed at least one room wasn’t lit up as it usually would be.

“Was everything alright… With my father?” he asked, despite the way his stomach sank when referring to Dirk in such a manner.

He watched her as she seemed to lose herself in her thoughts and, slowly, it reminded him of watching a house in which all the lights slowly turned off, one by one.

“I really miss him,” he added as an afterthought. Unintentionally, he’d spoken of his own feelings, with little regard to how Rose would feel in the same given situation.

“Me too, all the time,” Roxy replied in a tone that was both loving and nostalgic and which Dave would never be able to place. He couldn’t even think of someone who’d ever spoken in that same way, all fondness and regret. It intrigued him, but not enough so to ask any questions about it.

“Should we invite him back to Sunday dinners then?” he asked instead, innocently enough.

“He’s always invited, whenever, so is Dave, you know that. It’s just been… It’s hard for him to adjust.” She paused, rolling her eyes, but still did so with an adoring gleam to them, before continuing. “You know how he is, that kid’s his whole world. I think he’s a bit at a loss now that he’s off into the world.”

“Dave?” he couldn’t help but to ask incredulously.

“Now, now, there’s no need to be jealous. They have a very special bond, that’s just how it is.”

“Very special bond?” he asked again, knowing his face had scrunched up with the effort of accepting Roxy’s words.

“They’re very lucky to have each other,” she replied serenely enough.

Dave heard the longing however and, yet again, felt as if he were missing a vital piece of the puzzle. Would Rose know why their mother would speak in such a tone? What did it mean? He cast his doubts aside and, instead of contemplating the words she had used, simply put his hand over hers.

“How about we order in some food for tonight?” he offered, thinking both of Dirk’s usual Sunday bearing of fried food, but also of Rose’s unexplained love for it.

He did have a hard time falling asleep that night, his mind returning again and again to that concept of ‘special bond’. Perhaps it had been that special bond which had allowed Dirk to identify him with such ease. As he fell asleep, he finally admitted to himself that Rose must have been wrong, that Dirk had most definitely recognised him thanks to that sort of special bond.

Come morning, his thoughts had turned sour and taken an opposite turn. He’d put on the uniform’s cream coloured sweater and opted for the winter black tights and black sneakers he’d found in the back of Rose’s closet; he wasn’t quite sure they met the criteria of the school’s dress code. The city’s continued snowfall seemed desolating that morning, and all thoughts of being someone who mattered a lot in his father’s eyes had evaporated with the morning dew.

He felt in a trance as he navigated through his early morning, almost forgetting to say goodbye to Roxy as he left her car for the school doors and replaying his interactions with Dirk the previous day over and over inside of his head. Maybe the reason he hadn’t been around, really, was because he really would have preferred to be out of the whole family’s life. Dave leaving made it easier to live the life he truly wanted.

He more or less shrieked as he felt a hand touch his shoulder, outright jumping out of his chair in the homeroom classroom. He gripped at his chest as John Harley-Egbert took a step back with a face full of regret and as his twin slapped Dave on his back with a good-natured laugh.

“Sorry about him, he got worried when you weren’t at our usual meeting spot.”

Dave smiled somewhat gratefully, resettling back into his seat as Jade took her own and John hoisted himself up to sit down on Dave’s desk all the while facing his sister.

“Are you kidding? The weather’s way too cold for me to function.” To demonstrate, he crossed his arms over his desk and rested his head atop them, somewhat conscious that John’s lap was only a few inches away from his now makeshift tabletop pillow.

John crossed his arms, frowning at Dave’s lack of posture. “Let it be said that I was only worried because of your tendency to quit. I didn’t want you to quit school, I sort of care about your future.”

“How generous of you,” Dave replied drily, “I’ve got to tell you that the only thing keeping me from dropping out is the fact that I have to show up every day to answer your dumb twin questions.”

At that, Jade stopped pulling out her various markers from her backpack to turn towards Dave excitedly, clapping her hands together.

“Oh! It’s my turn today. I’ve got the question right here…” She pulled a post-it note from her cardigan’s right pocket. “Here it is! Rose Lalonde, who are your favourite twins?”

“She means like, fictive twins or real-life famous twins or like, you know, anything goes,” John clarified.

“So you mean Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, right?” Dave offered with a small grin.

He had the front-row seat to John’s affronted look as he threw his hands up to the sky.

“Ok, that is it, Jade. There’s no way she’s an actual twin, if the only pair she could think of was the Olsen twins.”

“I was only pulling your leg, I knew you’d get offended. Let’s be real, my favourite twins are Jade and John Harley-Egbert.”

If possible, John now looked even more affronted.

“You’re so sweet, Rose,” Jade added distractedly, as she’d already begun scribbling away as they waited for their day of school to start.

“Yeah, a real charmer,” John grumbled as he dragged his feet away to take his assigned seat behind Jade.

Dave couldn’t help but to look over his shoulder and to smile at John and was still surprised to see John’s brilliant smile back, obviously in a good mood despite his complaints.

He allowed himself to rest his head back down and to shut his eyes, putting aside the images in his mind of Dirk’s eyes, of Rose’s busy air and rushed words of dismissal and Roxy’s strange air of nostalgic adoration. He smiled, thinking to himself that attending school and having at least two faces he could arguably call friends felt worlds more homely than both Roxy’s mansion and Dirk’s bachelor pad did.

He moved through his day, a strange mixture of guilt and shame when he thought of his home situation, but an ecstatic sense of glee at knowing he’d meet up with the twins for his lunch period. Surely enough, they found him at the doorway of his class, Dave, as he tended to do, the last to have left the classroom.

“Please tell me we’re staying inside to eat,” Dave greeted the pair and their matching grins with little enthusiasm as he noticed their parkas and lunch boxes.

“You can sit between us, you won’t even notice we’re outside,” Jade tried, none too convincingly.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but,” he indicated towards his state of dress, “I didn’t exactly bring a coat or anything.”

“I have noticed, but I also noticed last year that you have like a fashion lineup amount of coats, so seems to me it was your decision to brave the cold this year.”

He didn’t even attempt glaring at John. He must have been right, Rose always appeared to be fashion conscientious. Dave on the other hand, well, he hadn’t even remembered that coats and jackets were a thing. Personally, he tended to stay inside when the temperature was too low and, on rare occasions where he set out into the world anyway, it was with an objective, often related to photography, that kept him just distracted enough not to think of his lack of winter wear. His lack of jacket today and recently for that matter was his own faux pas and he’d have to assume the consequences.

“We can just stick together for warmth, shouldn’t be too much of a problem!” Jade decided in an upbeat tone.

True to her word, Dave found himself squished between Jade and John in one of the steps of the fire escape, rather than a few steps below as he typically preferred. It made sharing Jade’s lunch all that much easier. Even now that he’d been busy filling Rose’s shoes for a good number of months, he still couldn’t bring himself to spend money at the school cafeteria. Luckily, neither of the twins had questioned it, despite Dave’s designer bag and the expensive car that drove him to and from school on a daily basis. If he were being honest with himself, it really did seem as if they enjoyed his company and couldn’t be bothered to bring up a sensitive topic if it were likely to spook Dave away for good.

He often thought it must have something to do with Rose’s reputation as an academic success and musical prodigy that convinced them to put up with Dave’s mannerisms, mannerisms he knew could never line up with Rose’s. But a weaker, yet persistent, part of him believed it might have just been Dave’s presence of itself which convinced the two to include him in their day-to-day life.

“So, all your grades in?” John asked between two bites.

Dave looked up from his half of the sandwich, blinking at the extreme luminosity of the snow covered landscape. On most days, he still felt as if the absence of his shades was his biggest downfall.

“Uh huh. How about you, any other catastrophic grades?”

Jade laughed as John elbowed him, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yo, whatever. Jade wasn’t even supposed to tell you about that grade,” he sighed, once again speaking before swallowing his bite of food; Dave tried to find it disgusting but thought it was more endearing than anything else. “And no we haven’t, can you believe that? Our grade from History class isn’t in yet which is offensive given that next week is study week.”

Dave almost choked on his food. Study week? What the hell was a study week? He tried not to look too disturbed by the turn in conversation as he feigned interest in his shoelaces which had, probably, come untied hours earlier. The silence felt heavy though, even if he was fairly certain that was only the case to his ears.

“But… Why would that be offensive?” Dave dared ask, hoping that he’d be thrown a life ring in the answer.

John gave him an incredulous look and, if possible, looked even more offended. It brought a small smile to Dave’s lips. Whereas when he’d first met the other student, he’d seemed mostly argumentative and ready to fight when faced with Rose, over time his default expression had turned to taken aback and offended which, Dave knew, was really a cover for how amusing he thought Dave to be. Or anyway, he knew as much on days where his negativity didn’t take too strong a hold of his thought process.

“Because, Rose,” John enunciated slowly, seeming annoyed, but today, Dave could see the glint of amusement in his eyes. “They expect us to stay home a full week to study before finals week, I won’t know what to study if I don’t know what went wrong on the midterm which, just by the way, we handed in over three weeks ago. They just want us to fail, clearly.”

“A whole week?” Dave blanched instead of hopping on board of John’s rant.

Suddenly, Jade’s face was extremely close to his and he backed away in reaction, almost falling backwards. She was studying him with a serious air. “Did you hit your head?”

“No,” he answered shakily, thinking quick to cover up his momentary lapse of judgement, “It’s just too much time to study, I think so every year. It’s not like I forgot what study week was!”

His voice rang overly defensive and he crossed his arms over his chest for good measure.

“Yeah, I remember you saying you didn’t like being stuck at home for that long,” John mused, surprising Dave with such a tidbit of knowledge, he would not have even been able to guess for himself, “it also falls on her birthday every year, remember?”

Jade made a small ‘ah’ of acknowledgement, but Dave quieted down in thought. On the one hand he truly had forgotten it would be his birthday soon. The reminder was alike being drenched in icy water. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d looked up answers as to how late his puberty could truly kick in or even the number of nightmares he woke up from in which he’d suddenly hit a growth spurt or his Adam’s apple had made an unwanted and large appearance. Sixteen truly would start being a late age for his puberty to be delayed further back and he was hitting that age, apparently, in less than a week. On the other hand, he also felt his temperature drop with a massive sense of guilt, feeling he should be growing accustomed to by now. Throughout the years, Rose had always seemed to be in a dark mood during their birthday celebrations. Dirk never prepared anything, so he’d always relied on Roxy’s hospitality on his birthday, with little regard to Rose’s bad mood. It seemed more than obvious now she must have been nervous for her studying, or for the time Dave was taking away from it.

Dave only snapped back to the present situation once he felt John stand up next to him, the warmth of his presence already sorely missed as he turned towards the door. “I’ll catch you two later.”

He turned around, pressing his lips together as he observed the abrupt departure. Maybe he’d been embarrassed to know such intimate details about Rose in the first place. Or maybe he was miffed by Dave’s lack of reaction. Or maybe he too was nervous about that so called study week. Dave pulled at his sweater’s sleeves, resisting the urge to bite at the hem of the sleeve and wondering if it was the norm for teenaged students to feel so anxious about their academic achievements or if it was exclusive to Rose’s school.

“Don’t mind him. He just wanted me to ask you something. Also wanted to not be around when I did.”

“Huh” was Dave’s eloquent response, though he didn’t skip a beat when accepting Jade’s offered container of sliced strawberries.

“Yeah, you know how he gets. He doesn’t want you to know that he thinks you’re awesome and that he cares, even if it’s obvious. He’ll think he’s less cool or something.”

Dave laughed a bit at that, recognising a pattern of behaviour in Jade’s description not unlike his own. It wasn’t unlike his idolisation of his father, though he knew it must have been painfully obvious, he rarely said anything positive towards his guardian.

“I don’t get it though, what’s that got to do with anything?”

“He wants you to stay over at our place for the first weekend of study week. You know, to study together and to potentially celebrate your birthday, so that you’ll have a better time than usual.”

He picked at the fabric of his tights, not too entirely sure how he felt about Jade claiming she knew how Rose felt about her birthdays, even though she’d never spoken to her before the start of the tenth grade, before Rose had been gone altogether and replaced by her doppelgänger. It seemed pretty obvious, however, that the obligation for Rose to spend her birthday with Dave every year didn’t seem to be a great deal or bonus.

“I know I will,” Dave muttered, thinking of Rose and of how she’d be free to celebrate however she pleased come Sunday morning, when it would officially be her birthday. Saturday night, nearing midnight, that was Dave’s designated birthday.

They continued eating the sliced strawberries until they had all vanished, and only then did Jade bring up the subject again.

“So? Is that a yes?”

“Yeah, course. I’ll just check with my mom first,” Dave replied easily, smiling at Jade’s beaming expression, “and for now, my only request is to head inside so I don’t lose both my fingers and ears to hypothermia.”

Jade almost bounced as she made her way back inside, not at all seeming guilty as she emerged from the designated door for emergency exits. “John will be so happy! I mean, obviously I am too. It’s just going to be a great time, Rose, you’ll see!”

Dave smiled weakly at the reminder of his twin’s name and shrugged his shoulders at Jade.

“What can I say, I aim to please.”

The day dragged on once they had parted for their afternoon classes. And once the trio was reunited at the end of the day, no mention of the potential sleepover was made in front of John, though Dave didn’t think he was imagining the looseness in John’s shoulders as he smiled casually at everything and nothing. His mother arrived to pick him up an hour after the end of his classes, as they had agreed to weeks prior when the Harley-Egbert twins had begun monopolising his time. He both felt happy that Roxy was happy for his new friend group and sad that he could easily share that information with her, but not with Rose.

It was all too easy to bring up the first weekend of study break in the confines of the car, he received an easy approval with the only tradeoff of promising to be home relatively early in the evening Sunday, so that Roxy could prepare his, or Rose’s, favourite cake.

It was late in the night, after finishing all of his homework, some of it well in advance, that he pulled Rose’s laptop away from her desk and settled on the bed with it, pyjamas already on and teeth already brushed. He smiled, both touched and guilty, when he found that Rose had pestered him as early as the end of his school day.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 5:05 --

TG: Dave, I am not sure when you will log on, but I really wanted, needed, you to know that I’m here for you. I know that in reality I’ve been fairly absent, but you’re very dear to me and your happiness matters to me, alright? If you’ve had enough with this, I can cut things short for Christmas time. I can just feign homesickness, it’s not that farfetched. I don’t care if we have to shave our heads off when I come home to make it a successful switch, it’ll be worth it if you’re more at ease.
TG: I’m sorry that’s not what I told you straight away. That was a mistake. I was feeling overwhelmed and could not see how much you were suffering. I know I haven’t always been the most understanding and I can be selfish at times, but that doesn’t mean you should sacrifice yourself for my sake. Please forgive me.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 5:55 --

Dave read the words carefully, repeatedly, until eventually they seemed blurry on the screen. He put a hand over his chest, rubbing mindlessly as he let Rose’s words sink in. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken or communicated with him in such an expressive manner. Surely, she’d been torturing herself all day with the memory of Dave’s freakout, and here he had been having a regular, almost fun, day.

Quickly he pestered her back, disregarding the time on the digital clock of the laptop.

-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 11:37 --

TT: sorry for the late reply
TT: i was busy having a normal day and not like an end of the world day
TT: i overreacted yesterday please dont worry
TT: i just hadnt seen bro since
TT: well you know
TT: the airport
TT: messed with my emotions i think
TT: im not backing out on you now
TT: ive got you covered
TT: dont torture yourself thinking of me
TT: im fine
TT: i always am
TG: Oh, Dave. It’s not ‘torture’. I’m your sister. I care. Even if sometimes I’m a little delayed in showing that. I can’t very well sit back as you’re going through life totally miserable.
TT: honest i was just miserable yesterday
TT: today was actually pretty good
TG: Really? That’s great! I’m happy to hear it. I’d love to hear more about your day.

His hands were ready to type out a decent, even honest, answer. But any attempts of formulating ‘i might have friends’ were promptly erased. He hadn’t gotten any permission from Rose to go and befriend anyone. Especially not the most popular duo of her grade. And, even less so, waltz out of Roxy’s house to go attend a sleepover. If bathrooms were synonymous to disastrous secret identity reveals, sleepovers had to be even more so. There was no way Rose could support, endorse, or recommend that he go through with this. But, perhaps selfishly, or perhaps in an attempt to feel even remotely less lonely, he kept that to himself.

TG: Hey?
TG: You’re not making this up just so that I stop worrying, right? Because I told you, I will come home. You’ve already stuck in there for a long time, you’ve done enough.
TT: no no!!
TT: im not lying
TT: its just hard to put into words
TT: im just happy
TT: ish?
TT: its kind of good to be away from dirk
TT: and be close to mom
TT: closeish?
TT: i just feel normal i guess
TT: might seem weird to you but for a freak like me ya know
TG: You’re not a freak. Dave, you’re a great person. And it might not seem that way yet because we’re still young, but trust me when I say that there aren’t exclusively great people out there. You should be proud of yourself.

Dave rubbed at his eyes, feeling both tired and emotionally strained. He could have sworn, reading Rose’s words, that she was feeling bitter or that she might have been hiding something from him. He did want to inquire, but the next thing he knew lullaby music was playing, the laptop was still warm where it was hibernating over his stomach and the skies were dark in contrast to the light he hadn’t turned off last night. He’d fallen asleep before giving any reply, but as he checked quickly for Rose’s replies, none appeared. Maybe she too had fallen asleep or, perhaps, she had not wanted to say anything more on the subject at all.

It turns out they don’t speak again before the fated sleepover, mostly, probably, because Dave is avoiding any and all conversation. Rose’s praise, that he was a great person, followed him everywhere, made him feel as if his chest was glowing. That mention, though, also haunted him. What sort of great person would accept to put their plan at risk by attending some frivolous event at the popular kids’ house; all for what? To feel like he was part of something? To feel like he belonged? To feel loved?

Inarguably, he did feel all of those things throughout the week, spending long portions of his day, every day, with the twins, and feeling as though he was part of their small clique, as if he mattered. It was enough support to keep him away from contacting Rose and enough to carry him through to the end of the week. Friday night was the biggest challenge as he stared at the loops of Jade’s handwriting on the note she’d handed to him, setting out her home address for the following day. He wanted the best odds on his side, he wanted to turn to Rose to check for last minute tips on how to best embody her for an entire weekend with so-called friends.

And though that yearning followed him up to the moment his mother pulled into the Harley-Egbert driveway, it was easily overwhelmed by his sense of guilt and of disappointment. Though he could have sworn he had the best of intentions, he had, in the end, done next to nothing to prepare or ready himself for the outing. Really, he just wanted to be himself and to enjoy his birthday, even if today was Dave’s birthday and Rose’s would only be on the following day.

He hugged the white, seemingly unused, backpack he’d found amidst Rose’s collection of bags, where he’d stored several schoolbooks, though he was guessing they wouldn’t be taking any real time to study over the weekend. He wasn’t quite sure if the road they were going down could be qualified as a driveway, as they had passed the gates of the estate a few metres back and the road still stretched ahead, framed by impressive oak trees. It might be hard to be himself amidst a setting that so resembled Rose’s luxurious lifestyle and seemed more than foreign to the, perhaps well-off, but modest lifestyle he had grown up with. Even the oak trees seemed more generous in proportions than the one-bedroom apartment he truly considered to be his home. He still believed he could let his personality shine through, just for the one day, all the while presenting as his sister.

“I’ll have my phone with me all day, so if anything comes up and you want to come home early, just call.”

He couldn’t read Roxy’s expression with the overly large yet fashionable sunglasses she was sporting. Though Prada was definitely not the brand Dirk and him liked wearing, the air of familiarity still rang true. And perhaps that was why, after she’d kissed his forehead in goodbye, he leaned forward towards the front seats to wrap his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder for a second or two and pulling away from the hug, he knew for a fact, was not in Rose’s habits.

Roxy didn’t seem to mind as she simply smiled brighter and patted his shoulder lovingly.

“Oh, and I’ll see you when you’re sixteen!”

Dave managed to grin as he reminded himself that technically, he hadn’t yet reached sixteen either, he would only once the clock would be minutes away from midnight.

In true Rose fashion, he would never forget just how methodically she packed for their family trips and how her suitcase never failed to dwarf his, he had prepared a small suitcase for the night over. Roxy left the car just as he did to help him pull it out from the car’s trunk. He was stopped as soon as his sneakers, Rose’s really, hit the snow-covered gravel.

There, sitting in an eyrie, yet in an unthreatening way, was a dog. A childhood spent researching decent pets to propose to his guardian, project he’d never carried to an end, made it so that he recognised the breed as a samoyed. The white coat and black upturned lips made the recognition inevitable, but its giant proportions were really what threw Dave off. That and, of course, the fact that the dog had been no where in sight just a few moments earlier.

“Yo, buddy, hope you actually live here. In any case, please don’t eat me,” he spoke in a hurried and low pace, glancing over at Roxy where she was taking out his miniature suitcase which was, if he was not incorrect, of an even more impressive brand than the bag he used for school.

As he took a careful step towards her, the dog stood up and followed after him.

“Uhm…”

His hesitation drew the attention of his mother who, almost predictably, squealed in delight at the sight of the monstrously proportioned dog whose coat matched the winter wonderland that had settled over their city.

“You didn’t tell me your school friends had a dog!”

“Well, they didn’t tell me either.”

Just as he tried to take the last step away from the beast, the dog launched itself at him, or so Dave interpreted, as it put its paws over his shoulders and eagerly licked at his face.

“Holy fucking shit, I’m dying, I’m dying,” he let out miserably, completely foregoing any pretence in reacting as Rose would have and hoping dearly that Rose would have been just as freaked out by the attack.

He barely had time to feel relieved by the sound of Roxy’s soft laughter, both because he was still terrified by the size of the strangely fast moving dog, but also because the commotion he had caused must have drawn Jade from the inside of her house, or rather mansion, and she didn’t waste a second to match Dave’s volume of distress.

“Becquerel Harley-Egbert, you let her go this instant!”

She stomped over, all anger and impatience, but the dog, Becquerel, simply turned his head to look at her, tongue still lolling out; heavy weight still resting on Dave’s shoulders.

“Please save me.”

He’d scooted back as far as possible, now pressed against the Mercedes and trying to turn his head as far away as possible from the dog’s overly affectionate behaviour.

He really only registered John’s boisterous laughter once Jade had coaxed Becquerel away. He stared in disbelief as John swiped through the pictures he’d taken on his phone to document Dave’s previous absolute horror, laughing so hard he had to push his glasses off to brush off his tears.

“I’m so sorry, Ma’am, I promise we will take good care of your daughter. Bec is just as happy as us to have her over, I think.”

Dave looked away from John’s uncontrolled laughter, somewhat surprised to see him showing such pure happiness, a look he had yet to see on him. He was much more surprised to see the way Jade had hoisted Becquerel into her arms, where he clung calmly to her. The dog had felt like tons earlier, but Jade seemed completely unbothered by the weight.

“He’s a beauty. He, right?” Roxy asked with interest, approaching to pet behind Bec’s ears.

Dave guessed she was preparing to start up a game of twenty questions about Jade’s dog, which definitely looked like an oversized baby now that he was resting his head on her shoulder sleepily, while still being carried. As such, he took his suitcase from Roxy and moved towards John who was slowly recovering from his fit of laughter.

“You’re going to delete those pictures, right?” he asked, all false calm and composure.

“Give me one good reason to delete and I definitely will,” John replied without missing a beat, still smiling brightly. His braces were green, he wondered if he’d gone to the orthodontist recently or if he hadn’t smiled that widely in a while.

“You’ll be crushing my spirit and reputation if you keep those.”

“I said good reason to delete, not good reason to keep.”

They exchanged a quick, silent look, and soon enough they were laughing together. Nonetheless, Dave crossed his arms as John pulled up the pictures. He was silent as John continued to snicker at the snapped pictures, angling the phone so Dave would be able to witness the hilarity.

Despite his choice in clothing for the day, a simple and loose t-shirt and shorts to contradict the current cold weather, his resemblance to Rose was still more than uncanny on the photograph. Perhaps he could visit the hairdresser soon to get his hair shortened a bit… He both ignored the voice reminding him that he should be striving to be as close as possible to Rose’s image and the other strong reminder that if he were to go to the salon, it would be his very first time without his accompanying twin.

A third topic he desperately tried to put aside was the image of his guardian, not even a week ago, and the unmistakable recognition that had occurred then. He stored that away for later, for late at night when the worry and panic would unquestionably keep him up.

“Geez, don’t look so solemn, I was only kidding, I can delete it, no problem.”

Dave snapped back into focus, slightly saddened to see John’s expression turn sourer, more similar to what he was used to. Instead of uncrossing his arms, he simply tightened them over his chest.

“You can keep them, as long as you don’t share. Sorry, I was just lost in thought.”

John must have sensed that the thought in question had been of meaning because soon he was bumping their shoulders together as he smiled privately at Dave.

“Your mom seems to like Bec,” he pointed towards the pair still cooing over the large dog, “sometimes I feel like he’s more of a sibling to Jade than I am. You know, he sleeps on top of her every day!”

“Yeah, but there is nothing I’d want less in the world than to have my brother sleeping on top of me.”

“Fair point,” John conceded, large smile back in place.

Dave smirked in return though his heart seemed heavier as he thought of his sister. He definitely wouldn’t want to share a bed with her, but it might have been nice to communicate with her today of all days.

Before he knew it, Roxy was giving him a final wave goodbye and her car was pulling away. Jade had returned to his side, Becquerel in tow.

“Your mom’s pretty awesome,” Jade stated easily, patting Becquerel’s head.

“I guess so.”

He lacked confidence in his reply as he stared at the back of the retreating car. Honestly, it had looked easier for Jade to connect with Roxy in that short conversation, than it had been for Dave in the last several months. Perhaps because he’d needed to emulate the relationship she had with Rose which, though seemed precious all things considered, was strained by Rose’s constant appearance of aloofness and detachedness.

“Our dad’s still out at the Farmers’ Market, it’s like three towns over so it’ll be a while, but he swears by it.”

John had grabbed Dave’s prepared suitcase by the handle as he briefly explained the absence of parental figures, leading the small group through the doorway of the home.

“So, you ready for the grand tour?” Jade asked excitedly, clapping her hands together in habit.

“Uhm…” he glanced around the foyer, the vastness of it so intimidating that the only detail his mind could cling to was the marble mosaic of the floors, “I get the slight feeling that I’ll have turned seventeen rather than sixteen by the time we finish a tour of this place.”

Jade laughed, as good-naturedly as Dave was accustomed to hearing from her by now, but John only observed him silently, almost calculating in his gaze.

“Then, just to be safe, I’ll show you the one room that actually matters. And then I’m sure John will show you his favourite room, but trust me, mine is way more essential than his.”

The ‘hey!’ of outrage from John was to be expected and it did get a smile out of Dave, even despite the sudden sense of being overwhelmed the grand mansion was imposing on him. Not for the first time, he wondered if Rose would be better suited for the situation he found himself in. The Lalonde house was also incredibly impressive, he wasn’t quite sure if the two houses were comparable in price and style, but he knew they were both luxurious. Maybe he shouldn’t be so impressed by the décor? Would Rose have been? Should he even be after months of living in the Lalonde manor, really?

Then again, Dave still felt on most days as if he were living on a set of a movie. Nothing about it had anything to do with his real life. The gated off mansion in the midst of a mystical forest lookalike was truly John and Jade’s home.

The suitcase had been left by the front door, where Becquerel was scenting the newly appeared object, and Jade had headed towards the acclaimed room. Dave had been too lost in his introspection to notice the steps and direction they had taken to arrive in the area, but he didn’t need an explanation to the room.

He’d stepped into a solarium, a sunroom, one easily larger than his and his father’s shared apartment. The architecture and the design of the glassed dome-like structure was certainly noteworthy, but definitely paled when observing the contents of the room. The room wasn’t simply an imposing and majestic sunroom, but also a greenroom. Dave could barely distinguish a path throughout the plants and flowers.

With greater grace than he’d seen from Jade in the past, she dropped to a knee to pick up a fallen flower which she then tucked into her ponytail. Only once the flower tucked into place did Dave even realise there had been something slightly off about Jade’s appearance. To this day, he’d never seen her without a hibiscus included in her hairdo.

She waved Dave closer to the plant where she showed him the other blossomed flowers which had yet to fall. “This one’s an Acapulco Gold, pretty, right?”

Dave let his fingers skim lightly over the outer edges of the flower which were of a canary yellow, contrast to the burning orange that faded into it, and an even bigger contrast to the dark crimson of the centre of the flower.

“Yeah, I mean, yeah. I wouldn’t have guessed that the flowers in your hair meant that you had a whole god damned botanical garden inside of your house though.”

“Yo, Rose, this one’s the best one,” John called out from somewhere much further into the solarium, promptly enough to cut off any reply Jade could have given Dave.

Without another thought, Dave ducked, dodged and swerved all the way to John’s position. The flower he found there was of a midnight blue, edges much darker as if they had been dipped into oil, with a centre that swirled outwards with a light blue that almost seemed bioluminescent in its colour.

“This one is called Lowas, it’s probably the most famous flower discovered by our grandfather.”

Before he had time to inquire on just who this grandfather was and why exactly his life legacy had been the discovery of famous flowers, Jade had reappeared next to him, seeming excited to elaborate on John’s words.

“He was a renowned explorer and botanist of the region of French Polynesia!”

“Oh… So that’s why you’re like…” Dave let his sentence in suspension, not sure if it would really be socially acceptable for him to complete the sentence.

John’s expression seemed to pinch at the incomplete sentence, however.

“Please don’t say ‘tanned’.”

It was Dave’s turn to look at John strangely, “I was going to say loaded, actually. Or like, say that’s why your house looks like it’s the combination of five embassies.”

“Oh! Well, not really. He was our mom’s father, so that’s why her place looks like that, but that’s in Tahiti…” a dreamy expression took over her features as she spoke. Perhaps she dreamed of escaping the recent snowfalls, though Dave had almost completely forgotten about those with the environment of the greenroom.

“Dad was also born and raised in Tahiti. But his mother was the heiress to this huge American corporation which I won’t name because it’s embarrassing to be associated to it. But yeah, she just decided to leave the States one day and to live somewhere really different, I suppose. That’s why dad too is a little on the rich side.”

The look on John’s face was quite different as he spoke, almost far away, contemplative and a tad nostalgic.

Dave hummed in acknowledgement, bending down to pick up a fallen Lowas blossom. “Why did your father move back here, do you know?”

“Yeah, his mother got really sick. She wanted to come back to make sure her will and estate and all that was in order, and then I guess she got pretty close to a medical team here and never got the chance to head back. Our father followed along with us because he didn’t want to miss any of the last few moments.”

John’s air intensified this time, but he didn’t add anything more. Eventually, Jade piped in to complete the missing details.

“And then, you know what they say, America’s the land of opportunity. He thought maybe it would be a better place for our education, we were about to start kindergarten, John and I… Our mother didn’t seem to agree. So that was the whole underlying theme of their divorce. We did end up staying here, and we’ve been in pretty elitist school establishments ever since.”

Dave nodded, at a loss on what he could possibly say on the subject. He realised that must have been a lot more information than he’d ever gotten on the twins’ personal life and history until now. All and all, the subjects they’d breezed through just now were more than a bit heavy.

“So that’s the whole scoop. We’re loaded because of old money,” John paused, still seeming far too observant for Dave’s comfort, “how about you?”

“How about me?”

“Yeah, I mean, the whole school is rich, it’s not just us, it’s you too,” Jade clarified in an all too curious voice.

“Why am I loaded? Uh, well… My mom, she…”

She what exactly? She was a scientist, right? Was she in the field of research? He had the sneaking suspicion that if the twins were to conduct a google search on her subject, they would have details a whole lot more interesting than what Dave could supply them with.

“I mean, she works a lot,” Dave finally settled on, quite shakily.

Now that he gave it a moment of thought, he had no idea who his grandparents were, he’d never given it a single thought in the past, he’d just never met any grandparents. Yet, Roxy and Dirk were bound to have parents. In fact, he could not even tell them why it was that his parents had decided on having Rose, despite no romantic involvement between the two. He couldn’t guess if Rose had more information than he did, but he knew he’d never asked or given it any attention. Yet, here Jade and John were giving a full exposé on their family tree and its accomplishments.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. You don’t have to talk about it.”

He grit his teeth in reaction to John’s words and his hand resting on his shoulder yet again. Though he’d managed not to flinch away, the flower he’d held in his hand was a little worse for wear as he’d gripped it tightly in reaction to the touch.

Delicately, Jade pried the flower out of his hand and tucked it right behind his ear. Dave’s face quickly heated up with the movement, desperate to pull the flower off, yet not moving to do so.

“Hibiscus are my favourite, sure because it does remind me of where John and I are from, but mostly because the life of a hibiscus bloom is so short. They wilt within twenty-four hours, you know? So that’s like ephemeral beauty at its finest. They’re so vibrant and colourful, even though they won’t get a chance to be for very long.”

Dave let his hands fall limply to his sides. He wasn’t entirely sure if Jade was trying to speak through metaphors, and if she were, what exactly she was referencing, but he felt a pang of sadness nonetheless. He thought of his sister, who wore the name of a flower and thought again of his poor imitation of her, of how ridiculously out of place he currently felt.

It was John again who pulled him out of such thoughts, when he casually commented on the flower, following Jade’s serious comments.

“Just be careful with that, Rose. The one time she made me wear one, there was an ant inside of the flower and it crawled into my ear. I’m pretty sure she did it on purpose, she thinks she compares to me on the pranking level, but it was super mean-spirited.”

“Was not! I didn’t even know about that!”

“I think it was a fire ant too.”

“Oh please, you haven’t seen a fire ant in your life!”

As they started bickering, Dave lost focus, his gaze wandering from corner to corner as he took in the various species of flowers which occupied the solarium. He wondered if Rose would be appalled by the room or if she would like it. He wondered then, if he actually liked it or not, or if he was starting to get confused by what he should and shouldn’t like in order to pass as his sister. He longed for his room back at his real home, were his numerous hobbies waited for him. He longed for the confirmation that Dirk had not recognised him or at the very least he wanted him to confess that he did recognise Dave and that it made little to no difference to him that he had helped Rose execute this plan. But the crestfallen attitude that Dirk had displayed at the airport on the day of her departure still haunted him enough to convince him that Dirk was not all that indifferent towards the situation.

“That’s it. We’re showing Rose the real best room of the place,” John declared provocatively.

In their enthusiasm to find out with who Dave would side, they both grabbed one of his arms and dragged him out of the sunroom. Dave who had not at all been keeping up with the flow of the conversation.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, maybe an indoor amusement park, rollercoasters included, or even a pool filled with the actual water of their home island, but a movie theatre room seemed a lot more reasonable. It was impressive, with a screen taking up an entire wall, and a bar area where a popcorn machine and all other movie snack essentials were at the ready, but it was far less extravagant than a solarium housing rare species of hibiscus flowers. The life-size posters that were framed and adorning the walls made the room all the more human.

“These movies are all terrible. I mean like, really, these are pretty shitty movies. How did they get a place of honour in what John calls the best room of the house?”

His words had the expected effect of pushing Jade into a fit of laughter, the sound quickly becoming familiar to Dave, but the genuine gasp of distress and offense John made was something that beat out any previous dramatic expressions of John’s.

“Because they’re classics of American cinema, all signed by the stars of the films, by the way!”

“But… This one over here if the Family Man, it doesn’t even qualify as a classic Christmas movie, let alone a legendary film of cinema altogether.”

“What! That movie has made such a colossal difference on so many people out there. The one true lesson by Hollywood of the wholesomeness of family life.”

With that, Dave had joined in on Jade’s excessive laughter, clutching his sides as he curled over, laughing too hard to try to be Rose-like about it.

“Wow, rude! And what is your favourite movie exactly, pray tell?”

The question put a successful end to Dave’s carefree laughter. What was Rose’s favourite movie exactly? She liked wizards, he knew that much. What film outside of the Harry Potter franchise featured them, though? The only titles that came to his mind were of the independent, Sundance winners variety.

“That information happens to be a federally kept secret,” Dave retorted in a practiced line he’d always used on Dirk to keep away from any heart-to-heart discussions.

John opened his mouth, surely to prod further, but was interrupted by his sister as she dove onto one of the theatre seats.

“That’s not the point, she’s seen both rooms, now she can tell us which room is the overall best. And it’s going to be mine, I know so.”

“I haven’t gathered enough evidence to render a judgement, I would say.” He took the seat next to Jade with poise, crossing his arms to add emphasis to the seriousness of his critique. “I’m fairly certain there is one hundred rooms or more that I’ve yet to feast my eyes on. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an actual stage in this place, or something.”

John leaned over the back of their seats at that, looking as if he were about to announce that their estate did in fact house a miniature Palais Garnier.

“Well, we do have a music room. If you want we can jam together, we’re bound to have a violin in there that suits your taste. I’ll accompany you, and Jade can hit some notes on whichever instrument of her choice.”

Jade argued back in an offended fashion and Dave more or less froze up.

“I’m willing to play some Paganini, if Rose agrees to play some Rachmaninoff,” John continued, as he explained to his sister why her skills on the electric guitar were beside his planned jam session.

“Dude,” he offered weakly in protest, “I don’t play anymore. I mean it. If you’ve got like a Midi Fighter up there, I’ll play that. But none of this classical stuff, that’s in the past now.”

His words had the desired effect on John, who seemed too confused by the terms used in the sentence to present his own argument, but apparently the lexicon wasn’t too removed from Jade who, as he’d just seen, wasn’t as classically oriented as her twin.

“You can also DJ? Wow!”

“What? DJ? You’ve never even been to a school dance before!” John proclaimed, seeming a little thrown off by where the conversation was heading. As a matter of fact, so was Dave.

“What about homework?” Dave threw out there as a last resort distraction, pointing his thumb backwards to indicate the backpack he had been carrying around the house this whole time.

“Homework…?”

His statement, seemingly, had only further confused John. Jade, a little quicker to understand Dave’s suggestion, took a hold of the handle of the backpack, weighing it somewhat.

“Oh my god, you actually brought homework? You’re… Motivated.”

Dave crossed his arms a little more tightly over his chest, feeling somewhat defensive.

“Grades matter,” he said through gritted teeth.

They had never truly mattered in the past. His pass or fail education had never been a source of problems. But he still found that he wasn’t lying as he spoke. They mattered in the sense that they had always seemed to matter to Rose and he was trying to do right by her. He hadn’t at all been present for her in the past days, the least he could do is conserve a pristine life she could return to once the year was up.

“But not as much as food, right? Because I think Dad is probably back by now. Have we mentioned he’s the greatest cook there is? And baker too, must be his mom’s legacy.”

Admittedly, Dave came to agree with John’s affirmation as the day progressed. Not only were both the lunch and the supper provided by the elder Egbert (not Harley, he found out) far beyond the skills of any dish he’d eaten in a restaurant in the past, snacks and food seemed to be a constant throughout the day. By the time the moon had risen, he was clutching at his bloated stomach helplessly.

In a lot of regards, the twins’ guardian strongly reminded him of Dirk. Though he was polite and amiable, he didn’t waste his words. He seemed detached, yet caring. It was slowly dawning on him that, yes, despite all of his flaws, Dirk was every part the caring parent as Mister Egbert seemed to be.

The day, aside from the few moments that would often grip him in a fear of being in the wrong place and not being the right embodiment of his sister, really only seemed like an extended lunch period with Jade and John. It was comfortable, easy, comforting; it was everything he thought friendship might translate to in person. Certain things he found odd, of course. The unexplainable vastness of the home housing only three and one dog. The fact that the twins’ father had spent a good part of his night preparing a tiered cake for breakfast the following morning, in honour of Rose’s birthday. The bedrooms of Jade and John, both located on different floors of the house, and neither of which he’d been invited to visit during his stay. The way Becquerel was friendly with everyone, including Dave, but seemed to prefer to ignore John’s existence. The black pearls John wore around his wrist even after changing into his pyjamas.

Weirdest, maybe, was that neither of the twins had insisted in the morning that their observatory room was by far the most impressive room of their manor. The glass dome was even larger than the greenhouse’s, the telescope, too expensive for Dave to even dare look at. And, with the way their home was slightly removed from more inhabited areas of their city, the night sky painted a beautifully clear tableau above their heads, mapping out different constellations and cosmic beings.

Even though the pillows, air mattresses and blankets set out were all comfy and of good quality, he was questioning if he could fall asleep under the stars as Jade had already done, judging by her light snoring. Besides, his restlessness would come in handy when he’d have to sneak off a level down to get to the bathroom and remove his coloured contact lenses. For now, he simply made sure to hike his blanket up to his chin, though he knew his choice of pyjamas wasn’t going to reveal a more boyish figure than per usual, he felt better under its protection.

John, on the other hand, was atop his blankets, seeming unconcerned with anything and everything. Arms crossed under his head as he stared off to the sky.

“So,” Dave spoke slowly, not wanting to wake Jade up, “Jade wears a hibiscus daily. You know, like, the native Tahitian flower. So like, those black pearls you wear, also a Tahiti thing?”

John brought his hand up, observing the bracelet as if he hadn’t noticed it in a while.

“Got it in one. It’s a bracelet of Tahitian pearls. Must seem a little extravagant, I bet…”

Dave snorted.

“Not more extravagant than having both a greenhouse and an observatory in your family house, trust me.”

John shrugged with a grin, letting his hand fall towards Dave, who was occupying the centre mattress, between Jade and John.

“I’ve had it for ages. When I was like, I don’t know, probably a toddler. My mother took me to a pearl farm. It just seemed awesome to me. Ever since, it’s been my dream to work at one. That’s why I’m already a certified diver and why I’m thinking of studying marine biology, I guess. Though, I’m sure it would be easy to get hired, it’s kind of a driving force of the economy there.”

Dave nodded along, listening attentively to every detail John was offering.

“Would you say that’s like your happiest childhood memory?”

A pause, and then a hesitant answer.

“I guess so. It’s funny though, Jade hated the whole thing, she cried for hours, pleading to go home to watch some show on television, I think. Mom got her this beautiful, long necklace of pearls. I don’t think she’s ever really worn it, it’s still back home in her bedroom in Tahiti, I think. I got this bracelet and it’s never really come off except to be readjusted throughout the years.”

“Do you get the chance to go a lot? Back home, like you said.”

“Every Christmas, mostly. Best tradeoff for completing exams.”

Dave hummed, still pulling his blanket even further up. It was surprising how upset he felt at the idea of the twins being so far removed from him during the winter break. They’d only recently met and, really, they didn’t know the first real thing about Dave. They really only knew Rose, or at least believed they knew her but weren’t quite sharp enough to pick up when it was truly her or just an imitation.

“How about you?”

Dave nearly jumped in surprise at John’s voice. He made sure his pulse had slowed before turning his head and giving him a short and questioning “huh?”

“What’s your fondest childhood memory?”

He swallowed, trying to push down the automatic recollection of memories. He wouldn’t have been able to say that specific day had been the most memorable, the happiest, the most precious of his memories, and yet… It was the one to come to his mind.

“Uh, well… I guess. Going to an airshow. Maybe I was around the same age as you, I’m not sure? But we watched the F-15 jets blast through the city skies and it was — the loudest thing I’d ever heard. There were so many people I clutched my… My parent’s hand the whole time, I was scared we’d be separated. I guess it was nothing special, but there you have it.” He breathed in deep, replacing the word father by parent in his speech with just some difficulty. “I guess I feel pretty guilty about it too. Feels like the fondest memory should at the very least include my twin. I know Jade was crying in yours, but it’s already better than being totally absent.”

“Hey,” John continued, in a voice that was only fitting for an hour nearing midnight, in the complete darkness save for the faraway lights of the universe, “what would you say is the opposite word to guilty?”

Without a moment of thought Dave answered, “guiltless. Why?”

“You just seem like you often feel guilty. Maybe it’s a pattern you should break.”

The shrug that accompanied the words, the casual worry that stayed underlying was unusual, yet it managed to warm Dave’s face and seemingly the palms of his hands.

“I think that might be impossible.” He lowered his voice, both hoping John would be too tired and sleepy to remember on the following day and hoping if he did that he could pass it off as himself feeling too tired and sleepy and speaking nonsense. “I feel guilty about even being born, so it’s a tall order to change that now.”

John reached across, and this time, held Dave’s hand. If Dave moved his thumb just so, he’d be able to feel the surface of the black pearls around his wrist.

“I’m thankful you were born, I think you’re amazing.”

There was a beat of silence in which Dave’s chest seemed to get heavier and heavier with an unknown and unidentifiable emotion; he could not fathom if it was a positive or a negative one, but it was certainly making it much more of a challenge to breathe normally.

Finally, John spoke again, in a voice that was more than of a hint that he was a few seconds away from hitting full unconsciousness. It was but a simple and whispered “happy birthday, Rose.”

It was enough that Dave had to furiously blink to keep water from escaping his eyes. He agreed that Rose was amazing. He wondered, idly, if it was past midnight yet or not, if John had managed to wish him a happy birthday on the correct date or not. He wondered what the correct date truly was given the current context of his situation. He wondered if ‘guiltless’ would even be feasible after a full year of this charade.

It was both painful and a great relief to pry his hand out of John’s in order to clandestinely store away his contacts without anyone seeing the red of his eyes.

Upon his return, he made the discovery that John snored just as steadily as Jade did. The soundtrack was surprisingly calming enough to lull him into a light sleep.

He thanked all the stars in the sky when he managed to wake up before either one of the twins. Winter was well on its way with the morning sky still as dark as can be. He repeated the same trek down to the bathroom.

He spent more than a few minutes trying to comb down his hair with water in the bathroom mirror. Not for the last time, he wondered if he should get his cut freshened up, probably not at his usual hair salon.

He was having a stare-off with his reflection when the bathroom door burst open. He almost fell down in his panic as he turned towards the intruder who was… None other than John; whose hair looked as messy as Dave’s had a few moments prior to.

“Woah! I’m so sorry, actually, I should’ve known you were in here, you weren’t still up there, but I don’t know, I figured maybe you were in the kitchen, eating cake? We can do that in a moment, after I pee, and you pee too, I guess? I don’t know, I’m sorry, please say something!”

The stream of spoken thought did nothing to calm down Dave’s sudden fast pulse and breathing. His one rule of avoiding public bathrooms once again coming back to put his choices to shame. With an embarrassed and aggravated huff, Dave covered his eyes with one hand, feeling stupid as he drew attention to the feature John had failed to comment on and, hopefully, to notice.

“Hey, what’s up? Don’t tell me you’re freaking out over turning sixteen?”

Dave heard John take a step closer and, knowing there was no easy way of stepping out of his current position. He simply let his hand fall away to reveal his eyes.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he mumbled shamefully. He was unsure if he was most worried about Rose finding out he’d done this much damage in the time he’d spent trying to give her a year away from her home life, or if he was more concerned with showing his eyes like this.

“What? I— I didn’t know your eyes were this colour, it’s not a big deal though?”

Dave gave him an unimpressed look, turning back to the mirror to fish out the contact lens case he’d stored in the pouch of the hoodie he’d worn to bed.

“I hate it. It makes me feel like a freak. I’d trade with anyone else in the world for any other set of eyes imaginable.”

He didn’t bother to hide his honest disgust and discontent, steadily putting the contacts back into place after months of practice in doing so. He blinked his newly brown eyes and finally faced away from the reflection to meet John’s still worried eyes.

“Again, don’t tell anyone, but this is the one thing about myself I’m most self-conscious about. I don’t know, must sound silly, or like you said, not that big of a deal, yet I can’t stand it. I wish no one else in the world had to ever see them.”

He took a deep breath, trying to remind himself to tone down the connotative vocabulary. Surely, this didn’t deserve as big a fuss as he was making. Surely, Rose would have never used such extreme words solely to describe an insecurity.

“I’m sorry I walked in,” John whispered more than a little guiltily.

“It’s alright, John. I trust you, so I know you probably don’t care about something like that and that you won’t go blabbing to anyone and everyone.”

He’d barely finished speaking that John had stepped forward and pulled him into crushing hug. Dave made a small choking sound before clutching back at John, sinking into the embrace with a lot less hesitance than he deserved to display. He was briefly concerned with having his body pressed up against John’s, still terrified of slipping up and being revealed as Rose’s freaky twin who couldn’t pull anything off. But instead, moments passed and the tightness and care in the hug never lessened.

“I promise I’ll keep it to myself. I’ll do everything I can to show that I deserve your trust, alright?” John said with surprising ease as he pulled away from Dave.

The guilt he’d been dragging around in the past months seemed to amplify then, moving up from overwhelming to suffocating to truly and otherworldly unbearable. He smiled brokenly, hating himself a little more for playing with people’s trust with so little remorse.

Eating cake in the morning proved to be just as hard on his stomach as he’d foreseen, and that fact was only increased by that heavy weight of guilt, still crushing him down.

His only selfish pleasure and comfort of the day was finding out, on the ride back home, sitting in the backseat of Roxy’s car, that Dirk had decided to start partaking again in their weekly get-together, specifically this one to help celebrate Rose’s sixteenth.

The hug he’d given his guardian upon seen him was a very faithful imitation to how John had approached and hugged him in that bathroom, without a worry on display.

When he’d pulled away from Dirk, he’d seemed to radiate happiness, speaking only loud enough for Dave to hear, “I love you, kid.”

He found himself believing the words and, this time, not at all doubting that Dirk knew it was him and had not meant those words for Rose, but specifically for him, for Dave. It was a subject he was unable to bring up with Rose when he’d video chatted her that night to wish her an enjoyable sixteenth birthday. It was one of the many subjects he felt unable to share with his twin.

The next two weeks advanced in a flurry of snowflakes and of studying sessions. Guilt never quite leaving Dave, but becoming almost a comforting presence in his everyday life.

Following his very last exam, the theoretical exam for his art classes. He’d finally returned the hug John had given him to both him and Jade as they parted ways in front of the school.

“We’ll see you in the new year, Rose! Anything you want from the Pacific Ocean?” Jade asked cheerfully, ignoring both John and Dave’s misty-eyed looks at not being able to spend time together for the next month.

“Uhm, I guess you could bring back some sunshine. Maybe a few pictures.”

His voice felt a bit strangled, but he was satisfied that he’d been able to answer at all; John in comparison had not spoken once after the conclusion of their last exam.

“Snap a few pictures of your Christmas too, then! Rest well and stop worrying about those grades, alright?”

Dave nodded and watched the duo leave in a taxi, supposedly off to the airport where their father would be waiting for them with their packed luggage.

He breathed out loudly as he marched to his mother’s car, undisturbed by the steady fall of snowflakes. He was looking forward to a Christmas with Dirk, who knew who he was and Roxy, who would not be distracted by private celebrations that excluded him, as she still believed he was his sister. He managed to convince himself he didn’t feel too guilty about settling with video chats with his sister, rather than her presence alongside him for the holidays.