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It’s kind of stupid how often you forget to breathe. That’s a normal human thing to do, breathing, but sometimes it’s like your lungs just didn’t get the memo because they’re out on an extended coffee break, talking about the game and complaining about how badly the Cubs keep losing. They only realize they’ve got a goddamn job to do when your squishy organic brain realizes that you’re suffocating and shocks them into working again.
By the third time, you’ve figured out what’s going on but it’s no less bothersome that it happens at all. You’d thought stuff like breathing was a thing your body would just do, no matter that for three years it didn’t actually have to. But you aren’t a sprite anymore and your pink ass needs air like a priest needs nubile young choir boys on Sunday morning and sometimes you have to remind it of that because your body has the exact self reliance of an incontinent, two-legged chihuahua. Less, even, with the way it keeps fucking up even when you tell it what to do.
You are already sick and tired of falling on your ass and you’ve only had one again for five days. Bro doesn’t even ask you to strife, not after the first abysmal try, and even if he did, you’d outright laugh in his stupid fucking face, screw the consequences. One near nose dive off the roof is enough for a lifetime. And you may never try flashstepping again.
(How calm you felt when you thought you were going to take a plunge into the pavement should scare you. It doesn’t. You’re probably best not telling anyone that.)
Instead, when the others go up to strife, you’re left with old guy Dave and the trolls. Elder Dave barely looks at you, so you obsessively stare at him instead because fuck him, fuck everything about him. Fuck the way he’s a you that has grown out of your awkward teenage bullshit. Fuck the way he’s got his whole cool and collected older guy vibe going on when you’re pretty sure you never will. Fuck how he legitimately seems to be trying to figure out how to be a guardian when he’s obviously never hung with kids or teenagers since he was one. Fuck how you can’t stop watching the way he watches Dirk and Hal, absolutely adoring and unsure and so sincerely caring that it’s embarrassing. Fuck how you actually feel bad about wanting him to fuck off in the first place.
When he actually deigns to turn your way, its like he thinks you’re broken and it doesn’t compute in his head how he’s supposed to even talk to you, much less deal with you. He barely manages to carry a conversation with original flavor Dave, but he does manage it and you’re pretty pissed off he can’t do the same with you. It’s like he’s already run out of fucks to give out. Fuck that guy. It’s not like you need him. You make it as hard on him as possible.
(Every time you lose your balance around him and he reaches out to steady you, it takes everything you’ve got not to snarl at him or slap his hand or any completely uncool bullshit like that. But that’s your secret: you are completely, utterly uncool these days.)
Tavros, you can talk to. Most of the time. When he doesn’t annoy you just by being himself. Sometimes, his voice grates on you, the way it starts and stops with no discernible rhythm, the nasally tone. You can vaguely remember that he typed the same way and didn’t he rap? Terribly. You’re not really interested in finding out. Frankly, you’re about as interested in life in general as Mother Teresa was in committing genocide by orgy. When Tavros gets to be too much, you retreat to the bedroom you share with him and Hal.
You’re in the doorway, grabbing at the frame for support, when you realize the pain in your chest and why you suddenly feel faint. The first breath hurts but you muscle through it and the next one and spend the whole time internally cursing your goddamn body for forgetting again, for being a failure at organics, and goddamn you wish you were a sprite again. Every time you stop thinking about your body, every single time the frustration and aggravation sink deep in and all you can think about is how much you hate this, hate everything, your lungs go on holiday.
You hate this stupid, broken, forgetful body so much.
You realize Terezi is saying something to you but the words hadn’t gotten through and you don’t give enough of a damn to ask her to repeat. You duck inside instead and slam the goddamn door shut behind you for good measure. They’re probably wondering what the hell, but you could literally not care less at this moment. You have filled up your caregiving receptacles and sales are officially closed. You don’t want to hear another word from any of them.
Staggering to your bed, you ignore the rattling undertone to your own stupid breathing and just slump down onto the mattress. You wish your muscles would calm the hell down because right now they’re like ants under your skin, shaking so hard they’re vibrating. Your heart is going 360, like you’re running from something. It’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever had to experience. You hate it. Even when the fit is over and you feel like a puddle of slowly drying glue, you still hate it so much.
Above you, you can just barely make out the scrape of someone hitting the hard cement of the roof. You hope it’s Dave.
The thing you like about this room is that it had been Dave’s and now it’s not. He’s rooming with Dirk to keep him and Hal from killing each other so here’s your one victory (It’s also to keep you and Dave the younger from killing each other, too.) Even then, it’s crowded with two fold out beds that take up a shit ton of room even when they’re not straightened out. Tavros keeps gathering random stuff from everywhere and piling it up in the corner with his mattress on top. You and Hal have decided not to ask, mostly because as soon as the second apartment is rented, he won’t be your problem anymore.
Hal’s about the only person that doesn’t piss you off all the time, but even he gets on your nerves too. Right now, you hate him because he’s on the roof with the others and you aren’t and even though you have resolved never to join in again, it still burns hot and angry inside you. The goddamn Real Boy has more of a normal life than you do.
You want to hit things. You know if you tried, you’d at best hit your target and abruptly fall on your face from the uneven recoil and faulty follow through. At worse, you’d miss and fall on your face anyway. Not an attractive outcome. You want to anyway.
The thing is, you feel disconnected. Like you’re drifting. You felt this way in the game and now you get the real life version. Awesome! All yours for an introductory price of $9999.99! Fuck, now you’ve got Mike the TV in your head and if there is one thing you don’t need, it’s shitty 90s’ CGI cartoons. You will die if you accidentally use any of the slang, absolutely die, and you’re not allowed to do that anymore per Jade’s orders.
You check to see if she’s online. She’s not, though she did leave you a list of name suggestions. She’s probably galavanting around with goddamn Jake English and you are not jealous, no you’re not, just because he could potentially get hugged if he was into that and you can’t. You’re not dating her anymore, but you’re pretty sure Jade would pity cuddle you if you asked or made it known you wanted it. She did put you back together in real form; a pity cuddle is not that farfetched a notion. Too bad she’s half way across the world, right? And you’re surrounded by Striders who wouldn’t be caught dead showing affection outside of “I’m so happy you’re not dead”. And even then, it’d probably be for the ironies.
God fucking damn it, you just want someone to sit next to you and maybe lean their shoulder to yours the way John did on the ship. That’s all you need. Just that. They can look at your stump and you won’t hate them for it. Much. Maybe you’ll even let them touch it.
Instead, you lay on Dave’s- your bed and stare at the wall and commence in the most epic sulking you can manage. As it turns out, you are a grade A++ sulker. You should school other angst ridden teenagers in the art of a good sulk. Rake in millions showing people how to really get their mourning for life on.
Fuck your life. Fuck this body. Fuck everything.
And especially fuck whatever joker just knocked on the door. You don’t even bother responding. The door opens and you can feel the eyes that sweep over you. You hear the intake of breath and then the pause because they still don’t know what to call you. Bro and the older Dave, everytime they look at you, they start to call you Dave and then stop and there’s nothing after that, but you respond like they had finished it because otherwise, you’d be waiting forever. It’s pathetic how angry you are at them for that. At least other teens call you Davesprite, much as you want to punch them for it. It’s something. It means you’re real.
Your visitor doesn’t say anything to you, so you just track the sounds they’re making. Picking up clothes, dressing. Either Tavros or Hal but Tavros isn’t that quiet on his brand spanking new, totally organic and working legs. You roll onto your back and by then, Hal’s already got fresh pants on and is pulling a shirt over his head. His hair is damp from a post strife shower and sticking every direction, but the bastard only has to comb his fingers back through it and suddenly it’s perfectly styled again. Fucker.
(You understand completely that you are a ball of frustrated rage and that it isn’t anyone’s fault but your own, but the only way you’ve been able to keep from lashing out at them for real is to do it in your head.)
He settles his glasses back into place and then glances your way but he has as little understanding of how to deal with you as you do with him. You look away first, queuing up the list Jade sent you to look through. There’s a pause as Hal snorts and turns to the door.
Before he can leave, you catch yourself asking, “What do you think of Corvus?”
Hal stops with one hand on the doorknob and waits a second before he turns around, one eyebrow cocked in either question or confusion, or both. He silent for a moment as he presumably considers the non-sequitur question, and then he shrugs.
“It seems you’ve asked me about ‘Corvus’, which could mean about five-hundred different things considering on the context in which you’ve asked your totally rad question to this totally rad question-solver. Thank you for bringing your inquiries to us, rather than our competition, the so-called ‘Cleverbot’. Feel free to kindly elucidate yourself while we put you on hold with some jarringly out of season Christmas music.”
You’re caught between hating him for being annoying and congratulating him on a lovely trolling. As you are a pissy bastard at the moment, you… still end up settling between the two. Damn it. You are genuinely amused by that answer even though you’re still one step from rage quitting on existence. Good job, Hal. Those lessons in being a real person must be paying off.
“As in what I might put on my very own “Hello, my name is” sticker,” you elaborate and then wonder why you’re even asking because if there’s anyone around that wouldn’t know jack shit about naming people, it’s Hal the Auto Responder who named himself after a shitty scifi movie. Not that you’ve slipped calling him that even once since someone told you what he preferred because you get that. “My claim to fame. My personal moniker. The name my lover will scream when I bring her to aching climax.”
You think of Jade and the one time you two went farther than making out and it hurts because you still remember her look of disappointment when she couldn’t return the favor to you. Because you had nothing to work with. And you tell yourself you’ll stop thinking about it but you can’t. It’s been a fucking year and you still can’t get rid of the shameful disappointment you had in yourself. Great. Fuck your life.
Hal turns around fully to face you and sticks his hands in his pocket before he loafs over to the nearest bed and makes himself comfortable. He seems pretty interested in this conversation, even if he takes his sweet time in responding. You hate him a little less in moments like this because you feel weirdly vindicated everytime his mask breaks because he hasn’t quite figured out how to shut down those automatic responses to emotional stimuli. It makes him less like Dirk and more his own person and wow, Freud would have a fucking field day with you.
Hal takes his sweet time doing everything these days, despite the fact that he’s the ‘fastest living processor in the world’. It’s like he’s savoring the idea of organic normality, or just playing at it.
(You hope it’s not something worse than that. That he can’t do it any more quickly anymore.)
“It’s a big lengthy isn’t it? I thought we all had, like, a team theme going here. I guess I sort of broke it with the three-lettered Hal thing, though, so if you wanna bust out of that four-letter cage, you better not let anyone keep you down, man. I support you and your rule-breaking. Still, it’s a little bit ‘my twelve-year-old named himself and then tattooed his eyeliner on, before he wrote sad poetry that we had to send him to therapy for because of disturbing imagery’. I’m just saying, man, not dissing on your lifestyle choices or anything, but I’d go with something else.”
Pft. You don’t laugh. It’s a near thing. Hal’s right, though. It does sound pretty emo goth. You regard the list and then shove yourself up to sit properly because this is a conversation now and Hal’s not being fucking useless, so a little respect his way maybe. You guess. He hasn’t really left too much of an impression on you yet but he’s been a little busy discovering the virtues of a flesh bag to bother with you yet. Plus, maybe he’s got his hands full befriending Dave first. You wouldn’t blame him. (You kind of hope he hasn’t been, though. Because you’d rather someone befriend you first.)
“Corvidae’s pretty stupid, too,” you muse.
Wow, did Jade just totally rape the wikipedia page on crows? She did. She totally did rape the wikipedia page on crows. That’s precious. Your mood is surprisingly quick to lighten to this exercise. Way to stick to a theme, Jade. If she ever has an existential crisis and needs a new name, you will return this ace naming help ten fold and send her a list of nothing but dog breeds. She’ll be thrilled.
“Raven. That’s the one. Just put a diamond on my head and call me the son of Trigon.”
Hal lets out a short snort of laughter at that one, and smirks his general approval of the reference. Raven’s still pretty damn emo-goth, but it’s about fifty times better than straight-out Corvidae. Talk about mouthfuls. People would be assuming left and right that your parents were either hippies or satanists. Hippy satanists. To be fair, no one can actually confirm they aren’t, but people digging if they were probably wouldn’t be appreciated.
Hal’s definitely picking up the theme of this list, though, and he’s only heard three names. What a smarty.
“Is this one of those human things I’ll understand when I’m older? Why crows? If it’s got to be birds, why not something else, like Phoenixes. Although, if you named yourself Phoenix I’d have to call you Joaquin for the rest of your life. Unless you’re really into the masked crusader thing, then we could call you something suitably horrible like Ichabod Crane. It’s a bird pun. I’m learning for science. Are there any others?”
“Dude, crows are my-” You stop because you’re about to lie. Crows are Dave’s thing. They were yours, too, but. Yeah, lets not go down that road when you’re actually managing to feel a little better here. Despite popular opinion, you don’t actually enjoy being miserable all the goddamn time.
Hal doesn’t question the cut off sentence, though he does study you, afterwards. Like he’s sure that was a significant thing you almost just said, but he’s not going to push it. You’re stupidly glad for that. You’ve been pissy all day and if Hal’s not willing to push his luck with whatever huff-resistance his natural charm has apparently put between the two of you, then you are cool with that.
“I could rock the shit out of Phoenix,” you mutter as you stare at the list and go on down it like a champ.
“No one can rock the shit out of Phoenix, dude, it’s impossible.”
“Pft.” You’re glad you asked him. Hal is the best. “Straight up Crow, you know, if I want to be boring as shit.”
“Yeah, Crow’s pretty to the point and you’re not quite full of enough brooding darkness to pull that off. Brandon Lee was still a legend even back in the day, man, you can’t beat him.”
“Magpie, Jackdaw- pft, Murder… “ Murder, wow, yeah, if Corvidae was going to raise eyebrows, Murder would get CPS down on their asses so fast. “Hey, Rook and Aves are back into four letters. That’s something.”
Rook and Aves aren’t bad, per se, they just don’t really seem like good names for you. Then again, you don’t think anything but Dave is going to be comfortable no matter what you tell yourself. There’s only so much self delusion you’re willing to subscribe to.
“See, you’re already narrowing down the list as we go. Easy to please. No emo-goth and four-letters, and some kind of bird-theme, we’re on the right track. Soon you’ll be able to write your own name on absolutely nothing because why do people even write anymore when they have computers. You could put your name on some electronic petitions. That’s the way to go.”
Why the hell is this cheering you up? Seriously. Hal’s the best roommate-ectobro. You could probably forgive his more aggravating behaviors for getting such high scores in being a good dudebro during a crisis. You think about getting him a gold star because he kind of deserves it and you wouldn’t even put “you tried” on it. Maybe he’s been studying up on being a proper Strider guy.
Still. Hal’s got a point. You are figuring out what you want (what you want is your name, but that isn’t an option) and what you don’t want, even for the ironies, because your name should not be an ironic joke. It should be yours. (it can’t be yours.)
The last name on Jade’s list catches you short. For a second, you thinks she’s joking with you. But Jade isn’t an asshole and she wouldn’t make jokes about this. She gets how important it is to you, what it means to you.
“Dove,” you read quietly. You’re not sure how you feel about that.
You expect Hal to mock it, but he doesn’t. He runs his fingers through his hair and thinks the name over like he’s trying to find something possibly wrong with it. It’s not a bad name, really. There’s nothing someone can really mock it with, unless they have to try, and there’s no fun in mocking if you have to try.
“Dove’s not bad,” Hal says, trying it out for himself, “Dove Strider. Have we got a winner? Would you like to take door number three to your brand new lease on life? If you give me a minute, I’m sure I can emulate the ‘ding ding ding’ victory bell.”
You roll the name over your tongue. It sounds familiar, feels familiar. It feels good. And maybe you should leave crow stuff to Dave since you aren’t Dave anymore. They have to call you something. Might as well be a name you’ll actually think to respond to.
“Sure,” you decide. “Sign me up for the Dove train. Think about how often people are going to mess that up. It’ll be hilarious.”
It’s four letters. It’s a bird thing. It starts with a D. It sounds like Dave without being Dave. You doubt you could find anything better. Knowing her, that’s exactly what Jade thought when she added it to the list, the scheming dame. It was probably her choice, too, which shouldn’t make you feel better about the decision, but it does. You set down your phone.
“Best brobot. Much useful,” you say because you’re an asshole and it’s the only way you can figure out how to say thanks.
“Wow. Such embarrass. Very blush,” comes the flatly-intoned response, because Hal isn’t actually offended, thankfully. He looks thoughtful, or at least as much as any Strider would emote. You’re still learning to read him. “I like it though. I can’t wait until you’re confusing bastards left and right with that one. It’ll be like the parent-trap, except less embarrassingly bad and actually not anything like it at all, except for how it’s about blonde twins. Actually, no, wait, I think I’m getting all the porn mixed up with real movies again.”
The corners of your lips quirk without permission. You can’t wait to confuse people either. You wonder if it will annoy Dave when it happens. Might be worth it. Any way you might troll the fuck out of him is a perfect reason to do anything.
“It’s easy to do,” you tell him because he’s pretty much always been past the point where you could get him to actually believe that, what with being the copy of a thirteen year old (you are actually not quite sure of that mostly because you don’t care enough to ask Dirk and broaching the subject with Hal seems a little more assholish than you’re willing to be.) “Porn is just so well scripted and shot, and the undercurrents of cautionary Aesop fables so masterfully hidden, like they aren’t there at all.”
The two of you end up crashing on your bed, chatting about porn and people and anything that pops into your heads until one of you thinks to pop a movie in and then you find out that Hal knows all the words to every episode of Mystery Science Theatre (or looked them up, who cares) and spend the rest of the day watching truly terrible b movies.
Hal sits close enough that you can feel the heat radiating off his arm and when he laughs (which sounds like it’s surprised out of him every time,) his shoulder brushes yours and you feel warm.
It’s the best time you’ve had in a while.
Your body continues to do it’s job the whole time.