Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You wake up and you can immediately tell that there is something not right about your current situation. 

You leave your eyes shut, and you lay there, trying to figure it out. It's quiet, but in the wrong way. You can hear something like the ocean outside your window, but it's too uneven and loud to be the actual ocean. You can hear animals that you think are birds, but they're not any birds that you're familiar with. The way that the air moves around you is different somehow, and so is the mattress beneath you. This isn't right. 

When was the last time you were even in your apartment anyway?

You open your eyes cautiously, and... you're in your living room. 

But you're not. 

You know your living room, even if it has been a while. It's the smell of hot metal and grease with the ever-permeating scent of brine. It's a bit of a mess, but it's an organized mess, to you at least. 

This living room is just a mess. There's a thick stench of something rotten in the air, like spoiled fish but different. There are frayed scraps of fabric and broken puppets all around you, heaps of trash, broken video game controllers... what the fuck. 

What the fuck. 

You're getting up off of the stained couch when you nothing something crumpled on the floor next to you. Something that looks decidedly human-shaped, but not anyone that you recognize. You poke them cautiously with your foot, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that you don't have any weapons on your person at all. 

The person lets out an undignified snort, and looks as if they're trying to get their arms underneath them, but they aren't having much success. Eventually they just twist their head to the side to look you in the face.

"Dirk?" they ask incredulously, and you recognize the sound of your own name with little trouble. "What the fuck?" is a little harder, but still familiar. 

You narrow your eyes back at them, about to ask who the fuck they are, when it hits you like a fucking freight train to the chest. He looks a little like you, a little like you did when you were younger, but he also looks vaguely like Dave too. His eyes are a red-orange color that you can sort of recognize.

"Hal?" you ask disbelievingly. Your tenuous grasp on your situation falls entirely out of your grip. The last you'd seen of Hal, he'd been a part of that sprite with the troll that made you kind of uncomfortable. He definitely hadn't been human, not by a long shot. 

"What's... the fuck is happening?" Hal growls, once again trying and failing to make his body get up. A part of you isn't surprised by the difficulty that he seems to be having, but you also have bigger priorities at the moment. You leave him on the floor by the couch despite his spluttering protests and walk around the apartment to investigate a bit more. 

It is your apartment, but it's also decidedly not. Like someone else had moved in while you were gone. You hesitate at the door to your room, and something keeps you from opening it. You walk back out into the living room and check the window instead, and you immediately wish that you hadn't. 

People. Lots of people, and cars, and other buildings. A whole civilization. You've never seen anything like it before in your life. 

You hate it automatically, more on principle than anything else. 

"Holy fuck," Hal breaths, having managed to haul himself towards you with the use of an iron grip on the windowsill to keep himself steady. "Look at that." 

His voice sounds roughly the same way it had with the text-to-speech program that you'd installed for him a couple of years ago, but slightly higher pitched and younger sounding. You'd almost be jealous about how much easier speech seems to come for him if you hadn't put together the speech program with that in mind in the first place. 

Something clatters in the hallway behind you, and it takes you a moment to register that, since this isn't your apartment, that isn't Squarewave behind you. You whirl around and see... Dave? It's Dave, with a half grip on someone he's supporting over his shoulders and the other hand steady on the hilt of a sword. 

You blink at him. "Dirk?" he asks, and you nod.

"Hal," Hal says from beside you, raising a hand to wave at the Dave duo and nearly losing his balance. 

It takes Dave a moment to put the sword away, and finish his trek to the couch to dump the more orangey looking Dave onto the couch. You choose not to think about the implications of his reluctance to disarm himself, instead wondering where the other Dave came from. The Dave you know speaks again, and this time it takes you even longer to sort the words out in your head. "What the fuck is going on?"

While you were busy trying to piece together what Dave had said, Hal has already started speaking. "You're barking up the wrong tree if you think we know." 

"We won," you say, mildly irritated at being conversationally left behind. The words trip out of your mouth, not used to being there. It took you too long to realize that you'd needed to learn how to speak, and you've never really gotten the hang of it. You prefer sign language, but you don't know if Dave knows it, and since you know enough words to get through this conversation, you'll struggle on. 

"This is my apartment," Dave agrees, glancing around and taking it in with a facial expression that you can't place. "Not yours though." You analyze his tone for anything like accusation, but you can't find it. You shrug. 

"We won," you repeat, and your hand starts flapping at your side as you look for the syllables to express what you mean. Fuck. This shit is harder than it has any business being. You slap Hal lightly on the arm, giving up. 

"We beat the Condense," he says for you. "Our future never happened." 

"Yikes," Dave mumbles, which sounds like an accurate summary of the situation. Orange Dave hasn't said a word yet this entire time. You wonder if you should be worried about him. "You didn't happen to run into a guy that looks like you, but bigger?" 

You turn the words over in your head. "Your bro?" you ask. He tenses before he nods, and you shake your head in response. 

"Not a player character," Orange Dave finally speaks up to say, rolling his head to the side to look at the group of you clustered by the window. "Though neither was I, so fuck it. Maybe I'm wrong." 

"Splinters of splinters," Hal says, elbowing you in the arm. Or, he tries. He misses a bit, and it catches you in the ribs instead. You rub at the sore spot and glare at him. 

"I don't think I count as a splinter," Orange Dave argues as you sign [The other bots were splinters too, but I haven't seen them.]

Hal raises his arms in surrender, shifting his weight to lean against the wall in order to keep himself upright. "Not a sprite anymore," he says. "No longer an expert."

"So that's it?" Dave asks in a tone that you easily recognize as 'Anger', and you wonder which of the people here he's upset with. "The game just dumps us back here? What fucking year is it?" 

He tears off somewhere, presumably to go find out, leaving you with Hal and the Orange Dave. Rather than trying to reignite some kind of conversation, you look back out the window. 

People. Not many, but still more than you've ever seen. 

You hate it. 

"So it's Twenty-fucking-oh-nine," Dave exclaims, stomping back into the living room. "I guess that makes sense, since the world fucking ended when the game started. Spawn point. Sure, why not? I'm... I've got to," he breaks off mid-sentence to make a little noise in his throat that you mimic without really meaning to, and then he goes back into your room. His room. This is is apartment, so that's his room. You don't actually have a room here. 

"So, what's your deal?" Orange Dave asks, and you blink at him uncomprehendingly before realizing that he's talking to Hal, who is attempting to navigate his way back to the couch without toppling over. 

"I used to be shades," he says, finally succeeding in landing on the couch in an ungainly heap of limbs. "A pretty slick pair of shades, if I do say so myself. What about you?" 

Orange Dave grins even though you don't think anything is particularly deserving of a smile at the moment. He lifts one of his pant legs to reveal atrophied legs that are even skinnier than yours. "I used to have a tail," he says, and it clicks in your head that he had been one of the sprites as well. 

You tune out the rest of their conversation and look around again, biting down on the side of your arm. Everything is different. You don't know the protocols for this. There was change when the game happened, but you were prepared for that. You knew that was going to happen, you knew more or less how things were going to wind up working, even if things went sideways quicker than you had anticipated. Starting the game is much different than beating the boss and waking up somewhere brand new with no warning, with no clue of what the fuck you're supposed to do. 

What the fuck are you supposed to do? 

Your name is Dirk Strider, and shit has gone so sideways that you can't even figure out where to start. 

Chapter Text

Your name is Hal Strider, and it turns out that the whole "having a body" shtick is kind of overrated. 

You take a small amount of comfort in the fact that you're not currently the only one in residence having difficulty, but that's hard to take too seriously when you keep forgetting how to breathe. Your breath keeps stuttering in your chest in a way that is well and truly hells of uncomfortable in the most unpleasant way. You had wanted a body for a long time, but this flesh and blood shit is turning out to be a huge fucking mistake. 

Granted, getting prototyped with the sprite had also been a shit mistake as well, so maybe you should have just listened to what everyone kept telling you and accepted the fact that you just weren't made to exist in the meat-space with other people. 

In your defense, you hadn't even asked for anything this time. The small part of you that had remained you, separate from the troll/sprite combo, had been almost relieved at the thought of just... being done with it once the game was over, despite your own admitted terror of the face of death. Some things would have been worth it, you guess. 

You're not entirely sure if this is one of those things. 

You watch Dirk clean the apartment with a neurotically frantic energy as you sit on the couch with the orange looking Dave, who seems about as thrilled to be here as you are, if not even less so. He doesn't seem particularly interested in talking anymore, and you know that Dirk isn't going to be paying attention to you any time soon. You're about to dedicate your attention into looking up how to get this flesh-prison to move the way you need it to when an uncomfortable realization settles in your chest (which doesn't help with the whole breathing thing). 

You're not tech anymore. You're no longer connected to the internet. And now that you've put two and two together in that department and recognized that, you can almost feel the difference in processing power that this human brain is providing you with. You kind of seriously hate it. 

Incredible! Local AI gets exactly what he's always wanted and winds up fucking hating it. The part of you that used to be Dirk is almost undoubtedly responsible for this shit. 

Something smacks you in the stomach and you pull in an unsteady gasp of air that you'd forgotten you needed. Orange Dave smirks at you slightly, but it doesn't seem to be mocking so much as it is kind of sad. You don't hit him back, but only because you're mature enough to resist the urge, and because you may or may not have the most solid grasp on how this whole 'depth perception via human eyeball' thing works yet. 

You'll figure it out soon enough. Then you'll be throwing punches left and right and people are going to be fucking cowering because you'll be in possession of the best hand-eye coordination this side of the fucking universe. 

Your chest fills with an odd pressure and you force yourself to exhale and then choke down another thready breath of oxygen. It's extremely un-gratifying. 

You wish that you had stayed inside the damn shades. 

Chapter Text

You're well aware of the fact that cleaning this fucking wreck of an apartment isn't going to bring your apartment back, with your DVDs and your metal and your gear. But cleaning it will at least give you something to do, and will hopefully help you bring some order to all of this horseshit. 

You start with the living room, which is the epicenter of the whole disaster, as well as the space that you're going to be occupying from here on out. You're not sure how the whole living situation is going to wind up unfolding, considering this is a one-bedroom apartment that is now housing four people, but since you're sure as hell not going to kick Dave out of his room, that means that for the time being? This living room is your new space, and you're going to need to get used to it. Fast. 

You dig up some trash bags from underneath the kitchen sink and start bagging shit, working around Hal and Orange Dave who are still chilling on the couch. You pick up all sorts of shit, shredded bits of puppet felt, dirty torn up magazines, empty bottles, dirty plates (some covered in a healthy culture of mold), fucking sex toys, and more. You keep tripping over the wires that are spread haphazardly all over the floor, so you unplug those and tuck the cords under their respective machines (You may or may not find more appropriate sockets for them later).

You don't know how anybody lives like this. (You're disgusted to think about the way that Dave hadn't even flinched at the sight of it, or the smell, and neither has Orange Dave, who's still hanging out in the middle of this mess like there's not even a problem. You had known that the alt-you was a real piece of work just based off of the conversation that you and Dave had, but you're still surprised to see the actual proof of it.)

(Although, since it was an alt-you, maybe you shouldn't be so surprised by it after all.) 

There's still a lingering smell when you're doing picking shit up, but you can deep clean the carpet and furniture later. Right now, you've got two trash bags full of garbage and two more rooms to go through. 

The kitchen is, in some ways, worse. There is a stunning lack of food and a surprising number of weapons in it. You don't really know what to do with those. You don't think that they serve any particular purpose any longer, and you also don't want to keep them around, not after what Dave told you. 

But still, with all those people out there, it might be a good idea to keep a couple of them, though nowhere near as many as there are currently. This is nothing short of ludicrously excessive. You'd dump them with the trash if it weren't for the noise that they'd make, and the fact that they'd rip right through the bags. You decide to leave them alone for now, and focus on the cameras instead. 

You don't know what they're doing here, and you don't think you want to know. You throw all of them out too. 

You come to the realization that you don't know where to take these trash bags now that you've got them. You also realize that it's been at least a couple of hours since you started this whole crusade, and you haven't seen Dave once, although Hal and Orange Dave have graduated to playing some shitty video game. You wonder if you should be concerned, and then shrug it off. Dave is probably doing better than you are right now, and you have the rest of this garbage to worry about for now. 

You didn't have a lot of trash to deal with back home. Most of what you ate and worked with could be used in its entirety, or reused some other way. Anything else you could just dump into the ocean. 

That is no longer an option for you. For obvious reasons. 

You're not even sure how to get down to the streets from here. Your apartment hadn't exactly had steps going down. Mostly, you simply jumped down. You would just climb up the metal construction to get back up, or get one of the bots to give you a ride. 

The bots aren't here now. (Though there is, somehow, a poster with Squarewave's face on it. It's the only one that you haven't taken down.) 

If this is an actual city, though, then there might be stairs here. You don't know much about society, but you feel like having things set up in a more complicated fashion would raise eyebrows, not to mention it wouldn't be very time-convenient. 

So, you decide to go out on a limb and check out the front door. 

Instead of walking out into open air and a possible set of stairs, you walk into a hallway. 

There is, apparently, more to this building than just your apartment. Judging by the number of doors in the hallway, there are a lot of apartments. Lots of apartments that are probably all full of people. 

You suddenly aren't as interested in getting rid of the trash bags as you had been a moment ago. You close the door, line the trash bags up against the wall, check to make sure the lock is engaged, and resolve to do something about it later. 

You're staring at the door with your hands clasped behind your neck, staring at its implication of the hundreds of more people behind it when you realize very suddenly that you cannot deal with this shit. Absolutely none of it. 

This is not your apartment. This is not your room. This is not your ocean. This is an entire apartment building. This is a room that is no longer yours. This is a city full of people. Unpredictable variables. Loud, mess, variables. Millions of them. 

And you do not even have your room to retreat to. 

You scramble for the bathroom instead, ignoring Orange Dave's shout of concern that follows you down the hall. You hadn't even made it in here to clean, but you need somewhere small and dark where this is less for you to focus on. It's not as bad as the rest of the apartment had been anyway. There's a puppet hanging from the showerhead, the only thing of interest, and you throw it out into the hallway before slamming the door shut. 

Your hands shake as you shut off the lights and turn on the shower. By the time the water warms up into something tolerable, your breaths are coming in sharp rapid wheezes. This is hardly your first panic attack, but it's definitely one of the worst ones you've had in a while. You try not to focus on that. Instead, you try to focus on the rush of water over your skin, and the too loud sound of your breath in your ears, echoing around the tiles of the small room. 

That, and the sound of someone banging at the door and shouting. 

Your legs are practically gelatinous and are far too weak to actually support you in going for the door. This is fine, considering the fact that you don't really want to open the door in the first place. There's not a doubt in your mind that your voice would fail you, and you don't have anything to type on. You don't want anyone to see you like this either. In fact, someone coming in here and seeing you like this is probably the last thing on the planet that you want in this moment. 

You place your hands over your ears to block out the sound of the argument outside, and rock back and forth, trying to calm yourself down. You focus entirely on the shifting of your body and the pounding of the hot water on your shoulders and back (You're dimly aware of the fact that you're getting the only clothes you own now wet. Something else you'll have to deal with later). You try to breathe, but you know a lost cause when you see one. You wonder if you wouldn't prefer to just die here instead of having to deal with any of the shit going on outside of this room. Dying has solved a lot of your problems in the past, and it would certainly make things now a lot easier. 

Before you get a chance to chase that thought too far down the rabbit hole, the feeling of someone's hand on your shoulder catches your attention. You manage to pry your eyes open and peer through your water coated shades to see Hal sitting next to you, not quite out of the range of the shower spray. 

You don't know what he wants. You don't want his hand on your shoulder. You should probably say something, but the stinging pressure of his touch is all you can feel now, and when you open your mouth, the only thing that comes out is a sharp, angry squawk. 

He lets you go immediately. He's saying something, and while you can recognize the sound of his voice, the words just slide through your ears without ever connecting into coherent syllables. You don't have the energy or attention to even begin trying to sort them out. You want to tell him to sign to you, but you can't get your arms to unwrap from around your torso. 

[Sorry] he signs on his own, after several moments of you staring at him uncomprehendingly. Then he picks something up and shakes it demonstratively out of the shower spray, and it takes you a second to recognize it as a phone. Your hands are shaking and tensed frozen, but you manage to take it, holding it out of the shower spray as you squint through the water in your eyes and try to make sense of whatever it is he wants you to see. 

Bright pink text that you'd recognize anywhere. 

You'd probably start crying if you weren't already. 

tipsyGnostic [TG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

TG: dirk!!!
TG: we did ti!! im at home!!!
TG: ull never guess whos here with em!!!
TG: o shit sounds like ur not sdoing as well as me
TG: dnt worry@@@ well figure it otu!!!

You should say something back, probably. But your hands are still shaking, and they're wet. You can't even make the screen scroll down, much less type something coherent. You pass the phone back to Hal instead. This was practically his fucking job in the first place anyway. You focus on trying to get your breathing under control. 

Roxy is right. This situation is fucked up, like the game (but also not. You had at least some idea of what the game was going to be like. You don't know anything about this, but you weren't alone then, and you aren't alone now. 

One of the biggest mistakes you made before and during the game was thinking that you always knew best and taking it on as your job to take control of people's situations. You've learned by now that trying to solve problems yourself is a shit idea. You don't have to solve this one on your own, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

After all, you did survive the game. 

After that, you're capable of practically anything. 

Chapter Text

Many things throughout your life had seemingly rid you of your ability to be surprised any longer. 

Somehow, the Game has continuously managed to exceed your expectations. 

Waking up in your bedroom, completely intact and clean, is one such incident. 

You lay there for a while, wondering if maybe this is perhaps some kind of dream bubble. It would hardly be the weirdest one that you'd encountered over the years, after all. But the sound of a woman frantically screaming names that you vaguely recognize rids you of that mentality rather quickly. 

You clamber out of bed and into the hallway, where someone nearly runs straight into you, only barely able to catch herself on the wall before the would-be collision. It takes you a moment to recognize her for who she is instead of who you'd mistaken her for. 

"Roxy?" you ask incredulously, and you hear her nearly sob in relief before you're encased firmly in a far-too-tight hug. You wheeze slightly, but return the gesture happily. "What's wrong?" 

She makes an odd chittering noise in her throat that you're able to recognize as Carapacian after having shared a living space with the Mayor for three years. Unfortunately, that time period hadn't blessed you with the ability to understand it.

Roxy clears her throat and speaks in English after a moment of you staring blankly at her. 

"I woke up," she says, breathing harshly. "Thought I was alone again." 

Her voice maintains a growly sort of slur around the English words, which is interesting, but not a priority at the moment. 

"We beat the game," you recall slowly. "I suppose this is meant to be some kind of a reward? Or perhaps this is just what was always meant to happen with the game ended."

It doesn't seem like a particularly pleasing winning prize. 

"Perhaps one of the others will be able to tell us what's going on," you say, deciding that a solid course of action is your best bet for calming down and figuring out what's going on with a clear head. "Is this my house or yours?" 

Roxy points at you, and licks her lips before speaking hesitantly, "Yours. None of my shit is here." 

You nod, "You can use my mother's things. I don't suppose you've seen her?" She shakes her head reluctantly. "I didn't think so. She usually kept her laptop in the master bedroom. You can go get it, and we can meet back up in the living room." 

She telegraphs relief through her body language, presumably grateful that you hadn't suggested that the two of you separate completely, and takes off without another sound. 

You go back to get your own laptop from your room, and take a moment to marvel at how untouched your things seem. It's as if the game never happened. Everything is in its right place and nothing has been destroyed like it had been after your house was transported into the Medium. It's quite disorienting. 

Roxy is curled up on the couch with your mother's laptop when you head downstairs, and she waves at you happily, seeming to have calmed down from her earlier panic. 

"My account is still here," she tells you. "Thought it wouldn't be."

"Why not?" you ask, settling down next to her and logging onto your own computer (you're a little surprised that you still remember the password. You haven't used this particular laptop in years), opening PesterChum so that you can trade the handles of your friends for the handles of hers. 

"It's 2009," she tells you, as you peruse your contact list and come to the unsettling realization that none of the trolls are on it. None of the messages from the Game have been preserved either. Roxy sitting beside you is the only physical proof that currently exists to prove that you haven't merely woken up from a bizarrely elaborate dream. 

This fact pisses you off quite a bit. 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

TG: you up
TG: you seeing this bullshit
TG: cuz ive really got to say that this is some supreme bullshit that were looking at right now
TG: even the bull is out here looking at this mess like
TG: what the fuck
TG: bull cant even believe his own goddamn eyes looking at this massive shit that just came out of his own damn self
TT: This metaphor is doing absolutely nothing to improve my feelings on our current situation. 
TT: Please stop. 
TG: im almost glad you interrupted me i dont know where that was going either
TG: is roxy with you
TT: She is here. 
TG: anyone else
TT: No. 
TT: Why?
TG: ive got davesprite here 
TG: dirk too
TG: plus some other dirk look alike i havent gotten his name yet
TG: i dont think any of our guardians made it back
TG: hey also did you notice what year it is
TG: i wasnt 16 in 2009
TT: I certainly have a lot of questions concerning our current situation, yes. 
TT: The conflicting year/ages hadn't actually occurred to me yet.
TG: shit really
TG: what were you stuck on
TT: The trolls.
TG: yea
TG: yea i dont think they made it through either
TG: like i dont think they lost
TG: but im assuming theyre all back on alternia
TG: and since the game cleaned up all its shit i dont think theyre going to be able to get through to us anymore
TG: its taking you a while to reply
TG: you good
TT: "Good" is not quite the word I would use at the moment. 
TG: yea you and me both

Roxy lets out a burst of noise beside you, and when you turn to look at her, she beams up at you. "Jake and Janey are okay," she says, and you assume that those are the names of her other friends. "Dirk won't answer though." 

"I'm talking to Dave at the moment. He says Dirk is there. As is a 'Dirk look alike'?" 

"Hal!!" she crows. "Holy shit! I didn't think he'd make it through!" 

Roxy is surprisingly expressive. The two of you hadn't managed to find the time to speak to each other as long as you would have liked during the game, but you had been able to find out a little about her life while she was growing up. Someone growing up entirely isolated doesn't sound like the kind of person who would have developed socially-typical facial expressions and body language. 

Although, she had been speaking Carapacian earlier, and you know from your experiences with the Mayor that they are quite physically expressive to make up for the language barrier. Perhaps that is where she picked it up. 

You force yourself to refocus on the issue at hand. You need to be thinking of a plan, or something. You need to be figuring out what to do, because you're currently at quite the fucking loss, and you don't like the feeling. 

Fuck.

You suddenly quite desperately want a drink. 

Chapter Text

The more you're able to piece together about your current situation, the more you wish you were dead. 

Your teenaged-not-bro had an absolute meltdown freak-out, and you had been stuck on the couch while the others went to try and figure out what was up. You suppose that you could have dragged yourself over there on your stomach, but you're not quite willing to brave that indignity just yet. 

Instead, you had stayed where Dave had dumped you earlier and tried not to think about how you also wished that you could run off into the bathroom in a hyperventilating mess. 

You hadn't been prepared for this outcome. You really hadn't expected to stick around this long in the first place. You had known, when you'd hopped timelines, that you were signing on to stick around for a while, but you hadn't anticipating hanging out for years. You definitely hadn't expected to still be around when the game ended. 

And yet, lo and behold, here you are, stuck firmly in place with tanner skin, darker hair, and absolute shit-fuck useless legs. 

You crane your neck to see over the back of the couch and watch as Hal practically beats Other Dave back away from the door so that he can enter himself. You very pointedly do not look at Other Dave while the two of you wait for them to come back out, and eventually Hal and a soaking wet Dirk reemerge. 

Other Dave lends Dirk some of y'all's clothes to wear while his are drying, and you're not entirely surprised to see that Dirk doesn't stick around very long before taking off towards the roof. You'd never wanted to be around for the fallout of your epic meltdowns either. 

Unfortunately for you, you don't get to abscond anymore. You get to sit your pretty ass on this couch and wait around for someone else to remember that you exist. 

It's going to be hard to pull that feat off. Other Dave is the only one in the house with a phone, and it isn't like you have a line of people waiting around to pay attention to you anyway. You're pretty sure that almost everyone had completely forgotten you existed before you'd merged with that other troll chick and things had gone a bit sideways. 

You wonder what happened to her. 

You're not going to find out anytime soon, because like you said; Other Dave is the only one with a phone, and you're not about to ask him for an update anytime soon. 

Technically it's not like Other Dave had ever really done anything to you that deserves this kind of bullshit, but you're also hella uncomfortable with the thought of him now, considering all the shit that had gone down in the three years that you hadn't seen him. You're not exactly thrilled to be facing that shit any time soon. 

Eventually, Hal winds up stumbling his way back to you, nearly sliding off the couch before he's able to haul himself up onto it the right way. You'd laugh, except it's not as if you're doing any better at the moment. Judging by the way you can't even get your toes to twitch, you don't think you're going to be doing any better ever again. 

"So," Hal says after a moment of trying to get his limbs in order. "What the hell do I call you?" 

Your mouth opens to say Davesprite before you stop yourself. You kind of hate it when people call you that, plus it doesn't even make sense anymore, considering you're no longer a sprite.

You recognize that there does need to be a distinction between you and Other Dave now that the two of you are sharing a close-quarters living space. Dave and Other Dave are distinct enough, but you're going to get confusing when other people refuse to think about which Dave classifies as the "Original Dave" and which one is the "Other Dave", and you know full well that you're the spare that's going to get chosen as the odd one out. You're not psyched about that either. 

You realize that your mouth has been hanging open for several seconds. You close it tight enough that your teeth grind against each other painfully. 

Hal nods like he had expected this. "Pick a name," he tells you, and your anger blooms in your chest before it crumbles into something colder. "It helps."

You want to tell him to fuck off, but you're pretty sure that he's the one person around that you couldn't actually justifiably say that to. 

That fucking figures. 

Chapter Text

According to Dave, people have actually been doing work in figuring out what the fuck is going on while you were busy cleaning up the apartment and flipping your shit. 

Everyone is back from the game, both your group and Dave's. Apparently, your group has taken the place of your alt-selves now that the game is over, and no one has seen any sign of the people you'd replaced. The only ones with an Actual Adult are John and Jane, the only ones who had extra alt-selves appear are you and Dave. 

You are, understandably, not the only one displeased with how things have turned out. 

Both Dave's seem quite upset, and you can't shake the feeling that the only reason they're not relieved to be back is because they're stuck with you, and by extension, Hal. Although, you more than Hal are the living breathing reminder of the man who'd abused both Dave's their entire lives. 

Not that either of them have said that. That might actually be your self-deprecation talking, considering how Rose doesn't seem very happy either, according to Roxy. They had been pretty close to some of the trolls in their session, now that you're thinking about it. Maybe they just miss their friends. 

At any rate, the big question that you're all faced with now is: What's next?

The game is over. You'd won. You had known that you wouldn't be returned to your reality, with your lone apartment in the middle of a flooded planet, but you weren't exactly expecting this either. How could you have? No one had really known what would happen when the game ended. 

(Personally, you had begun to wonder if maybe you would just stop existing, period. Thrown into some cosmic garbage can with the rest of your timeline. You had begun to think that maybe that wouldn't be so bad)

You're fairly certain that no one had been expecting to just be dumped back into society. One that the majority of you had never really been a part of. 

You certainly don't know what you're expected to do, and considering how long the game had taken, none of the others seem to know either.

You had stuck around Dave long enough to get this information from him, but you hadn't wanted to stick around any longer than you absolutely had to. No one is happy, but at least everyone else seems to be handling themselves a hell of a lot better than you are.

Not only are you the only one in the apartment that can barely speak English, but you're also the only one who can't keep himself together. 

The stairs to the roof are the same as the ones from your own apartment, and it doesn't seem that any other people in the building have the same access that you do. You count that as a win, and head up. 

It's not quite the same. It's way louder here than it was back at your place, and the birds are different, but the birds at least give you something to focus on. You settle down on your stomach on the rooftop and rest your chin on your folded arms to watch them without startling them into taking off.

The birds here are a lot smaller than the ones you're used to. They're also solid black, have messier body feathers, and have much deeper/throatier cries. You mimic some of their odd rattling, and they tilt their heads at you in confusion. The body language is similar, at least. 

You don't know what they're called, so you'll have to ask one of the Dave's if they know later, but they're not too bad. They don't get too close to you today, but they chirr at you curiously when you mimic the noises that they make. You can't remember how long it'd taken for the seagulls to let you get close to them - you'd just grown up with them around. But you're not too concerned about getting along with these new birds. At the very least, trying to get them to trust you will give you something to do with your time. 

After all, that's the thing you should be focusing on at the moment. Getting along with the local wildlife. You and all of your friends are getting totally fucked over, but hey! At least you have your priorities straight and are befriending the fucking birds while the others are busy planning for the actual future. 

You press your forehead into your arms and sigh heavily, and then force yourself up, startling several of the braver birds into hopping backwards. Headache or not, you have actual things you should probably be doing and have conversations that you probably need to partake in. 

Still, you make a mental note to bring some scraps up to the roof the next time you're up there. Just because. 

Chapter Text

It's been approximately twenty-seven hours since you were dumped back into a human-populated Earth, and it's begun to occur to you that you have a problem that you don't quite know how to fix. 

Dave's apartment doesn't have the same food stores that yours did. Your apartment had food stockpiled up for years of survival, and was surrounded by an ocean and sky full of wildlife that you could hunt. This place doesn't seem to have anything immediately available for you to eat at all. 

The lack of food was one of the first things that you had taken note of while cleaning, but it hadn't really occurred to you what a problem that is until now. You're used to going without food. You had been easily able to brush away any pangs of hunger without even thinking twice about it, and you're confident in your ability to go on for longer. 

Hal, Dave, and the Orange Dave, on the other hand, you're worried about. 

You'd brought the issue up to Hal, who had acted like he had no idea what you were talking about when you'd asked if he was hungry. When Hal had explained what you were saying to Orange Dave, he had seem equally unsettled. Apparently, he hasn't had to eat for a while either. 

"There's food here," he says, slinging an arm over the back of the couch to point in the direction of the room that Dave has been in for hours. "Bro didn't keep any, so I kept some in my room. Just shout at Dave to bring it out here." 

He glances back at you, and seems to think twice of his request for you to shout, and he does it instead. 

Dave pokes his head out of the hallway, and Orange Dave says, "Bro. The ramen. You're leaving us all out here to starve like a bunch of sad and cold orphans lost in the street." 

"Fuck," Dave swears. He disappears back into his room and re-emerges with a box full of cups of instant ramen, which he deposits on the counter. "Food. I forgot. One of y'all should have said something." 

"I did," Orange Dave points out. "You're the one pulling one hell of a disappearing act." 

Dave grimaces. "Yeah, alright," he says after a moment. "Just give me a sec." 

You watch him from the other side of the counter as he starts boiling water in the microwave and setting out several cups of ramen on the counter. You'll admit that you're amused by the utter lack of differences between this and the stuff that you ate back home. Some things don't seem like they changed much over the years. You suppose that you'd never considered Instant Ramen to be one of those things. 

True to its name, it doesn't take long for the ramen to be ready, and you take Hal and Orange Dave their cups before settling down on the living room floor, your cup set out in front of you so that it can cool.

You glance back over at Dave, who seems surprised by your position. You wonder if you'd done something wrong. After all, he's leaned up against the cabinets with his cup resting on the counter. You expect him to say something about it, but he doesn't. All he does is head over to you and offer you a fork. 

You accept it, and pause to think about how much easier the process of eating is going to be one with of these things. You'd had forks, of course, but you had ranked them low on the list of necessary supplies, and wound up using them more as scrap metal than anything else. 

You notice Hal gearing up to snag a mouthful of steaming noodles, and you catch his attention by snapping your fingers and waiting until he's looking at you to sign [Wait] at him. 

"Why?" he asks, ever antagonistic. 

You cup your hand in front of your mouth, and yank it away quickly. [Hot]. You point at the ramen, and sign [Wait] again. 

He nods reluctantly, and you watch him very carefully touch the tip of his tongue to the noodles tangled precariously around his fork to test the sensation. Predictably, he pulls away from it so quickly that he nearly spills the rest of the ramen in his cup. He puts the fork back and nods at you. 

"So, what's the plan?" Orange Dave asks, eating the ramen without seeming the slightest bit bothered by the temperature. 

"What plan?" 

"Food, dog," he elaborates. "The ramen was enough for us when we were alone, but there's more people around here now. Plus, we can actually use the kitchen now. We're gonna need more than one box of ramen." 

"We can drop by the store later," Dave says. "The one down the street is open 24/7, we can just walk down there and get what we need." 

"Not all of us can walk," Orange Dave points out, indicating both his own emaciated legs, and Hal's clumsy attempt to balance his ramen cup in his lap so that he doesn't have to hold it.

"Not all of us have to go," Dave retorts easily. "Dirk and I can go, and y'all can stay back here." 

"Is that really the optimal solution?" Hal asks, and you resist the childish urge to throw your fork at him. 

"Better than trying to haul around Davesprite here, or trying to keep you from toppling sideways into some shelf," Dave replies. Is Davesprite the Orange Dave's name? He doesn't seem to like it. You make a mental note not to use it until you can ask him about it. "We'll make it work." 

[Fine] you sign, glaring minutely at Hal, who translates your statement with a shrug that is far too knowing for your comfort. You know that this is a shit idea, but despite your firm grasp on your ability to navigate your body, you also know that you're probably the weakest link here. You're not about to admit that it's worse than it already is. 

Food is high on the list of priorities, and you can hold yourself together long enough to get it. 

"Apple Juice," Orange Dave says automatically. Hal shrugs halfheartedly. 

You think back on the approximate total of five foods that you have actual experience with. "Fish?" you hazard aloud. 

"What kind?" 

You hesitate. "Fish," you repeat, helplessly. 

"We'll figure it out," Dave says, nodding confidently despite your less than helpful responds. "And we might need to put a pan on that list too." 

Chapter Text

"This is a bad idea and you know it," you hiss into Dirk's ear, after Dave has once again retreated back into his room and you've helped the Dave-who-was-a-sprite into the bathroom to take care of whatever he needs to do in there.

[Shut up] Dirk signs irritably, turning back to where he's been neurotically looking up information about grocery stores on the computer. 

You sigh heavily, and wish that you had a better handle on this meatsuit so that you could sign properly at Dirk without looking like a clumsy wreck, so that you could make sure that he's actually understanding what you're trying to communicate. 

"You flipped out after just opening the door," you say instead, enunciating carefully. "You're gonna fall apart once you leave this place." 

Dirk turns around to face you fully. [You haven't even looked in a mirror yet] he signs at you sharply, because of course he noticed that. [You didn't finish the ramen either].

"Alright, so I'm struggling too," you admit, because there's no point in denying it. Then you'd be no better than him. "Doesn't mean that you need to make this shitty decision just to prove some dumbshit point." 

He flips you the middle finger, and since you're more than capable of pulling off that particular sign seamlessly, you return it. 

"Whatever," you say finally. "Don't say I didn't warn you when this goes tits up." 

[It won't]

"Keep telling yourself that." 

You do leave him alone after that, because you know a lost cause when you see one. And, alright, maybe he's right about you, but that doesn't mean you're going to do something about it.

The rest of the ramen cup is still sitting on the floor next to the couch, because you kind of hate the sensation of weight in your stomach more than you hate the weird cramps of hunger that you'd been getting. You're not about to look in a mirror either, and find out that you've just been brushed off as yet another copy of Dirk. Fuck no, you'll save that particular disappointment for later. 

You don't look in the mirror, not even when Dave-who-used-to-be-a-sprite shouts at you from the bathroom, and you go in there to help him back out. You very carefully do not look at your reflection at all, and you wonder if you're really the one who should be helping Dave-who-used-to-be-a-sprite with this situation when you nearly overbalance and fall over while trying to get a good grip on him. 

"Dove," he says softly as you finally manage to get him up enough to carry him out to the couch. 

"What?" you grunt, struggling more with the weight than you're willing to let on. 

"My name," he elaborates as you nearly drop him. "Call me Dove." 

"Alright," you say, trying to force your face into a smile and maybe pulling off a sort of smirk. "Nice to meet you, Dove. Now let's get your heavy ass to the couch." 

Chapter Text

Your name is Jasprose(?) and you are so fucking stuck.

You'd woken up late yesterday morning curled up in the Mausoleum, and you're finding it incredibly frustrating to be able to see the house that you need to be going towards while being utterly unable to make your way over there. 

Your first attempt to walk had you tumbling face first onto the cement floor, and then you'd had to put the walking thing on hold while you tried to staunch the flow of blood pouring from your nose. 

Now thoroughly bloodstained, your second attempt hadn't gone so well either, and you'd decided to just stop in order to avoid giving yourself a traumatic brain injury. You'd died more than once already, you didn't need to add another tally to the list. 

After that, you'd tried yelling. Yowling used to get you what you wanted when you were Jaspers, so it was worth a shot. Unfortunately, shouting isn't very effective when there's no one around to hear you. You'd given up on that plan before you wound up shredding your vocal chords. 

You mostly just sat around after that. It doesn't really surprise you that everyone appeared to have forgotten about you. You're not entirely sure what happened. You had been simply minding your own business at the end of the game, your role fulfilled, and then you had woken up here. You assume that means that they won? 

You don't like not knowing things. All alone in the mausoleum, there's not really a lot you can do in terms of information gathering. You seem to be human again, your legs don't work, and you don't have a mirror but you're pretty sure that you don't look quite like you did when you were Rose. Other than that, you don't know shit about what's going on. 

You'd slept for a while, and woken up in the morning, and you're still stuck in this fucking tomb. At least you're not in here with a corpse. That's still gone. Is the corpse technically in you now? You're not a Sprite anymore, but the part of you that was Jaspers still seems to be here. Is his corpse still here too? You're not sure if that's worse than just sleeping next to the thing or not. 

At any rate, you're hungry, which is simultaneously an old and novel sensation for you, and one that you're quickly tiring of. You're not going to let yourself starve in here just because no one's thought to look for you. If no one is going to help you, then you're going to have to help yourself. 

You glance around to see if there's anything that you can use as a mobility aid, but come up empty handed. Instead, you try leveraging yourself up on the wall to see how damaged your legs really are. 

Your legs support your weight only as long as you support yourself on the wall. Once you try to step away, you crumple again. 

So your legs don't work like they used to, and you're going to have to crawl your way back to the house. 

You'd sort of hoped that you would be able to sleep this whole thing off, and wouldn't have to do that. You're not Rose anymore, but that doesn't mean that you can stand ignominy anymore than she can. It doesn't seem like you're getting any sort of positive sides to this situation anytime soon. 

Although, it hasn't rained recently, at least. Mud is insufferable on fur or skin, and the thought of having to crawl through it makes starving to death in this tomb seem almost preferable. 

Crawling turns out to be more along the lines of dragging yourself along on your arms. Your legs are clumsy, weak, and uncoordinated. You can manage getting them underneath you the right way only every so often, and eventually it becomes more trouble than it's worth to keep trying. You desperately wish that you could move around as easily and quickly as you used to be able to. 

The front door is locked, because of course it is. Mom never locked it, but you made sure to always lock it because you lived in the middle of absolute nowhere and you'd seen enough horror movies even at your age to know what happens to people who live in the middle of absolute nowhere, and you hadn't been thrilled to replicate their circumstances. 

Also, you don't fit through the cat door anymore. 

You have to knock. You can't even drag yourself up to properly ring the doorbell because your new pathetic excuses for legs have decided that they don't want to do anything anymore. You liked being carried as a cat, but not as Rose. You wonder how you'll react to it now. 

You have to knock again, because you're sure that Rose is the one who came to the door and she probably can't see you since you're sprawled out on the front porch. You're probably going to have to knock another time before she's going to be willing to try opening the door enough to actually see you. 

When she does finally open the door, you're not surprised to see her face fall into something akin to absolute disgust once she sees you. 

"It's you," she says, perhaps a little bitterly. 

"It's me," you agree, perhaps a little smugly. "Now do you want to let me inside, or are you going to leave me out here to freeze in the cold dirt like some orphan kitten in a rain soaked cardboard box?" 

The look she gives you makes you think that she is considering just leaving you out here. You smile at her just to piss her off a little more. 

You get the feeling it's going to be a long day. 

Chapter Text

Your stomach drops a bit when Dave comes out of his room later that evening, but you don't show it. 

"It probably won't be too busy if we go now. You ready?" 

You're not sure if you're ever going to be ready. You had done some research, and hadn't been able to find a step-by-step guide exactly, but you had been able to find some things.

You'd tried to prepare as best as you could; made lists and researched the local grocery store and found as many photos of the interior as you could. You had even managed to find a list of the aisles and the things kept in each of them. You'd then had to do a bit of research to figure out what a lot of those things were, but you're fairly certain that you're about as prepared for this as you're going to get. 

You can't get Hal's words out of your head. 

You nod anyway. 

Your list is tucked into the back pocket of your jeans, which fit you better than Dave's do. It's not much, but at least it's a starting point. 

You stick close to Dave as the two of you make your way out of the apartment. He locks the door behind you and leads you down to the elevator. 

He'd stopped, briefly, in front of the door labeled 'stairs', but had moved past it quickly. You don't ask about it, and hope that he hadn't heard your whispered echo of, "I told you, dog".

Leaving the apartment isn't the hard part. Making it out of the apartment building is turning out to be tough. Immediately you're faced with other people, a lot of them. Dave had said that the store wouldn't be too busy this late, but the streets seem pretty fucking busy to you, and you're not even close to the store yet. You try to hold yourself together, because it's not like any of the people are actually doing anything to you. They don't care about you at all; they're just trying to get through their days. 

Still, the noise of it surprises you. The cars and their engines and their tires on the roads, the occasional honk of a horn, the voices of people overlapping each other, their footsteps against the sidewalk cement, all of it. 

You remember this happening before, but you're not really in a position to be dealing with that now of all times. So you try to reorient yourself, focusing on the sight of Dave walking in front of you instead of anywhere else. 

You manage to make it to the store. The store, with its smell and its nasty sounding air-conditioning unit and lightbulbs, and its people, and all of its fucking choices. You've never seen this much food before in your life, and you have no idea what the fuck most of it is, and it's overwhelming just to look at, much less to have to go through and pick some of it out. 

You haven't even made it past the entryway to the store. You're still stuck at the small patch of carpet at the door, and Dave is already walking on the tiles away from you, not realizing that you're not following anymore. 

You're stuck. You're so fucking stuck. 

You should have fucking listened to Hal. 

Chapter Text

You'd been dealing with a lot of surprises since you'd woken up after the game. 

You'd been back home, in the apartment that you hadn't been in in years. You'd found Davesprite, who looked very much human and also very much pissed to still be around. You'd found out that he couldn't walk, and then you'd run into Dirk, and for a split second, you hadn't really noticed that it was Dirk, and that had been one hell of a wake-up call that you hadn't been happy to be on the receiving end of. And then you'd noticed the kid behind him, and your apartment wasn't exactly made for four people. 

You'd spent most of the subsequent time in your room, because it was weird being around Davesprite and weirder being around your Bro's look alike. You'd been worried that it would be all too easy to mix the two of them up, considering the fact that Dirk and Bro look so damn similar. But when Davesprite had made you bring the food out and you'd eaten with them, you'd kind of started to realize that Dirk is so unlike your Bro that it could almost be laughable. 

They look a lot alike, that's for sure, but where Bro was huge, Dirk is kind of... small. You're pretty sure that he's older than you by at least a couple of years, but he's several inches shorter than you. Plus, you can practically count his ribs and vertebrae through his shirt. Not to mention his skin color, which is several shades darker than yours or Bro's. 

He doesn't act anything like Bro either. Bro was always sneaking around. Always trying to make as little noise as possible in order to best get the drop on you. He limited everything about himself in order to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. He moved as little as possible, hardly talked, didn't make any extra noise, nothing. 

Dirk isn't exactly loud, but he definitely isn't quiet either. Even shut in your room, you'd still been able to hear him moving around the apartment, humming to himself, tapping his his fingers along the walls and furniture. From the few times you'd poked your head out, you could see that he's not still either. He's constantly in motion; rocking where he sits or stands, flapping his arms and hands, swaying from side to side, wiggling, signing to himself. 

That's a thing, though. The not-talking thing. He mostly signs to Hal, who translates for him, but when he does speak, it doesn't seem easy. It takes him a while to get the words out, but when they do come out they come out weird, oddly shaped or pronounced with a weird blend of accents that you can't pin down.

He looks miserable every time he speaks, and it's sort of difficult to understand what he's saying. You had finally gotten good at parsing the troll's weird accents and pronunciations, but Dirk doesn't sound like them either. Until you're good enough to sign on your own, you'll be grateful if Hal is the one that continues to translate for him. 

The point is, that Dirk doesn't really remind you of your brother as much as you'd feared he would. 

For example, right now is a perfect display of how Dirk isn't at all like your brother. 

You'd managed to make it to the grocery store, and had gotten a few feet inside, when you'd heard a garbled shout from behind you. 

You'd gone on high alert immediately, reaching for a weapon without really thinking about it, and preparing for some kind of attack on pure adrenaline powered instinct. 

Instead, you'd turned around to find Dirk curled in on himself in the store's entryway, rocking back and forth on his heels with his hands pressed over his ears.

You're so startled, both by the action and the lack of a target for your sudden adrenaline rush, that you wind up just standing there, staring at him for a few heartbeats.

Then you notice that several other people are staring as well. And then you try to get your ass into action. 

You remember how he had flinched away from you touching him that first day after his freak out in the bathroom, so you make sure not to touch him now. You doubt it'd help. 

Still, he doesn't seem to be picking up on the fact that you're trying to catch his attention. Or the fact that -since you're both crouched in the entryway- you're catching a lot of other people's attention instead. 

You're starting to panic a little yourself. You're not exactly the most socially competent person around, and Dirk's really not helping. You don't know how to fix this. You wish, not for the first time since waking up, that Rose was here. She'd probably know what to do. Or would at the very least would be better equipped than you. 

"Hey, sorry. Do you need some help?"

You glance up to meet the eyes of a worried looking woman with a store apron on. You glance back at Dirk, who hasn't made any move to uncurl himself from his defensive position on the floor. You look back up at her. 

"Sorry, dumb question. If he needs a quiet place to calm down though, there's a space in the back that's pretty empty right now. We're not really supposed to let customers back there, but we can make exceptions."

A quiet place to calm down seems about as good as anything you're going to get right now. You nod at her. The biggest issue now is going to be getting Dirk up and moving. You're probably strong enough to physically pick him up and move him, but you really don't want to have to. "Dirk," you say, and get no reaction. 

You remember how Hal had signed things to Dirk after you or Davesprite had spoken, and you wonder if understanding English is as hard for him as speaking it is. It's the best idea you have at the moment, so you open up the notes section of your phone and type out a short explanation for him: 

There's a woman here. She's going to take us to a quiet place in the back where there aren't any people. You just have to get up so that we can walk there.

For lack of a better option, you slide the phone in the gap between his legs and chest. The phone gets shoved back out onto the floor a moment later, and you're worried that he hadn't even paused to read it when he stands uncertainly, one hand still pressed over his head. The other reaches out to lightly hold onto the edge of your sleeve. You're not sure if he's even looking at you, but you nod at him anyway. 

The woman smiles at the two of you and leads you off. There are still people staring, but you ignore them easily. You can't remember the last time you were around this many strangers. It's almost disorienting. 

So, you can easily imagine how it's probably worse for Dirk. 

The space in the back is probably some kind of break room, with a couple of chairs and a microwave on the counter. Only one door in, no windows. 

"You two can stay back here for as long as you need," the woman says as Dirk lets go of your sleeve and goes to settle in the back corner of the room, his back against the wall. "Just, if you don't mind, come let me know when you're leaving so that I won't have to worry about you two being back here." 

"No problem," you tell her. "Thanks for this though, seriously." 

She waves away your gratitude easily. "It's no problem. I hope he feels better soon." And then she's gone, shutting the door securely behind her. 

You glance back at Dirk, who's curled himself back into the same position he'd been in at the front of the store, and decide to leave him alone for the time being. You sit yourself in one of the chairs instead, pulling out your phone to give yourself something other than him to look at. 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

TG: ill be real
TG: im not sure how were supposed to pull this shit off
TT: What seems to be the problem?
TG: what isnt the problem
TG: i forgot that were not on the meteor anymore
TG: we dont have a shit ton of supplies just lying around anymore
TG: so dirk and i went to the store to get some fucking food
TG: and dirk flipped shit before we even made it past the produce
TG: i dont know whats up yet hes not talking or anything
TG: not that he does a lot of that
TG: he mostly just signs to hal
TG: fuck hal totally knew this was gonna happen
TG: anyway i cant even blame the guy
TG: this shit doesnt feel real
TG: like when the fuck was the last time i was in a fucking store
TG: theres all these damn people around
TG: no wonder hes losing it
TT: I'd forgotten that you used to live in Houston.
TT: Largely populated cities probably aren't the ideal living conditions for anyone who's been through what we have. 
TT: According to Roxy, she and Dirk both grew up entirely isolated. 
TT: Apparently she'd had carapacian neighbors, but Dirk lived entirely alone.
TT: Any amount of people is undoubtedly a shock, much less hundreds of them. 
TG: yea no shit
TT: Have you considered moving somewhere else?
TG: somewhere like where
TG: the only cash we have is some of what id stockpiled back when i was in middle school
TG: honestly we barely have enough for the groceries were here for
TG: i sure as fuck dont drive
TG: lets not forget that davesprite cant fucking walk
TG: hal cant walk more than two steps without tripping over his own damn feet
TG: dirk and i barely made it here
TG: and look how thats turned out
TG: this is supremely fucked up
TT: You do have a point there.
TT: I'll admit that I'm running low on realistic suggestions at the moment. 
TT: Perhaps it would be easier to focus on what you are able to do right now. 
TT: Does Dirk seem to be faring any better?

You look up from your phone to check on him. He's still curled up, but he looks like he's moving a lot calmer now. He's got his chin resting on his arms, looking around the room, before his gaze settles on you. You dredge up the memory of some of the fingerspelling that you'd looked up last night, and shape your hands into clumsy approximations of [OK]. He blinks at you blankly, but nods back, only barely unsteady. 

TG: think so
TT: Then it would probably be easier for him to remain at your apartment while you get the shopping done. 
TT: Roxy says that she'll talk to him. 

"You want to get out of here?" you ask, turning back to Dirk, who's still watching you. 

He doesn't move for a while, and then he tugs a piece of paper out of his back pocket and uses it to gesture towards the door. When you don't seem to pick up on what he's trying to communicate, he hands it to you instead. 

It's a shopping list. You nod in understanding. 

"I'm going to come back," you tell him, careful to keep anything he could possibly interpret as irritation or anger out of your voice. You don't blame him for this or anything, and you don't want him to think that you do. "I'm getting kind of skittish here too, to be honest. Maybe not as bad as you, but I keep feeling like someone is going to sneak up on me here. Wouldn't hurt my feelings to take a break and come back later."

Dirk doesn't really have a wide range of facial expressions, as you're starting to understand, but you can still tell that he's upset. 

"Dude, don't beat yourself up over this," you insist. "It's understandable, to say the least. This shit sucks, but it's not your fault." 

It takes a while for him to nod, but he does eventually, using the wall to help him rise unsteadily to his feet and following you back out of the store. The two of you make a brief stop to thank the worker who's helped you out earlier, and then you head home. 

Dirk heads straight for the bathroom the moment you've unlocked the front door, ignoring the only slightly teasing comments Hal throws his way. It's obvious that he's still upset about what happened earlier, despite your brief conversation about it. You don't know Roxy too well, but you do hope that she'll be able to convince Dirk to go a little easy on himself. 

You're starting to get the feeling that he doesn't do that too often. 

Chapter Text

As vindicated as you are about being correct in your calculations concerning how that little shopping trip was going to go, you can't exactly say that you're happy about having to watch Dirk nearly trip and fall on his face in his haste to go hide in the bathroom again. 

Dave barely sticks around long enough to tell you and Dove about his plans to head back to the store again later before he's sequestering himself back in his room.

You're beginning to get the sense that that's going to remain a common theme with him. 

"What happened?" Dove asks. 

"I don't know why you're asking me," you reply, sitting stiffly back down on the corner of the couch. "I wasn't there." 

"Yeah, but you know what happened anyway, don't you?"

You do.

You sigh a little and rub your fingers against your temples in a human display of frustration. "Dirk's a neurotic mess at the best of times, and is like the textbook definition of autistic as hell," you say. "That little voyage out of this apartment wasn't going anywhere except for straight into a pile of shit, and we both knew it."

"If you both knew, then why did it happen?"

"Dirk doesn't listen to me," you scoff, "and he hates himself too much to actually listen to himself." You pause briefly, tilting your head as you think. "Actually, take that 'and' out. That statement works fine without it." 

"You're not him though." 

"There's been a lot of heavy debate concerning the validity of that statement," you say, which is true.

You don't say that you're still sometimes not sure if you're really your own person or if you were actually telling the truth in those desperate attempts to keep Dirk from snapping you in half, and you're still just basically him. You don't say that you're not sure which of those statements you want to be true in the first place either.

Dove snorts humorlessly. "Same."

The two of you listen to the sound of the shower in silence for a few moments before Dirk's PesterChum starts blowing up with messages. Roxy, judging by the increasingly long wall of bright pink text that you can see from the couch. 

You know that Dirk isn't going to be emerging from his hiding spot anytime soon, and this is practically your job. So, you go ahead and sit your ass down at the computer. 

tipsyGnostic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

TG: dirk!!!
TG: rose told me wat happened :(
TG: u ok?

You will give him the courtesy of changing your text color, if only so that Dirk can't get pissed at you for 'pretending to be him' later on, even though that hadn't really been your plan for this conversation. Or any future conversations, really. That shtick hadn't really worked out any better for you than it had for him. 

TT: He's pulling himself together. 
TT: I'll make sure that he messages you himself later.
TG:  :0
TG: hal?!
TT: The one and only.
TG: hopy shti!!!
TG: howve u been!?
TG: its been a whilt
TG: while*
TT: The whole humanity thing is vastly overrates as it turns out.
TG: awwww
TG: dnt be like that
TG: omg i bet u look jsut lke dirk
TT: Right.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostic [TG]

You close out of the chat window and put the keyboard away before you wind up saying something stupid and piss both Roxy and Dirk off. You stand back up, and trip momentarily on the legs of the desk chair before you can reorient yourself and go to flop on the couch next to Dove, who is looking at you knowingly. 

You think you're starting to understand why Dirk always got so pissy when you made it clear that you knew him too well.

The computer begins pinging relentlessly again only moments later, and you huff loudly at the way the sound grinds against your nerves before standing up to mute the program entirely. You don't understand how you were able to tolerate all this bullshit back when you still lived in the shades. 

It's not Roxy this time, it's Jane. But it doesn't actually seem like her style of typing, and that's the only reason why you actually pause to read them.

gutsyGumshoe [GG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

GG: =:3
TT: ...
TT: What.
GG: =:0
GG: !!!

You... know those little emotes. But you weren't exactly expecting to see them anymore. It almost seems like it's something a little too good to be true.

TT: Lil Seb?
GG: !!!
TT: Holy shit.
GG: Hello Hal!
GG: This is Jane now.
GG: Lil Seb is having trouble grasping English as it turns out.
GG: It's a good thing I studied ASL in high school I suppose!
TT: Yea I guess so.
TT: Lil Seb seriously made it out of the game?
GG: Well, yes.
GG: You did too.
TT: Again: Yea I guess so
TT: We hadn't seen any of the other bots, though. I guess we just assumed that Lil Seb hadn't made it out either.
TT: Holy shit wait, is he human?
GG: Quite! Although he doesn't seem particularly fond of it.
GG: I can send you a picture of him if you'd like?
TT: Holy fuck, yes please.
GG: Hoo hoo! No problem!
GG: He's excited to show you!
GG: [Multimedia Attachment]

Lil Seb has always been one of the cutest creations that Dirk had managed to churn out, but even the cute ass little robot chasis doesn't have anything on this little six-year-old that you're looking at. He's got messy ass blonde hair, his iconic little red shades, a sweatshirt that's way too big for him, and a peace sign thrown up by his cheek. He's not smiling with his face, but you can tell that he's bouncing up and down in excitement through the motion blurs on the photo. 

You immediately save the picture and set it as this computer's background.

GG: He wants to know if he can get a picture of you.

The light feeling in your chest immediately fizzles out into something more uncomfortable. You suppose that you should have anticipated this.

TT: Maybe another time.
TT: Not exactly looking picture perfect over here.
GG: Did something happen?
TT: I mean yeah you could say that.
TT: We're getting it worked out though
TT: Don't get your knickers in a twist
GG: Is everyone okay?
TT: 'Okay' is probably debatable, but everyone is at home and safe.
GG: Well, it's a start I suppose
GG: Tell me what happened.

Looks like you're settling in for a long fucking conversation.

Chapter Text

You are fucking miserable and you hate yourself. 

You have done exactly one thing since you'd woken up in your new life: Fuck up, supremely and completely. 

You suppose that you really shouldn't be surprised, after all it is you that you're talking about. The only thing you've ever managed to consistently do throughout the course of your life is fuck shit up relentlessly. It shouldn't be a surprise to know that it's still the only thing you're capable of; the only sense of consistency you have left in your life anymore. 

You had barely even made it into the store before you'd had an absolute breakdown, possibly one of the worst ones that you've had since you were a child. You'd been a bit preoccupied in the moment, but that doesn't mean that you were unable to notice that there had been dozens of people staring at you. 

You had known that your meltdowns weren't exactly an entirely Normal Human Experience, not after you'd explained them to Roxy and had to face her utter cluelessness concerning the topic. But there's a difference between knowing and seeing, and you hadn't liked being seen like that. A confirmation that public was the last thing that you'd wanted. 

Your skin is still buzzing with over-sensitivity, even after you'd shed your clothes, and your head is aching, even with the lights off. You can hear the computer in the living room alerting you to incoming messages, but you don't want to have to talk to another person about everything that'd just happened. 

You know that at this point, you're just wallowing. You're not actually doing anything to make yourself feel any better, though that's due in part to the fact that you don't know how to make yourself feel better anymore.

Even once you were in the game and out of your apartment, you'd still had some things that you were able to keep. But you'd woken up without a single thing that you'd had in game, other than the clothes on your back. You'd known that the game was a real bastard from the moment you'd started playing it, but you also would have thought that winning it would earn you at least some kind of decency. 

You guess not. 

You hear the front door open, and Dave call your name, and Hal say something in response. You press your forehead into your knees and sigh heavily. You suppose that your allotted time for moping is officially up. 

The moment you step out of the bathroom, both Dave's shout wordlessly, and the Dave holding the grocery bags fumbles one so badly that he almost drops it while you freeze in the doorway of the bathroom, glancing around tensely for the threat they see that you're missing. 

"Clothes," Dave says firmly. One of his hands hovers in front of his face, cutting off his line of sight to you. "Clothes are an important thing. Please, dog, put some on." 

You glance down at yourself. You don't remember Jake ever having an issue with you shedding your clothes around him, and you don't think that you'd ever gotten any down time opportunity to worry about that once you'd encountered the others. Though, you suppose that Jake had grown up mostly alone in his island. He probably wouldn't be the best gauge for this sort of thing either. 

You want to stop and ask questions; how many clothes are considered to be the necessary amount? Does all of your skin have to be covered, or just specific parts? You want the specifics, but you don't think that Dave will be amenable to answering your questions at the moment. 

You're not particularly enthused at the idea of having to put clothes back on, but you nod, heading back into the bathroom and closing the door. You hear the Daves' sighs of relief from all the way at the front door. 

You re-emerge a few minutes later, uncomfortable but clothes, and go to poke around the bags that Dave had brought back with him. You recognize a few of the items dimly, mostly from the photographs that you'd seen the nights before. One of the packages catches your eye, and you hold it up for Dave to explain. 

"Oranges," he says. "Hal said y'all've been wanting to try the real things?" 

You glance over at Hal, and he pauses from typing long enough to give you a loose two fingered salute. 

[Who are you messaging?] you sign. 

[Lil Seb] he signs back. 

You blink. "He's here?" you ask aloud, and he nods. 

"With Jane." 

Huh. You suppose that makes sense. 

You refocus back onto the oranges, peeling open the package of cups already. It takes you a moment to find the words and sort them out on your tongue so that you can reply to Dave. "Had lots of orange soda. Never real oranges." 

Dave nods. "Orange soda doesn't taste too much like real oranges, but they're not bad. Sorry I didn't get any fresh ones, but the cups are cheaper, and they last longer." 

You shrug. It doesn't really make any difference to you. Prepackaged makes the most sense to you too. 

Your fingers fumble with the plastic lid on the cup, and you finally manage to open it only to spill juice all over your hands and the countertop. You grimace unhappily down at the mess, and look up questioningly when you hear the sound of a camera shutter clicking. 

Dave is smirking, not meanly, as he types something out on his phone. "Nice pout," he says in lieu of an explanation, which doesn't help to alleviate your confusion. 

"Send that to me," Hal demands, and you give him the finger without turning to look at him. 

You focus back onto the situation at hand. Dave was right when he said that real oranges don't taste much like orange soda- they have less bite and a different kind of sweet- but they're still pretty good. You have mixed feelings about the texture, but they're easy enough to swallow without having to spend too much time in your mouth. 

You like them. 

You give Dave a thumbs-up, and pause to clean up the mess you'd accidentally made before heading to the computer. Hal moves out of the way long enough for you to pull up Roxy's window and ignore their earlier messages to give her a more important update. 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostic [TG]

TT: Oranges are good. 
TG: fucking there u r
TG: u got a cute pouty face btw
TG: glad to hear it tho
TG: i havetn had one of those yet
TG: btu im a big fan of bread
TT: I'll put it on the list. 
TG: u feelin any better

You hesitate. 

TT: Sort of.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostic [TG]

She pings you a few more times, but you minimize the tab and leave the computer to Hal. She'll probably be a bit upset that you're ignoring her, but you're still just not really ready to talk about this yet. 

You really wish that you were better at this shit. 

Chapter Text

You are experiencing some pretty severe feelings about your current situation.

On one hand, holy shit you got to meet your teenage-mom without her being grievously wounded. That one is a solid plus. 

On the other hand, you're still dealing with a lot of shit, and you know that others have it even worse. 

You're almost just bored. You're very excited for this opportunity, but Rose spends a lot of time by herself, and she isn't obligated to spend every single waking moment with you. Jane and Jake have both been a little distant, having fun in their new homes with their new families, and you don't really blame them for being too busy to talk to you; it's only been a few days after all. Dirk had been messaging you pretty consistently since the game ended, but Rose told you about how he fell apart while at the store in public, and you're pretty sure that he's been ignoring you since then. 

Jasprose showed up this morning, and you'd wondered if that might change things, but you'd helped them into the shower and they still haven't come out yet. You don't think they're going to be emerging anytime soon (which is fair. They'd been coated in a solid amount of dirt when they'd shown up) 

And that's okay. You're used to being alone after all, it's just... you're kind of lonely. 

It seems silly, especially when you think about how you'd spent so many years living totally alone, and how you're not even really technically alone anymore. But you had gotten used to living with Jane and the sprites, you'd gotten used to hanging around other people, and now you're sort of on your own. Rose is really neat, but also kind of quiet and formal. You think that Dirk would really like her. 

You really wish that you could help Dirk, but he's so far away again. You feel like you're eleven years old all over again; able to chat but not really help, though it's not like you'd actually know how to help if you were given the opportunity. 

But instead of anything like that, it's just you and your keyboard and a blank computer screen. Put on hold until someone has the time for you. 

You're really starting to remember why you'd started drinking all of those years ago. 

Not that you have the chance to start again, not since you and Rose dumped all of the alcohol on your first day back. 

You kind of have mixed feelings about that action, but at least this way you can't make any stupid impulsive decisions. 

(You think of Dirk's quiet "I'm proud of you" when you'd told him that you'd stopped drinking -spoken aloud instead of signed, just for you- and it's enough to pull you through the occasional urge. That and the thought of how you wouldn't be able to help him if you were completely wasted at the keyboard. Uncomfortable romantic shenanigans behind you, he's still your best friend.) 

You're trying to come up with a neutral topic to message Dirk about -because you've gotten the hint that he doesn't want to talk about earlier- when Rose walks weirdly stiff into the living room where you've set yourself up, perched in the corner of the sofa with the laptop you've been using balanced on the arm. 

She's been acting weirdly uncomfortable all morning, since Jasprose showed up, so it's not entirely unusual, but it still sets of warning bells in your head. 

"I was going to send you this photo that Dave sent me," she says, coming to sit delicately on the ottoman in front of you, "when I realized something. What, exactly, have you been eating?" 

You ignore her question and pull out your own phone (her mom's old phone), making a squeaky excited noise as you turn it around to show her that you have said photo set as your background wallpaper. You hadn't been able to help yourself, Dirk standing at a counter frowning sadly at a broken open cup and a puddle of juice collected on his hands and the countertop? Even in the game, it had been a while since the two of you had hung out in person; you'd almost forgotten what a dorky pout he had. You hadn't been able to resist. 

She smiles vaguely at your antics, but you can tell that you hadn't been successful in attempting to avoid the conversation that she wants to have. You bite the inside of your lip and wait. 

"So," she says, "Food?" 

A little sheepishly, you pull out the loaf of bread that you'd found after the two of you had dumped the alcohol. In your defense, you had never tried it before (mold is a real issue that you're not enthused about re-encountering) and you were curious. It had just been sitting out on the counter, so you hadn't thought it would be that big of a deal. There's even still almost half of it left. Maybe you'd misunderstood. 

"Is that it?" Rose asks, looking oddly slumped around the shoulders. That's not an angry line, that's a sad curve. Maybe you've misunderstood more than you've realized. 

"Yea?" you reply, trying to paste a smile on your face and fix whatever it is that you've done. "I didn't want to take too much, but I didn't thu-think it'd be a big deal? I've never had it before, but I aa-understand why people like it so much! 'S really good." 

"Roxy," she says, and fuck, even her voice sounds sad. "You should have been eating more than that. I can't believe this slipped my mind. It's healthiest to eat three full meals a day. In the morning, middle of the day, and evening."

"Three whole meals a day?" you repeat incredulously. This stuff does sound vaguely familiar. You think it's possible that Jane might have talked to you about it at some point, but it's a little lost in the haze of angst and withdrawal and leveling up that you'd also been involved in at the time. At any rate, three meals sound a little overindulgent. 

Rose's cool exterior cracks a bit more, and you kind of want to slap yourself in the face. You're making things worse. Holy shit are you making things worse. 

"I mean, it sounds really kuh-cool!" You rush to assure her. "It's just, do we have the kind of suuh-pplies to be able to eat that much in a single d-day? You can making things llast a l-lot longer if you only eat once or twice." She's not looking any better. Fuck!!! "Plus, we don't rrreally need to eat a lot since all we're doin' is sitting around, right? We don't need the es-xta energy, so we can save more." You're going to scream. "Oh wait! You don't have any pawn nee-neigh-neighbors here, huh? That probably helps?" You need to stop fucking talking.

Rose doesn't look any better, but at least she's nodding a bit??? "Well, I would imagine that it would help, but we also don't really have to worry about supplies. The closest store is a bit of a drive away, but we're not anywhere near low enough on funds to require any kind of stockpiling of food." 

It's incredible how you could be so worried about Dirk's incident at the store and yet somehow manage to completely forget about what the fuck a store was. 

"Great!! That's super!!" You might be laying it on a little thick, but Rose is still looking at you all sad and you want it to stop. "What kinda things you have around here?" 

You had peeked in the pantry a bit after you'd gotten rid of the alcohol, but you hadn't spent as much time in there as you should have. Maybe you wouldn't be in this situation if you had just thought to do the calculations in order to properly ration out the food in the first place. 

You let Rose lead you back into the kitchen, and you watch as she starts pulling out all kinds of shit that you have no idea how to identify. You keep your mouth firmly shut though, because you don't want that sad little slump to Rose's shoulders to come back. (Maybe it's a little weird, but it reminds you a little of Dirk, and you can't stand seeing him upset either) 

Instead, you just sit there and act like you know what's going on. Rose occasionally stops what she's doing to ask you a question about what you want included on your 'lunch', and since you don't know what any of it is, you say yes to absolutely everything she offers. You do recognize something that you're fairly certain is a type of meat, and you know that your stomach doesn't handle meat for whatever reason, but you don't mention this either. You don't want her to get upset, and you're not about to turn down food if you can help it. 

Rose's lunch (you're still not sure if that's the name of the food or what?) looks a lot smaller than yours by the time she's done putting it together. You wonder if that's a preference thing or something. Some of the things she'd put on your bread she'd left off of hers. You don't feel up to having a conversation as to why that is. 

You watch Rose take a few bites of her lunch so that you can gauge what the proper way to eat this thing in (you didn't used to think it mattered, but you do distinctly remember Jane sounding quite scandalized after walking in on you eating a cake 'wrong', so you make sure to pay attention now). Once you're confident in your ability to do it right, you go for it. 

It tastes kind of like shit. There's a lot of things going on in that lunch that you don't really like or approve of, but like you said; not the worst thing you've ever eaten. That award still lies firmly in the possession of the rotten pumpkin you'd eaten before realizing that you couldn't eat them after they'd done that. Finishing this thing off isn't the most enjoyable task you've partaken in, but it doesn't take you too long to get it down. 

And then your stomach turns, and you immediately wish that you hadn't. 

Chapter Text

Dave is in the middle of explaining what some of the foods you don't recognize are when you start getting pestered incessantly. You wait for Hal to go ahead and answer it like he has been all day, but he gestures at you to take it. The noise irritates you enough that you do actually go up to deal with it instead of just leaving it be. 

You're expecting it to be Roxy, so you're surprised to see that it's Rose instead. Surprised enough to open the messages instead of just muting the program. 

tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]:

TT: Dirk, I understand that you're probably occupied, but I have an important question. 
TT: Very important question.
TT: What kinds of foods did Roxy eat?
TT: Dirk, it's a bit of an emergency.
TT: Her mom left her a lot of canned vegetables and shit originally.
TT: We'd counted a few years ago and realized she was running kind of low,
TT: So she'd started stealing pumpkins and some other plant-things from Jake's island with the appearifier.
TT: I tried sending her some fish, and she tried hunting birds, but the meat made her sick.
TT: Why? What happened?
TT: Shit.
TT: I made another assumption that I should not have.
TT: What does that mean?
TT: Is she okay?
TT: She probably will be, but right now she's quite sick.
TT: I suppose I should have seen this coming.
TT: Why didn't she say anything?
TT: She's quiet about that stuff sometimes.
TT: Tell her to message me once she feels better.
TT: Will do.

tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

You wonder if you shouldn't be more worried about Roxy than you currently are, but the more you think about it, the more you realize why you're not. You and Roxy both have a lot of experience with getting sick, and though you're both pros at it, you've spent a lot of time worrying over her from your apartment. When you were sick, you at least had Sawtooth around to keep you from choking on your own vomit. Roxy hadn't had anyone like that.

This time Rose is there. Roxy isn't alone anymore.

"Everything okay over there?"

And neither are you. 

It takes you a moment to realign your thought process with the task at hand, and then you manage to get up from the computer to head back over to the kitchen. 

"Roxy got sick," you tell Dave, who hasn't moved from where he's leaned up against the counter. You hop back up to your perch on the countertop. "She didn't tell Rose that meat made her sick." 

Hal perks up from his position on the couch. "Is she okay?" he asks. 

You nod. [Rose is with her]

Dave makes a little hum of acknowledgement, and you barely manage to restrain yourself to keep from mimicking it. "Do you have any foods that make you sick?" 

You shrug, touching the fingers of your flattened hand to your temple and turning them away towards the side. "Dunno," you say aloud, to clarify the sign. "Haven't had a lot." 

"That's fair," he says. "I tried to get things that would hopefully go down easy. Sorry though, no fish. Couldn't afford them plus the pan to cook them in." 

You'll admit to being a little disappointed, but you also understand. You're not surrounded by the ocean anymore, it's no longer as simple as hopping down and catching some fish. Doesn't mean you can't miss it though. 

You reorient again. Dave has finished explaining the supplies that he'd brought back, and now it's time to put them away. Your food supplies had been stacked wall to wall in your kitchen, but from your understanding, they're actually supposed to go in specific locations. 

So while Dave has gone back to his phone, presumably to message one of his friends (one who isn't occupied with taking care of your sick friend), you go to investigate the refrigerator. 

You'd had one, at some point, but you'd found it to be a waste of electricity that was better off being used as spare parts. It didn't hold a lot, and cold soda doesn't differ much from warm soda, so who cared? You know the theory behind a fridge, though.

So you're really not expecting to open the door and have a huge pile of swords tumble out, clattering against the floor with a metallic sound that rakes down your spine and has you stumbling backwards, hands pressed protectively over your ears. 

You grunt unhappily at this development, and wait for all the metal to settle. You thought you'd cleared all the weapons out of the kitchen on the first day. 

It's only when you finally pull your hands away from your ears that you hear the sharp wheezy breaths behind you. 

Twisting around, you come face to face with Dave, who's standing with his sword equipped, phone forgotten on the floor by his feet, staring with wide blank eyes at you and the pile of weapons behind you.

Fuck. 

Chapter Text

There are approximately two things that you know right now. 

One is that you're scared. You're kind of scared shitless. 

The other is that you're really confused. 

You're not entirely sure what's going on. 

You had been messaging Jade, and then something had happened, and you'd gotten startled, and when you'd looked up your Bro was just standing there, right in front of the fridge, and you'd panicked a bit. 

Part of you knows that this isn't Bro. It can't be. He's dead. You saw the body. He died and he didn't come back, and the person in front of you isn't him. 

But most of you is too skittish to put the sword down. You know it's not him, but you can't actually bring yourself to believe that that's true. You stand and wait instead. He makes the first move, not you. 

He's not making a move though. He doesn't even have his own sword out. It's just him, standing in front of the fridge and staring at you. He's not even going for a weapon. His hands are just fluttering around his chest while he mumbles, "Whoops, whoops, whoops," under his breath. 

You're really fucking confused. 

You watch as he carefully steps away from the fridge, barely even glancing at the swords on the floor except to make sure that he doesn't jostle any of them. He's moving slowly and plainly, things that Bro never was. He walks away from the fridge, and goes to press his back against the back of the sofa. 

You wait, wondering what the fuck kind of trick this is. He's tried to get you to let your guard down before, but never like this. 

You realize slowly that he's talking to you. 

"Sorry, it's Dirk. I messed up. Didn't know those were there. I remember you said you don't like the noise. Me neither." 

You're pretty sure that this is the most you've ever heard him say in one sitting. His voice is weird. He has the same sort of monotone as your Bro, but the pronunciations and emphasis on syllables are all sorts of wrong and unsteady. 

This is not your Bro. 

The realization hits you with a sudden painful rush of guilt. This isn't your Bro, this is Dirk, who's already been awkwardly stepping around you and your issues since he's met you, and now you've gone and mistaken him for your brother and you pulled a fucking sword on him. 

You put it away as quickly as you can. Your hands are shaking. What the hell is wrong with you?

"'s not your fault," Dirk says, and you drag your gaze back to meet his. "I remember you talking about the noise -you don't like it. I startled you. You responded. Don't beat yourself up over this." 

You get ready to argue, and then you recognize the words that Dirk has just said to you. Pretty much, if not exactly, the same thing you'd said to him about his breakdown at the store. He's using your own words against you. 

You snort humorlessly, and drop to slump against the top of the counter. 

"This is so fucked up," you mumble, tossing your shades to the side and burying your face in your hands. 

Dirk laughs, surprisingly loud and bright. "You said it." 

Chapter Text

You watch as Dave absconds to the bathroom post-breakdown (and fuck, that bathroom is getting more action over the last two days than it's gotten in fucking years), and you can't deny the fact that you're a little pissed. 

You're not sure what exactly you're pissed about, but you are. 

You don't like the way that Dirk is still sitting pressed against the back of the couch, you don't like the way that Hal is sitting stiffly on the edge of the couch, and you don't like the heavy uncomfortable silence that has overtaken the living room from the moment those swords hit the floor. 

And yeah, you'd gotten startled too. You'd also reached for your sword, before you'd remembered that the hole in your stomach had been repaired. And also that you didn't have legs anymore. 

But you hadn't flipped your shit, lost your Strider Cool for no fucking reason. You'd held yourself together the way that Bro taught you to. 

"Are you okay?" Dirk asks hesitantly, and you glance up to see him peeking over the edge of the couch. 

You scoff loudly. "I'm peachy, my guy. It's not my fault Dave can't keep his shit together." 

Dirk frowns, which you're starting to realize is a lot of facial expression for him. "It would be understandable, after what your Bro did." 

You may not be able to move your legs anymore, but that doesn't mean that you just have to sit here and listen to this. You reach over the back of the couch to grip Dirk's shirt and tug him closer to you. You hear both him and Hal make sharp noises in their throats, but you ignore both of them. 

"My bro died to protect me," you say, low and serious, forcing Dirk to look you in the eye over the frames of your shades. "Don't fucking say anything about him." 

You lost one of your wings in that fight, but it was because Bro was there that you were able to make it out of there alive. He may not have been the most ideal guardian while you were growing up, but he did his best to prepare you for the game. You're not about to sit around and let just anyone talk about him like that. 

Dirk seems too startled to manage to get any words out, but Hal speaks up from behind you. "He was an alt-version of us," he says, "I think that gives us some leeway to talk about him however we decide to." 

You let go of Dirk, but only because he's not the one talking anymore. "Nope. I'm rescinding your permission to talk however you want when it comes to Bro." 

"He hurt you," Dirk retorts, standing carefully out of your reach now. 

"He was training me." 

You watch him fumble for words for a moment, and then give up, moving his hands in sharp frustrated motions while Hal translates. "You were a child. He was a grown ass man. That's not training, that's abuse." 

You twist around to face Dirk as fully as you can, and you point at him angrily, feeling a mixture of vindication and disgust when he flinches away from you. "Shut the fuck up. I can't stand, but that doesn't mean that I'm just going to sit here and take this shit." 

"Alright," Hal says, "How about we all step back away from this. Obviously, there are some issues about who's come to terms with what, but the guy isn't here anymore, so I think we can put these conversations off for some other day. Mostly just because I don't want to have to sit here and watch the both of you make utter asses out of yourselves." 

"The only ones making asses out of themselves are y'all," you snarl, but you turn back and settle into your spot on the couch. 

You're starting to hate being around Dave more and more with every moment. 

Chapter Text

Your new situation has currently found you hovering uncertainly over a woman bent over a toilet, helping her hold back her hair as she pukes noisily. 

"I'm really sorry, I should have thought better about this." 

"S'not your fault," Roxy slurs thickly. "Shoulda said somethin'." 

"How about we both agree that we should have thought better on our actions." 

You're not really willing to get into an argument while she's still dry-heaving. You fumble around behind you on the sink counter until you find one of the hair ties that your mother tended to hoard. You help tie Roxy's long hair back so that it's no longer running the risk of getting caught in the mess while you go get her some water so that she can rinse her mouth out. If you're correct, your mother should have left some cups under the sink specifically for this purpose. 

"That's fair," Roxy relents, slumped tiredly against the lid of the toilet, pressing her forehead against the cool porcelain. "Fuck, I haven't been sick like this in a while."

Your hand falters slightly on the faucet. "Yeah," you answer vaguely, not quite ready to face the possible implications behind those words. Thankfully, Roxy doesn't seem to be paying attention, instead focusing on rolling her forehead rhythmically from side to side against the toilet seat, which you personally think is a bit gross. 

Technically, you're not sure if the last time this toilet was used was three years ago or merely the other day. 

You suppose that that's one of the many complications that has come with all of the shit that the game has put you through. 

At any rate, a shower is probably the best course of action regardless of how long it's been since this toilet has technically been used, or cleaned. Getting sick (something that you also had become unfortunately familiar with) leaves you feeling gross regardless of where you rest your head after being done. 

It's uncomfortable to think about that for too long, so you refrain (Although it's equally uncomfortable to think about how you were occasionally recruited for this task even before the game, with a mother who was significantly older than, though physically similar to, Roxy. You're trying very hard to keep from thinking about those days as well)

"Here, let me show you to the shower so that you can wash some of the sick off of you." 

"No, don't worry about it," Roxy says, lifting her head a little faster than recommended and having to take a few seconds to recover before continuing. "I know where they are. Just, tell me which one you want me to use; the mmaster bedroom or the li-little one in the hall?" 

It's weird to think about this house surviving long enough to make it several hundred years into the future and through the literal apocalypse, but you suppose it makes about as much sense as anything else. You don't let yourself get distracted by which room Roxy lived in in her version of this house, but you do file it away to ponder on/ask about later. 

"Either one is fine, I suppose. It doesn't particularly matter to me," you tell her. Part of you wants to tell her to take the master bedroom's simply because that was your mother's bathroom. 

Roxy is not your mother. 

"Sick," Roxy says, hauling herself to her feet and barely managing to stay upright. "I'm totally taking the master. Love the water pressure in that thing." 

She takes off and leaves you wondering whether the water pressure will still live up to her expectations considering the temporal dissonance between your two houses. 

For her sake, you hope that it does. 

You go about cleaning up the bathroom, hoping to put this all behind you as fast as possible, when you hear Jasprose calling for help from the guest bathroom. 

You try to hold the uncomfortable feeling from your earlier thoughts in your chest as a reminder as to why you stopped drinking, because you're really starting to get the urge as you head down the hall to go help your alt-self out of the damn shower. 

(You get that it's not her fault, but the two of you have never particularly gotten along, and you get the feeling that it's only going to get worse as time goes on) 

(Just your luck) 

Chapter Text

Dave has long since retreated back to his room to go talk to whoever and hopefully burn off all of the adrenaline that your fuck-up dumped on him, and Dove has returned to watching some movie on the television, but you're still curled up on the roof, coping with the immense weight of your incredible self-loathing. 

Not only did you fuck up the shopping trip, causing a scene and forcing Dave to go back alone with no backup to a place that he had admitted was making him uncomfortable while you sat around the apartment and cried, but then your impeccable track record only continued by forcing Dave to re-live some shitty trauma that one of your alt-selves caused. And then you managed to fuck up with Dove as well, and you don't even understand why that one happened. 

You know that self-loathing is not conducive to productivity, and that you're only proving yourself to be a bigger waste of space by continuing to just sit around and mope instead of choosing to do something to improve yourself, but between everything that's happened today, you just don't have the energy to stop yourself. Or do anything else. 

Your arms are covered in puffy swollen bite marks because you don't even have a way to burn off steam here. You've already proven yourself incapable of leaving this apartment and venturing out into society. And even if you could leave this apartment, there wouldn't be any game constructs out there for you to fight anymore. There are no bots for you to spar with (and fuck you for thinking even for a second that you could ask Dave), and while there is Hal, you don't think that he deserves to be faced with any more of your self-destructive bullshit aimed outwards.

It was easier to dish it out on him when you could simultaneously pretend that he was and wasn't you. But now that he's here, with a body and a face that's all his own, and with how young he looks, you can't pretend anymore. It's not fair, and it's about time that you realized that. 

So, you take all that bullshit and you aim it at the target most suited to take it: Yourself. 

It is, after all, your horseshit to deal with. No one else deserves to deal with it, and you were a shit person for trying to heap it onto other people in the first place. The bots didn't deserve to deal with your physical abuse, Hal didn't deserve to deal with your emotional abuse, Jake didn't deserve to deal with your controlling bullshit, and Dave doesn't deserve to deal with your shit now. Congratu-fucking-lations. You've come full circle. 

Because, intentional or not, Dave and Dove are the ones dealing with your shit. You might not be taking out any of your frustration out in their direction (and you'd die before you'd try it), but they're dealing with it just by virtue of being too close to you. They didn't sign up to become the caretaker to their fucked up abuser's younger counterpart. They didn't sign up for you, or your shit, or the trauma that you unearth just by existing too closely to them. 

If you were a better person, you'd leave. 

But you're not, so instead you just press your weight further into the gritty cement of the rooftop and dig your teeth further into the meat of your arm and try to make it hurt enough to make up for something. 

It won't ever be enough. You're not making up for anything, you're just making yourself feel better, which isn't something that you deserve in the first place.

Fuck. You're really spiraling right now, huh?

You should probably find something else to do before you wind up doing something stupid. Especially considering your current location. 

Problem is, you don't have a single fucking clue what normal people do for healthy coping mechanisms. 

You force yourself to unclench your jaw and relinquish the grip your teeth had on your arm. You trace your fingers over the slightly damp abrasions, and then shift your attention to the old soldering iron burns on your fingers. 

Then you roll over into the shade granted by the air conditioning unit, and try to force yourself unconscious. 

Chapter Text

You don't actually care or anything, but you're pretty sure that you should go check on Dirk before he flings himself off of the fucking roof. 

He's 0 for 2 in the 'self-improvement' department after that bullshit with the fridge and the ensuing argument with Dove. You were able to intervene in that second one before things got too messy, but you also know that Dirk isn't going to be able to see that whole scenario as anything other than an absolute nuclear wasteland of personal fuck-ups. 

Dove is still being mulishly silent and is completely avoiding looking at you entirely, and so you don't think that he's going to miss you too much if you just take off. So, there's nothing actually stopping you. 

You force yourself to breathe out. You're being ridiculous. It's not as if you're thinking about the last time you and Dirk had a conversation on a roof, the one that almost ended with you being snapped in half like the cheap plastic that you were. That would be ridiculous. And you're not ridiculous. 

You're so not ridiculous, in fact, that you're getting up and going to the roof. Right now, in fact. And that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you have arms now, and that you at least have the illusion of a chance at fighting back if Dirk decides once again that you're somehow to blame for this and decides that you're the one he wants to fling off the roof instead. 

That would also be ridiculous, especially considering the fact that you can barely make it up the stairs without tripping over your own clumsy human feet and almost sending yourself tumbling headfirst into death all by yourself. 

You find Dirk curled up in the shade, asleep (an improvement, from the time you can remember him falling asleep in the sun and being practically incapacitated due to a severe sunburn for nearly a week), and you sort of breathe out a bit in relief. 

It's weird to look at Dirk like this. Back when you were shades, he always seemed so big -although you suppose that was probably a side effect of the fact that you were a pair of shades small enough to fit on his face. 

But now? He looks almost ridiculously small, especially when he stands near Dave. You might not be able to analyze information with high efficiency any longer, but it doesn't take high processing power to notice that Dave is a good few inches taller and several pounds heavier than Dirk, easy. 

Size notwithstanding, you're still not exactly jumping at the thought of waking Dirk up at the moment. If he wants to suppress his self-loathing in unconsciousness, good for him. It's one of the safer coping mechanisms that he's accrued over the years. 

You're about to just turn around and head back downstairs when you notice something else. You lean in to get a better look, and you're quick to recognize the sight of bite marks on his arms- one of the not-so-safe coping mechanisms he's accrued over the years. You double check to make sure that he hadn't broken skin and isn't at risk for any freak infections, and that's when you notice his hands. 

They're bigger than yours. 

Usually this wouldn't be such a heart-stopping realization, but you take notice of it before you actually have hands now. You had been operating under the impression that the game took a shortcut and made you a shittier copy of Dirk, because isn't that what you are?

If that were the case, your hands would be the same size, wouldn't they?

Wouldn't they?

It's sheer stubbornness that keeps you from biting down on the side of your wrist. It would hypocritical of you to criticize Dirk and then turn around and do the same shit to yourself, but the temptation is definitely there. 

But it's fine. You're fine. You're not freaking out at all, because you're an AI, and you don't have feelings like that. You're above those things. You're not going to wake Dirk up, and you're not going to go find a mirror for yourself either. That would be ridiculous levels of uncool and panicky. And you're not either of those things. 

Not even a little bit. 

Chapter Text

Your first thought upon leaving your room and not immediately being able to locate Dirk is the irrational thought that you've lost him. 

You force yourself to take a serious step back, because not only is he not a child and is -in fact- older than you, but you're also fairly certain that he wouldn't just leave the apartment. Not only because of what happened that morning, but also because he doesn't know his way around, and Dirk seems like the kind of person who is a bit too practical to go wandering around a city that he's never been in before. 

While that does help you reframe your thought, it doesn't actually help solve the problem.

You don't know where Dirk is. 

It's not like he's your responsibility or anything, and maybe you're just being paranoid, but you can't help the fact that you feel uncomfortable letting people out of your sight. You figure you have enough practical experience with your friends dying to earn the right to have those worries without having to label them 'irrational'. There's a reason you keep retreating to your room to check in with people. You're too far away to actually do anything if something does go amiss, but you feel like you'd prefer to know rather than having to find out after the fact. 

You're in the middle of composing a list of all the places you could look to find Dirk (and also Hal, because now that you're thinking about it, you don't see him either) when you hear Davesprite scoff at you and say, "They're on the roof." 

You breathe out a slightly, totally chill, sigh of relief. Your paranoia was irrational, hashtag Confirmed. What a surprise. 

The groceries never actually got put away, so you handle that first. You're pretty sure that this is the most food that's been in the apartment in literal years, but you're still not satisfied with the look of your haul. Maybe you've just been spoiled by the surplus of supplies that were stocked on the meteor, but you're pretty sure that it's actually just common sense this time. 

Used to be that you got most of your meals at school (and fuck, you're sixteen now. What fucking grade are you supposed to be in? 10th? 11th? You didn't even finish middle school. Are you going to have to go back to school??), and then hoarded food in your room to eat while you were at home. 

Obviously, school meals aren't an option anymore, but you're also running low on alternate ideas. You were thirteen the last time you lived here, which isn't exactly an age known for its ludicrous monetary opportunities. You're pretty sure that Dirk is good with computers; with any luck he'll be able to figure out wherever it was that Bro hid his money, and you'll be able to get some real good, not just ramen and fruit cups. 

One thing at a time though. 

That doesn't actually help. You don't know where the hell to begin to even try to sort out this absolute clusterfuck of a messy situation. 

You sigh heavily and resist the urge to drive your head into the counter. You're here worrying about food, and Dirk and the others spent the last day and a half eating absolutely nothing. They hadn't even seemed too annoyed or anxious about it. Barely brought it up to you, hadn't mentioned it before that at all. You wonder just how typical going without food was for them. Well, for Dirk. You're pretty sure the others just forgot that they had to eat now that they were human. 

You kind of hate all of this shit. Somehow, the game was simpler than this. For a twisted moment, you vaguely miss it. 

Then Hal comes down the stairs from the roof, looking vaguely shaken, and that shakes you out of your thoughts quick. 

You make yourself finish putting the groceries away, and then you go back to your room. They probably don't want you hanging around out here anyway. 

Chapter Text

You wake up on the rood with the sun long set and a bird pecking curiously at your hair. Your muscles are tight and cramped from your curled-up position, and you take a moment to stretch your sluggish body while trying to think through what your current plan should be. 

Roxy was sick. You should check up on her. 

You force yourself to your feet, and ignore the way the bite marks on your arm twinge as you shift. Finding the door to the stairs is difficult in the dark, but you're actually surprised by the amount of light that's still around despite the fact that you're fairly certain it's the middle of the night. Street lamps and car headlights are a lot brighter than you'd thought they'd be. 

You're pitifully relieved to find that Dove is asleep when you finally make it back to the living room. He and Hal are slumped next to each other on the couch, the light from the television screen flickering over their faces. You make sure to keep your steps quiet as you make your way over to the computer. 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostic [TG]:

TT: Hey
TT: You feeling any better?
TG: o totes
TG: wasnt rlly a big deal
TG: wasnt as bad as the time with the pumpkin
TT: I thought you decided you never wanted to talk about the time with the pumpkin again
TG: i didnt
TG: doesnt mean its not tru
TT: I still have the pictures. 
TG: SHIT
TG: nerv shouod have sent u those
TT: Oh fuck.
TT: No I don't actually
TT: Those were on my computer
TT: I don't have that anymore
TT: Guess you're safe for now
TG: o no ur right :(
TG: my cat pictures :(((
TG: shit and all my softward too
TG: aw man dirk whyd u have to make me think about this
TT: Sorry.
TT: I just, hadn't noticed before
TT: Like I knew my things were gone
TT: I've been missing the bots
TT: But I've been using the computer here, and I just... forgot it wasn't actually mine
TG: yea same
TG: man all of my screenshots of our pesterlogs are gone too :(
TT: You kept screenshots?
TG: duh
TG: what else would i have to laugh at if not our ten year old selves tryng to figure out how to talk to another perosn for the first tiem
TT: Man, from all the way back then?
TG: yea
TG: you were a cute kid distri
TT: So were you Rolal
TG: aw look at me gtting all sentimetak here
TT: Fanning your face like a real proper lady?
TG: hell yea u kno it

You message her a few more times, but don't get a reply back. Given that it's four in the morning, that doesn't actually surprise you. The fact that she was awake to message you in the first place was the real surprise; Roxy always was more prone to sleeping during the night hours than you were.

You are still stuck on the loss of your computer files, though. 

Like you'd told Roxy, you suppose it just hadn't sunk in yet. You hadn't saved screenshots of conversations like she had, but you did keep photographs; both those that your friends sent and ones that you took yourself, of animals, or of the bots doing something particularly amusing. You'd also kept copies of the SBaHJ scripts. The videos of your brother are gone too. 

Technically, you have an actual Dave here in the flesh now, so the videos are basically pointless. You hadn't needed them since you were a kid anyway, listening to the man that should have been your brother teach you how to stitch wounds and prepare food, boil salt water clean just in case you ran out. You hadn't needed to watch them, but you still had, just to let your eyes follow the familiar movements or listen to the familiar sounds as background noises even though you couldn't really understand them without the subtitles. 

One more thing you'll never get back, you suppose. 

One more thing the game has taken from you. 

Chapter Text

You're starting to go bored out of your fucking skull. 

You are nigh desperate for shit to do, but you're not having much luck coming up with anything. 

You've been fucking around with playing flash games on the internet, which can be sort of fun? In a way, but it's hard for them to actually hold your attention for too long. You wander in and out of the room that Jasprose has set up for themself, but despite the fact that they fill the space with a nearly never ending stream of words, they're kind of more solitary than they seem, which you can respect. Still, you'd gotten used to actually going out and doing things, fighting and leveling up and hanging around with the sprites or baking with Jane. 

You'd tried spending some time exploring the huge forest that surrounds the house, but without the little carapacians it's a little lacking, so you'd quit that expedition pretty quick. It's been, what? A week and a half?? Since the game ended? And you're already reduced to hanging upside down off the back of the couch, fingers twining through your hair and blood rushing to your face just because you don't have anything else to fucking do. 

Goddamn. The rest of your life is supposed to be like this? You're not into it. 

"Roxy?" Rose's voice calls, and you promptly let out a strangled noise of surprise and topple backwards off the couch, landing painfully on your face with the rest of your body following soon after. 

You scramble back up, poking your head over the top of the couch to meet Rose's eyes where she's blinking in surprise at you and the space you'd just vacated. 

"Sorry," you say, and grimace a little. No matter how long you spend practicing, you still can't make your voice sound like other people's. You can't even get a cute little rasp like Jasprose has, you've got this clunky chittering edge to your words that marks you out as Different for anyone with functioning ears. 

"Don't worry about it," Rose says, waving her hand vaguely as she speaks. She blinks a couple of times, and then shakes herself a little. "I've been thinking about something, but I'm not sure if it would work." 

You don't care what it is. You're down for literally anything. 

You haul yourself up over the couch again, landing with a fun "whompf" of air on one of the cushions. 

"Tell me," you say, patting the cushion next to you as an indication that she should sit too. 

She does. 

"I'm not sure if it would work," she reiterates, and you nod your head because she's said that but she still hasn't said what it is yet. She looks at you, and then sighs, looking up at the ceiling for a brief moment (you glance up there too, but don't see anything). Then she looks back at you. 

"Have you ever driven a car before?" 

Chapter Text

You're on the roof spending time with the birds when you hear Dove shout your name from downstairs, and even you can hear the sharp edge of panic to his voice. 

You're on your feet and down the stairs in an instant, still not armed, but ready to put up a fight regardless, and you're a little bereft when you encounter absolutely nothing but Dove's slumped form on the couch. 

He points towards the bathroom. "I think he fell," he tells you. "He won't answer me." 

You nod, shaking your arms to get the excess adrenaline out of your system, and make your way into the bathroom. Hal, predictably, hasn't locked the door (it's a habit even you are having trouble adopting, so you can't imagine that it's high on Hal's list of priorities either), and when you poke your head into the room, you can't really say that you're surprised to see him in a heap on the floor, damp, half-dressed, and unmoving. 

You keep your calm because you don't lose your calm, and make your way fully into the room. You check to make sure that he's breathing first, and make the probably safe assumption that his airway is clear of liquid since the shower is already off and he's on the carpet. You check for some kind of head injury, and are pleased when your fingers come away unbloodied and unable to find any sort of abrasions. Unfortunately, it means that you're still not sure what has caused this episode. You're in the middle of trying to come up with alternate explanations when he stirs and blinks up at you blearily. 

Pieces come together slowly for you as he asks, "What the hell?" in a voice probably too casual for someone who's just passed out in the shower. If you're right about this, then he's absolutely going to deserve you lording this over his head forever. 

Instead of answering his question, you work your arms under his body and heft him up, ignoring his half-hearted grunt of protest, and go to deposit him on the couch. 

You sign a question at him, and are promptly ignored. You can't mark yourself surprised by this either. You turn to Dove for an answer, and are greeted by an absolutely blank expression. Right. He doesn't know sign. 

You spend a frustrating minute and a half thinking through what you need to say and attempting to get it out, before you're finally able to get out a weak, "He eat or drink at all today?" 

Dove thinks it over for a moment, and then shakes his head. That's what you'd thought. You smack Hal lightly on the shoulder, and scowl through the way he attempts to act as if it's undeserved. "Idiot," you tell him out loud, just so he knows. Then you go to get a cup of water and a cup of oranges from the kitchen. 

You push the water into his hands first, and he takes it with clumsy fingers and promptly spills about a quarter of the cup down his front before he's able to properly coordinate enough to drink it. 

"What happened?" he asks, handing you the cup back long enough for him to remove his now sodden shirt and toss it to the side. You frown at that, but he ignores the expression to take another drink. 

[You fainted in the shower] you tell him. 

"You're fucking with me," he fires back immediately. 

[Real proper princess swooning] you assure him. [All because you're dehydrated with low blood sugar].

"Oh don't even get superior about this," he argues, taking the oranges and handing you back the cup so that you can get him more water. "Don't pretend for a second that you've never done this. We both know that you have." 

You do both know that you have. But. [You made fun of me for that for months] you sign one handedly as you wait for him to quit wrestling with the orange cup so that you can give him the water back. [My turn]. 

"It's most definitely not your turn," he says around a mouthful of oranges. "You've had that body for nineteen years, I've had mine for like, a week. I'm definitely the one at a disadvantage here, you can't make fun of a special needs kid like this." 

[Watch me]

"You two are fucking ridiculous," Dove says suddenly. You look over and watch him card his fingers through his hair in seeming frustration, and you wonder if you've somehow managed to piss him off again. You shuffle back slightly, just in case. "Dirk just busted out of that bathroom holding you like some kind of hero EMT and now you two are bickering like a couple of assholes. I don't know what I expected."

You and Hal exchange a glance. 

"What's an EMT?" Hal asks for the both of you. 

Dove doubles over to bury his face in his hands and lets out a groan that borders on a scream. "Holy fuck, I need to get out of this apartment." 

Chapter Text

A couple of days before the last of the food would run out (a timeframe that you are very familiar with by now, since, in lack of a desire to stew in the uncomfortable aura of the apartment and in want of anything to do, you had spent more time than was strictly necessary counting and recounting and reallocating food just for something to occupy yourself with. You knew the limits of the food supply inside and out by the end of the first day, and then you had just kept going), Dave approaches you to ask if you're able to hack the banking website that his bro used to use. 

You're more of a hardware person than a software one, and you're definitely not known for your hacking skills. You give it a shot, and then allow yourself to be shoved aside so that Hal can have his shot, and then the two of you wind up caving and asking Roxy to help you figure out what to do. 

She talks you through it and you have the password and pin to the card in under an hour, and you thank her thoroughly, even though you're not entirely sure what this whole thing is about. 

You scrawl the information down on a piece of paper and pass it along to Dave, who seems a little peeved about the number you'd written down for the amount of money in the account. 

You're not super informed about the ins and outs of human currency. You know the theory from movies, and also the in-game currency that you'd spent time collecting, but you don't know how much money you're actually talking about here, and you don't know what the bills and coins that you'd found in odd crannies around the apartment are worth. You almost want to ask someone to explain it, but you're also not quite willing to admit that you don't already know it. 

It doesn't rank high on your list of priorities at the moment, so you'll let that one lie. It's not like you have anything to buy in the first place. 

Dove, on the other hand, does. The moment the account was broken into, he'd started bringing up the prospect of buying a wheelchair. You'd done a quick google search to figure out what that was, another search brings up the name Walgreens, and then Dove is sending Dave to the one that's apparently down the street. 

After that, Dove becomes a lot sparser around the apartment. 

And as for you. If you're going to do anything other than just plain killing yourself, then you're going to have to get used to your current situation. You don't get to go home to your ocean-based isolation, so you're going to have to get used to this city and its people. Dave is already shouldering enough of your burden -you need to prepare yourself to take some of that weight back. 

The problem is that you don't even know where to begin with this task. The size of the issue alone is enough to make your brain buzz unpleasantly instead of coming up with anything useful. You can't even managed to come up with any search terms for a google search. 

If you were at home...

You cut that thought off before you can finish it. You need to stop thinking about how things used to be. They're not like that anymore. You're not there. Come up with a different process. 

You can't do this by yourself. You're not going to get Dave involved, you don't think Roxy would know what to do any better than you do, Jane hasn't been on PesterChum for the past couple of days, and you don't know John or Jade very well. Jake is inherently off the table, and isn't likely to be adding as an option any time soon. 

That leaves Rose. 

So, you haul yourself up off your perch on the back of the couch, and go plunk down in front of the computer again, and you message her. 

timeausTestified [TT] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]:

TT: Hey.
TT: Do you have time to help me a bit?
TT: I find myself with a nearly unbearable amount of time.
TT: How can I be of assistance? 
TT: Dave already told you what happened at the store, right?
TT: Yes.
TT: I need to figure out how to keep that from happening again
TT: Well, you've come to the right person. 
TT: It's been quite a while since I've dabbled in the art of psychology, but I have an impeccable memory.
TT: And while I certainly got Dave's perspective of what happened, hearing you talk about what you experienced could help.
TT: I don't know.
TT: It's not the first time that's happened. It's always been like that. 
TT: Roxy says that's not normal.
TT: It's just like there's too...
TT: Much.
TT: And my brain can't handle it all so I go blue screen of death.
TT: Hmm,
TT: What do you think set it off this time?
TT: Fuck if I know.
TT: The people?
TT: What about them?
TT: Uhh, the fact that they're here?
TT: The biggest group of people I've ever encountered in my life was the group right at the end of the game
TT: And I kind of had bigger priorities at the time
TT: Now they're all over the place
TT: I used to think that I'd probably enjoy being around people once I got the opportunity
TT: Turns out I hate it.
TT: Well, if you don't mind my saying, I think it's understandable
TT: Given your limited experience with other humans in your space, being wary of them is natural.
TT: You're hardly the only human to get anxious around other people, even to the point of breakdowns
TT: In my unprofessional opinions, Exposure Therapy would probably be a safe bet
TT: Explain.
TT: Exposure Therapy is essentially what it sounds like.
TT: It involves slowly forcing yourself to face the thing that makes you anxious
TT: Emphasis on 'Slowly'.
TT: Rushing through could probably make the anxiety worse
TT: How slow is slow?
TT: Painfully so.
TT: You may have to experiment slightly, but it would go something like this:
TT: Start watching people from your window, inside your apartment. Once that no longer makes you react negatively, start watching from the roof and listening. Then graduate to the hallway outside of your apartment. Then to the foyer of your apartment building. Then to the street outside of your apartment. Then to a public space that you can see from your roof.
TT: And so on and so forth
TT: 'Painful' was definitely a good adjective you used there
TT: But that sounds doable.

Especially considering that you've already been spending time on the roof. Although, your focus has definitely been more on the birds than the sights and sounds of the people below. At least it's a starting point. 

TT: Good. 
TT: I will say that I don't think I recommend doing all of this alone.
TT: Obviously your choices are limited, but I don't think Dave will mind.

Talking to Dave about this and getting his help is absolutely the last thing you want to do. This process sounds excrutiating on its own, you're not going to make it worse by dragging Dave into the mix and forcing him to deal with it when the whole point of this is specifically to ensure that you don't have to keep dragging him into your shit.

You also don't think that Rose is going to accept that as an answer. 

TT: Yeah okay.
TT: I'll talk to him about it.
TT: Good.
TT: Good luck, Dirk. 
TT: Thanks. 

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

You're lucky that it's a lot easier for you to lie over the computer than it is face to face. 

But there's no time to dwell on that. You have a plan now, an exhaustively long one. The sooner you get started, the better. 

Chapter Text

You've been slowly going out of your mind with boredom ever since you managed to haul your ass to the house. Roxy makes for pretty good company, but you've noticed that she seems to prefer Rose to you, which you can't really find yourself surprised by. 

Roxy definitely likes you, but she likes Rose just a little bit more, because Rose is cooler. That isn't something she's told you, but it's something you know to be true regardless. There's something inherently cool about quiet people, and you're anything but quiet now. You and Roxy both like talking, and both like talking to each other, but she has other things to do (especially now that she and Rose have taken to attempting to brave the roads) and other people to talk to. 

You don't. So you're going to have to get your paws on something else to do with all this time you've got. 

The problem is, of course, Rose. 

Even though you've managed to drag yourself and your walker up the stairs to get to your room, she's still going to be stubborn about letting you use her things, because you don't like sharing your things, apparently not even with yourself. 

That pretty much figures. 

"This is just where it goes," she says, standing mulishly in front of the door to the studio. 

"This is where it went when I had legs that worked," you retort, leaning on the handles of your walker to get in her space. "I can go up the stairs with this thing, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Maybe one day I'll be able to walk around like I used to, but that day isn't coming any time soon. It'll be easy enough to just move the wheel down the stairs so that I can use it without having to drag myself around. It's not even like you're using it -the only reason you're being weird about this is because you don't like me. I talk more than you, but that doesn't mean that I'm incompetent. I'm not going to break it."

Rose falters slightly when you bring up her not liking you, even though you can't really work out why. It's not like it's some big secret. 

"I don't think you're going to break it," she says. "Where do you even want to move it?" 

The living room couch would be a nice place, except Roxy is practically living on that couch and you don't think she's going to be moving any time soon. You've taken up residence in one of the guest rooms on the bottom floor that had never actually seen any guests, since neither you nor your mother had many friends before the game began. There's not really any place to sit in that room. 

"Downstairs," you say again. 

She rolls her eyes like she knows exactly what you're doing. She probably does. Just like you probably know that she's going to suggest that you go back down the stairs and try to find a place for it before actually moving it, in the hopes that you'll get tired of the physical exertion and give up on the whole idea. 

Nice try. 

"The kitchen," you blurt out instead. "The table would be a good place to keep all the fibers, and the chairs in there are a decent height to work with the wheel. Plus, there's room in there for me to put my walker to the side without it getting in my or anyone else's way while I'm working. We don't even eat in there, and even if we did, that table is stupidly long and my stuff wouldn't get in the way of enough chairs to actually count as an annoyance." 

She scowls, but only because she knows that you have a point, and she doesn't ave a good enough excuse to counter your argument. You won. 

"Fine," she says finally. "But you're moving the fibers." 

It's her petty attempt to try and get back at you for winning the argument, but you know damn well where mom used to keep her hoard of highly unnecessary beach bags. Getting that shit down the stairs is going to be easy as hell, and then you'll finally have something to fill your time with. 

(And like it or not, Rose is almost definitely going to wind up using the yarn that you'll be making at some point. That's like a whole win on its own.)

Chapter Text

You're in the middle of chatting with Jane about Lil Seb when Hal starts to hover over your shoulder and becomes a presence that you're unable to ignore. 

[What?] you sign, perhaps a bit irritated, but you try to reign it in because technically he hasn't done anything. Yet. 

Having succeeded in stealing your attention, he droops himself all over the back of the chair and your shoulders. The fact that he presses down over your skin is the only thing that keeps you from throwing him off. 

"I need your help," he admits after a moment, pointedly not looking in your direction. 

You blink at him, a little dumbfounded. You don't think you've ever actually gotten a request for help from Hal before. Ever. 

[With what?] you sign, more curious than cautious. 

He buries his face in his arms. Makes an odd groaning noise in his chest. He's not acting normal. 

"OK?" you ask aloud, since he's not currently looking at you. He startles slightly at the sound of your voice, but doesn't react in any helpful way. You wait it out. 

"Puppets," he admits finally, still not looking up from where he's trying to smother himself in the fake leather of the desk chair. "I ordered supplies online, but the body is too clumsy to actually get it done right. I can't assemble it on my own." 

It's been a while since you've indulged in any puppet making yourself, but it's not as if you've forgotten how to. You're almost a little surprised that Hal is having difficulty, but then you remember that he also still struggles with things like typing on the keyboard or pouring water without spilling it, so maybe it's not that big of a shock after all. 

He still hasn't looked at you, like he's expecting you to tell him to just fuck off. You probably would have, in the past, but this is something that you wanted to work on, right? Perfect opportunity here, being dropped in your goddamn lap. 

"OK," you say aloud, since he's still not looking at you. You wait until he jerks his head up in surprise to sign, [Where is it at?]

Any hesitation is quickly gotten rid of as he twists away from the chair, nearly falls over, and then pulls out a small cardboard box from under the couch. Inside is a small array of supplies, a little different from what you're used to, but nothing you can't work with. He has clay, tinfoil, and wires instead of the wood that you're used to working with, but this will be less time consuming and a bit easier to mold anyway. After poking around a bit, you forcibly make yourself take a mental step back and ask, [What did you have in mind?]

Hal's asking for help, he's not asking you to take over. You've lamented about our over-controlling nature long enough. Other people don't need to change, you do. 

He pauses like he thinks you're fucking with him, but tugs a piece of paper out of his pocket and passes it over to you. It's a sloppy sketch of the puppet's intended finished form, and poor penmanship aside, it's a good design. 

[OK] you sign, pulling out the supplies and setting them out in front of you, examining the partially completed wire frame that got bent wildly out of shape somewhere along the way. [Tell me what you need.]

"You're acting weird," he says finally, and you shrug, flip him off, and then wave the wire in your head in his face to remind him of what you're sitting here to do. 

He doesn't seem convinced, but he does finally start to give you a breakdown of what he wants the skeleton framing to look like, and you follow his instructions easily. As time goes on, he winds up chattering more about his intentions for the finished project, and you sort of half-listen, catching what you catch but letting most of the words slide off without freaking out about deciphering them. 

[You do the foil] you instruct, shoving the wire frames into his hands. He starts to protest almost immediately, but you sign over him [You'll never get better at it if you're not trying. The foil doesn't need fine motor skills, just crumple that shit up and plaster it on until it's about the thickness you want.]

He gives in and takes them, and you play idly with the texture of the clay while he works. You're not familiar with it, and although you're not the biggest fan of the feeling, it's at least tolerable.

You're careful about following Hal's verbal instructions as well as the sketch that he'd given you as you're fixing the clay around the pieces, particularly with the smaller details. The clay is much easier to carve than wood ever was, and you're able to fit the specifications of his design much easier than you would have been able to in the past.

You've used the oven to cook fish before, so you're familiar enough with this part of the process, but you tell Hal to do it instead. The two of you split apart while the clay is baking, and regroup once the timer goes off. 

Dave comes out of his room, and upon catching sight of what the two of you are working on, freezes. 

"Um?" you verbalize, tilting your head at him questioningly, and his head turns more towards you even though you get the feeling that his eyes are fixed firmly on the pieces of the puppet you're holding in your hands. 

"You don't like puppets, do you Dave?" Hal asks, tilting his head to look at Dave as well. It takes a moment for Dave to shake his head in response. 

"Roof," you say, nudging Hal with your elbow and using your head to gesture to the rest of the pieces that are still laid out on the foil you'd used to let them sit in the oven. 

"Oh fuck," Dave starts, breaking out of his revelry. "You don't have to...," he stops when you shake your head. 

"No big deal," you tell him, and it's not. You like spending time on the roof anyway, and this can count as points towards your exposure or whatever. If Dave doesn't like puppets, you don't have to use them inside of the apartment. 

Hal follows you dutifully to the roof, and waits until the two of you are up there to ask, "Shouldn't we be trying to diminish such a prominent weakness?" 

Before, and probably during, the game you would have said yes. A sensitivity to puppets would make a great vulnerability to exploit in a fight, and would be a dangerous liability. It would be important to get rid of it in order to ensure the best possible odds in a fight. 

Now you shake your head. It's not your business and it's not your job. Your attempts to manipulate people into better versions of themselves backfired relentlessly every time, and you're not willing to do it with Dave. He's had enough versions of you trying to force him to be better in a fight already, he doesn't need that shit to continue. 

[Leave him alone] you say. [Dove too] you add, just in case, because it's likely that he'll share Dove's aversion to the things. 

Hal shrugs easily. "Whatever you say," he says, smirking slightly, but you're pretty sure that he is being sincere.

The two of you get the puppet properly assembled, and you spend the rest of the day trying to help Hal relearn the motions necessary to manipulate the puppet into moving around. By the time the streetlights flicker on that evening, he's got it down. The two of you share a fistbump, and then go downstairs, where the puppet is swiftly stored in the box that its supplies had come in. 

For once, you feel kind of good about the way your day had gone. 

Chapter Text

It isn't really like you have anywhere to go, you just need to get out of the apartment for once. You don't exactly like being outside, but even you are starting to go bat-shit stir crazy after a week of doing nothing but sitting on the couch. 

You spend most of your time getting used to moving in the chair. It's turned out to be a lot more difficult than you'd always assumed it was, but it doesn't take you too long to figure it out. Your arms are sore as hell the first couple of days, but you're going to wind up with some pretty sick muscles if you keep moving around like this. 

You almost wish that you did have somewhere to go. It would definitely make things more interesting, and would help you try to avoid the constant stares you keep getting the more time you spend just wandering the streets. You can't really remember, but you hope you were never one of those staring assholes who can't seem to decide whether they pity you or find you distasteful. You've discovered that flipping them off tends to push people firmly into the second category, so you've started ignoring them as best as you can. 

You're not particularly good at ignoring things, as it turns out. 

It's still better than sitting around the apartment. 

Your chair doesn't really fit in most of the hallways there, so you're stuck in the living room or the kitchen unless you want to risk your chair getting stuck in the doorway to the bathroom, so you still need Hal to help you out in that particular situation, since the others wouldn't. Dirk is still acting cagey around you after you'd blown up at him that one day, and Dave hasn't been able to look you in the eye since the two of you woke up here. 

You keep wondering if it would be easier if you just left one day and never actually came back. No one would actually miss you. In fact, most people who actually knew you would probably be grateful that you were gone. You'd ruined things with John and Jade, and apparently Dirk as well. You're not sure if you were ever really going to get along with Dave after everything that happened. Hal is okay, but you doubt that he'd actually notice if you left. 

That's you. The expendable one. The spare. 

You're not sure if your life actually as a point anymore, but it feels like it definitely doesn't have one here. You could always leave, head off somewhere obscure where no one's ever seen you or the OG Dave before, and you don't have to worry about that shit anymore. 

But you know that you probably wouldn't fit in anywhere else either. You still sometimes flex your back muscles in an attempt to get your wings to move, you keep reaching to your chest to toy with the sword that's supposed to be kept in the space there, you chirp in surprise sometimes, and you find yourself hoarding shiny things more frequently than you'd like to admit. 

That seems par for the course for you. Only being able to fit in with a bunch of people who are equally fucked up, and all of whom probably what who you are as a person. (Even though who you are as a person is, essentially, the same person that they all seem to like. The same person you kind of loathe being)

So even though you almost want to, you don't leave. You wander the streets and come back at night and try to act like you don't care that everyone there tiptoes around you like you're a ticking time bomb. 

Because you don't care, after all. 

You really, definitely, don't. No matter what the ache in your chest says. 

Chapter Text

The process had seemed painfully simple in theory. 

In practice, it's turning out to be more difficult than you had anticipated. You suppose that this is why Rose insisted that you go slowly. 

In your defense, you are going slow. You've even stopped going up to the roof, and have been perched on the windowsill in the living room for a couple of days now, the way you used to sit sometimes back home. 

The difference being that you're not home, and so instead of watching the steadily rolling ocean and listening to its thick white noise (and the occasional cry of an animal), you're watching chaotic sidewalks and streets that set off a crawling feeling of wrong under your skin. 

You keep finding yourself averting your eyes, gazing up at the sky and getting lost in the contours of the clouds, which you're pretty sure is not the point of this little exercise. 

It's easier than watching the people, though. 

There are still some things down there that you're able to focus on for more than a couple of seconds. A very small person that you belatedly identify as a child, a weird little animal that Google tells you is a dog, two women chattering to each other, their hands moving in grandiose movements that remind you of Roxy. You fixate on them and watch them until they've crossed out of your line of sight, and then you're left feeling unsettled all over again. 

You don't like watching the movements of the cars. There's a lot of traffic outside of your apartment, and the jerky unpredictable stop and go of it rankles you. Though, you do finally understand the jokes about traffic in one of the SBaHJ now. You can see why people hate driving in it. 

You don't like the sidewalk traffic either. There are too many elements to focus on, all crossing paths and bumping into each other. The thought of having to go out there and merge into that crowd upsets you enough that you intentionally look up at the sky to give yourself something less stressful to look at. 

All in all, this is going to take longer than you had anticipated. It's not like you're on a strict schedule, but you're still irritated by it. The sheer unpredictable nature of this task only serves to upset you worse. Sitting on the windowsill might be a stable routine, but nothing outside the window is consistent. Different people and cars with different patterns and destinations. You miss the ocean, and its painstaking similarity day in and day out (with the rare exceptions of a particularly bad storm whipping up larger waves). 

You miss a lot of things. 

You've been wondering lately if you wouldn't choose to go back. 

When you were growing up, you'd always assumed that it would be better to be somewhere else. To grow up with your brother in a house that was surrounded by other houses, with people around instead of just you and your bots. You used to imagine what it would be like, to talk to people the way people did in the movies and to go do the things that those people did. 

But now you're here, and all you want to do is go back to what you'd had before. 

You press your forehead against the cool glass of the window and wonder what that says about you. Maybe there is no actual ideal living situation for someone like you. Maybe you're just doomed to be painfully unhappy no matter where you are. 

Hal would probably tell you that was fitting. 

Chapter Text

Your designation is Lil Sebastian, and you are not pleased with your current status. 

You are larger than you're meant to be, you're capable of feeling more than you're meant to be, and you don't like it. 

You also don't like the maintenance that Jane keeps insisting that you have to do. 

"But look at you," she cries, gesturing unhappily to your chassis. "You're an absolute mess." 

You will allow that you are a mess. You had been playing outside with John, because sometimes you wake up feeling overcharged with the need to do something (another feeling you don't like) and John is the one in this household who has the energy to keep up with a seemingly endless cycle of two-person tag. It had been raining last night, and the yard had been sufficiently soaked, which meant mud. Lots of it. You had slipped once or twice, and then had decided to explore the texture of the mud in greater detail, and now Jane is upset with you. 

[Water will damage my circuits] you sign at her, your hands moving in sharp, unhappy movements. You don't understand why she wants to do this to you. You don't understand why she can't just wipe you off with Clorox wipes like she used to. 

"You don't have circuits anymore," she says, which you suppose is technically true. But the fact remains, you have no desire to enter a shower and have to deal with 'wet'. 

[No] you sign decisively. She can try all she wants, but she's not going to change your mind about this. 

She looks down at you, her hands planted firmly on her hips, and she nods to herself. 

"Yes," she says, equally as decisive as you had been, and then she takes it a step further by seizing you around the middle so suddenly that you're unable to react in time. 

Your voice doesn't work the same way that everyone else's does, but that doesn't mean that your vocal systems are nonfunctional. You shriek loudly, trying to wiggle out of her grip, but you're not quite as nimble as you used to be, and don't have much luck. You hope that she realizes that she's making herself as dirty as you are, and that that means she's going to have to clean up herself in addition to you. 

[Why why why why] you sign repeatedly, but the way you're slung over her shoulder means that she can't see you signing. You let out another drawn out cry. Maybe if you're loud enough 'Dad' will come to your rescue (though he had been just as adamant as Jane that this was a necessary procedure, so the probability is unfortunately low). 

Jane carries you into the bathroom, and promptly turns on the shower and tosses you in, giving you no chance to escape. 

It somehow manages to be worse than you had anticipated.

Most of you is still protected by your clothes, but the exposed skin takes the brunt of the sensation. You can feel each and every individual drop of water that hits you. You have seen people stabbed before, and you think that that sensation must be similar to this. It hurts, and you don't understand why Jane is doing this to you. 

You don't understand, you don't understand, you don't understand. 

You scream, and it's almost involuntary this time. You make a frantic break for freedom, and Jane either lets you go or is too surprised to stop you. You don't make it especially far before your legs crumple beneath you and you wind up pressed in the corner of the bathroom, trying in vain to shake the phantom sensations off the water off of you. 

There's something wrong with you, something is failing in the Respiration Process, or your lungs have ceased functioning like they're supposed to. You can feel your systems overheating. There is something hot and wet (oil?) leaking from your ocular units, and it doesn't hurt like the shower's wet had, but it's no less unpleasant. You were right, the water had damaged your circuits. You're going to break, you're malfunctioning, and you're going to break. 

You feel Jane's arms wrapping around you, and you tense to bolt before you hear her say, "No, we're not going to be doing that again," and you decide to trust her enough to relax. Jane's hugs have been one of the only sensations that you have enjoyed since making the transition to humanity, and you're not going to turn it down when it'll help get rid of the lingering feeling of the shower. 

It takes a while for your respiratory system to start operating correctly again, and by then your eyes have stopped leaking and you're now having to deal with the Cold that comes from coming down from overheating and the water that's still soaking into the clothes that you're dressed in. 

"Alright," Jane says after a minute. "Let's get you into some dry clothes, and see if we can find another solution to your mess." 

[Wipes] you sign, trying to sniff back whatever slime has accumulated in your sinus tracts as you and Jane stand up. 

She sighs. "We may have to use the wipes," she agrees. 

Ha. You knew that you were right. 

You just sort of wish that she had known that before this whole mess had to happen. 

Chapter Text

Roxy messages you a few days later with a flood of messages that sound more urgent than they actually are. 

tipsyGnostic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]:

TG: dirk ull never guess what i ust realized
TG: *jut
TG: *just
TG: DIRK!!!!
TT: Cool your jets a bit. Give me a second to actually roll my chair up to the computer and respond to you before you start flipping your shit.
TG: theres no time to cool these jets off thyere rockn and ready to GO!!!
TG: its 2009
TT: Yes.
TT: Astute observation.
TG: stop bein a sarcastic butt and listen to me
TG: its 2009
TG: skype si still funcitonal

Your eyes widen when that registers with you. 

You'd had access to the internet and most of its software despite the fact that the rest of the world had gone to shit. Still, even by that time, Skype was a company long out of business and its servers had been gone for years before they would have gotten the chance to drown. Jane and Jake had lived during the program's final years, and had pestered you and Roxy relentlessly about getting the program, oblivious to the real reason why you couldn't. 

But Roxy is right. You're currently alive at Skype's peak, where it's totally accessible for you to use. 

TG: see ur as excited as i am
TG: hurry p and geti it coolkid
TG: i wanna see ur dork face
TT: Shit, give me a moment. 
TT: I don't even know where to go to start looking for this relic.
TG: its 2009
TG: ccheck the website

She sends you a link a split second alter, and chatters impatiently at you while you try to figure out the installation process, which isn't at all sped up by her constant notifications, or the fact that Hal is now hovering over your shoulder trying to figure out what you're doing. 

The moment you have it downloaded and are logged in, Roxy's added you and is calling before you even get a chance to explore the interface or add her back. 

You accept the call anyway, and once the shitty quality video pops up (you're beginning to understand why the company had started going under), you're greeted by the sight of Roxy pressed far too close to the camera in excitement, and you can't help but smile at her in response. 

"AAA, there you are!!!," she crows, signing along as she speaks for your benefit. "How cool is this? I can see why Jake and Janey never shut up about it!" 

You'd been a little worried, especially after she'd gotten sick a few more times after eating too much too quickly, but she looks good. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun, and she's wearing a sweatshirt that looks several sizes too big, but she looks good. Probably better than you. You can't remember the last time you even thought about doing something with your hair. 

[Hey Roxy] you sign, and she grins brightly. It's almost weird to talk to someone so visibly excited to see you.

You can tell the moment her eyes shift from you to Hal. 

"Holy fuck look at you!!! You're adorable!" she shouts, "Lil Hal, you never told me how cute you were." 

[He hasn't looked yet] you tell her, and earn yourself a solid slap to the shoulder. 

"Hey Rox," Hal says, leaning further over your shoulder, just to be annoying. 

"Awww, why not?" she pouts, completely ignoring Hal's greeting. "You need to!" 

"I do not," Hal retorts automatically, and you can tell that the two of them are gearing up for quite the little argument when another person leans into the camera's field of vision. It takes you a moment to recognize them as Rose. 

"Hello Dirk," she says, and you wave back, slightly uncomfortable. You had known that she was there, but you hadn't really expected to see her right now. "I don't suppose you mind fetching my brother, do you?" 

Roxy perks up in her seat again. "Oh yea!! Dirk, we've got a great plan. I forgot that's why I called." 

"Which one do you need?" Hal asks, tilting his head to survey both Roxy and Rose as his fingers start sliding back and forth over the fake leather texture of the desk chair he's leaning on. 

"Pardon?" 

"Which brother," he elaborates. "Dave or Dove. Because one of them is gonna be a hell of a lot easier to get than the other." 

"Dave, I suppose," she says, looking vaguely uncomfortable, making you wonder if that was Hal's intention in the first place. 

Dove hasn't been getting along well with anyone else in the apartment other than Hal, and you've heard them arguing back and forth over the benefits of Dove getting into contact with literally any one of his friends. (You, who is still guilty of ignoring Jake and being ignored in return, have been staying out of those arguments) 

"Dave!!!" Hal shouts, making you flinch because he's too close to your ear. "Roxy and Rose want to talk to us." 

Dave practically bursts out of his room at the first shout of his name, but manages to approach the computer with a much cooler demeanor. He takes up a stance beside Hal, resting his elbow on the top of the chair. You're starting to get uncomfortable with all of these people looming over you like this. 

"So, we've been talking," Roxy starts out, practically vibrating with excitement. "We wanna come down and see you!!" 

Your confusion overrides your excitement at the prospect of being able to see her in person again. You hadn't been able to spend nearly as much time with her during the game as you would have liked. [How are you going to get here?] you sign. Traveling to visit each other is a childhood dream; nice, but unrealistic. 

"It's 2009, Dirk!!" Roxy shouts excitedly, and you see Rose wince at the volume. "The time of cars and airplanes!" 

"You cannot tell me with a straight face that either of you know how to drive," Dave says, and you jump a little. You'd almost managed to forget that he was there. 

"You'd be surprised to hear what you can find on YouTube these days, brother," Rose says, an amused smile on her face. "Roxy and I have been piecing it together. We may not be quite at the skill level required to make our trip to the airport yet, but we've been able to make it to the local grocery stores. Roxy is quite competent behind the wheel." 

You're a little put out that Roxy hadn't told you about learning to drive, but you're willing to overlook it. You smile, [Just like we always talked about]. 

Roxy's hands jump around excitedly. "I know, right? Since we were kids! It's like a dream come true!!" She stills long enough to drag the computer closer, tilting the screen back so that you can see her face instead of the hoodie she's wearing. "I'm not sure about the whole plane thing, but I've been through worse." 

You remember planes from movies, but it feels strange to acknowledge the fact that they were real actual things that people flew and rode on. You pull a face, to which Roxy replies, "Same." 

"Mind if I ask why you're planning this?" Dave speaks up from behind you again, leaning forward until his chin is almost resting on your head. "Not that I'm opposing, I just don't know if I get it." 

"Not everything has to have an ulterior motive," Rose chastises. 

"Coming from the girl who thought everything was a passive aggressive battle until she was fourteen," Dave fires back. 

She doesn't reply, only raises a scathing eyebrow. Dave doesn't respond verbally either, just slumps further against the chair. You're not sure if he makes a facial expression as well, but you're not willing to turn around and investigate. 

"An-y-way," Roxy drawls out, dragging out the syllables the same way she does over text. "The reason is because we've missed you guy! Plus, we're a little ro-worried. Well, Rose is a little worried. Dirk's roughed it worse than this, so I'm pretty sure he's okay. So-sort of." 

You don't really feel sort of okay in the least about your current situation. Roxy grimaces like she's realized it the moment she'd finished speaking. 

"Okay so maybe we're both worried. But also, we miss you. That was a big one." She pauses. "I mean, like, if you don't want us to come..." 

You can't tell if she's joking or not. You decide to play it safe. "I want you to come," you say, using your own mangled voice to speak aloud and ensure that you're understood by all involved parties, and you wind up looking at Hal, who'd spoken at the same time as you. The two of you survey each other coolly while Roxy coos over your misstep. 

"I nn-knew you two were my favorites for a reason!" Roxy chirps, throwing out her arms and accidentally smacking Rose in the shoulder. Roxy immediately pulls back and apologizes, but Rose just waves it away resignedly, like she's used to it. You wonder how common an occurance it is. 

"The very picture of earnestness," Rose says, recovering quickly and gesturing at her screen. Presumably meaning you and Hal. "How could you say 'no' to those faces?" 

"I didn't say I was gonna say no," Dave protests defensively. "I just wanted to know why. We can't all live in mansions; we don't exactly have living space coming out our asses here." 

You had, admittedly, failed to take into account the limited square footage of your apartment when accepting this plan. Although, you had technically lived with the bots back in your apartment, your current living situation is more cramped than is entirely comfortable, with the four of you sharing a one bedroom apartment. 

"I believe that we can make it work," Rose says. "The issue will be one of driving and identification at the airport, but I hardly think those are insurmountable obstacles. Houston has a rather robust public transportation system, does it not? We'll be able to make it work." 

"If you say so," Dave says, sounding skeptical. You're finding that you don't particularly care for, or about, his skepticism in this situation. Though maybe your enthusiasm is overriding your own sense of realism about this whole thing. 

Whatever. Like Rose said, you'll figure it out. Somehow. 

Chapter Text

You're in the middle of exploring some bullshit internet flash game about an hour after the Lalondes hung up when you start getting pestered. 

Not Dirk this time, actually you, although you are still using his account (He's started pushing you to make your own, but you don't quite see the point in that. It's not as if you have a list of people just aching to converse with you now that you have a physical body).

gutsyGumshoe [GG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]:

GG: hal?
GG: Are you there?
TT: Affirmative.
TT: What's up?
GG: It's lil seb

That gets your attention. 

TT: What's wrong with him?
GG: Nothing bad!!
GG: Well, debatabley bad :(
GG: We've been arguing a bit lately
TT: What does that mean?
GG: I keep trying to tell him that eating and hygiene are important
GG: But he doesn't want to listen!
GG: He won't get near the water because he 'can't get his circuits wet'
GG: But he also really hates being dirty
GG: I can barely get him to eat most days
GG: I really don't think he's adjusting well to the whole human thing :((
TT: Well he's not the only one
TT: Is he around?
GG: He's outside with John again
GG: I can go get him?
TT: Yea, do that. I'll talk to him. 

You're not entirely sure if you'll be able to actually get through to him, but it's worth a shot at least. 

GG: ??
TT: Seb?
GG: =:3
TT: Jane tells me you haven't been eating
GG: 3:=
TT: Don't be like that
TT: Look little man, eating is important
TT: You don't run on batteries anymore, not eating is just going to make you feel bad
TT: And not like Low Power bad
TT: You don't get to just keep going until you stop, you're going to get slow, because that's what humans do
TT: And you're human now
TT: We both are
GG: ...
GG: He says he wants to Skype you
TT: Fine. Put him on.

You're not thrilled at the prospect of doing the whole 'video call' thing on your own, but it definitely will make this conversation easier if he'll actually sign to you and communicate. You don't know what his deal is, you know that he can read and type. Maybe he just doesn't want to. 

The little notification pops up to indicate that Jane is calling you, and you steel yourself before clicking accept. You're almost grateful that Dirk is spending his time on the roof right now; you're not thrilled about this conversation, but you're also not willing to just let yourself be ignored in favor of the Real Thing, or whatever. 

Jane blinks at you in surprise when she sees you, and asks, "Hal?" almost incredulously. 

You lean back in the chair and try to act casual. That's you, cool as ice.

"The one and only," you say, although maybe you're technically not? You had a Junior out there somewhere, although you're not entirely certain what happened to him. 

You see something hopping impatiently at Jane's side, too small to really show up in the camera's line of sight until Jane smiles and tilts the computer screen down slightly. Then you get a screenful of a vibrating little bunny bot. Boy. Whatever. 

You salute him loosely, "Hey lil man." 

He waves at you, bouncing on his toes as his hands hover around his chest, waiting for him to get his words together and sign something. 

[I don't like the way it feels] he says eventually. His face doesn't really move, but he telegraphs his dejection and discomfort through the over-exaggerated slump to his shoulders and the sad tilt to his head.

"Yeah, me neither," you admit. "It's kind of wack, but it's a necessary wack. You need to let it happen, or else you'll start to lose battery capacity, and then you'll shut down." 

His hands flap irritably, and you mimic the motion yourself, just for the feel of it. Eventually, he looks back up at the screen and signs, [I'll eat if you look at yourself]. 

Your breath stutters in your chest. You want to know who is giving this kid updates about the status of your acceptance of your physical form. So what if you haven't looked? You were shades, it doesn't matter what you look like now. 

But he's cornering you, and Lil Seb is nothing if not a stubborn little bastard, and you know that if you reject this little trade off, he'll probably refuse to eat entirely just to spite you. Then he'd probably refuse to hydrate, and then he'd wind up dead even faster.

There's no getting out of this one. 

You sigh heavily, smacking your hand lightly against the armrest of the chair (it's not biting, so technically it doesn't count as being a hypocrite). 

"Fine," you relent verbally, staring him down through the camera. "I'll look at myself, but you're going to start eating meals. Regularly."

He nods, then signs [Show me]. 

"What?"

[I want to watch you look] he elaborates, [to make sure].

"Fuck," you say, ignoring Jane's little scandalized noise about the fact that you're swearing in front of a child. You resist the urge to point out that it's not as if he doesn't already know those words. "Fine."

The skype program has a window option where you can see your own camera's view. It'll just be a matter of pulling it up and looking, and then you won't have to worry about Seb, or the uncertainty of your appearance anymore. 

You click the button before you can think twice about it, and even then it takes you a moment to give in and actually look at the corner of the screen with your image in it. 

You... don't look like Dirk. 

Well, maybe you sort of do, in the same vague way that Dave and Seb look like Dirk, but not in the way that you had expected. You had expected to wind up like Dove - an off-color rebrand of an already existing character. But, you don't. 

Your hair is wavier than his is, you look smaller than he does, your face looks rounder, younger. Your eyes are redder than Dirk's are, but they're more orange than Dave's are. 

You're vaguely aware of the far too smug body language that Seb is throwing your way, but you're too focused on your reflection to comment on it. You don't look like Dirk. You look like a completely different person. 

"Holy shit," you murmur aloud, and your hands hover in the air like they're not sure what to do. 

You don't really know what to do. 

You're pulled out of your reverie by the sound of Jane clearing her throat carefully, and your eyes twitch over to look at her. You hope that your face is pulling the same robotic blankness that Seb's does, but you don't think that you were lucky enough to wind up with that particular trait. You clear your throat and try to pull yourself together. 

"Alright," you say. "I looked. Now you have to eat." 

Lil Seb taps the thumb of his spread hand against his chest a couple of times, and then darts off somewhere, leaving you with Jane. 

"I had another question," she says carefully. 

"Fire away." 

"I tried to give him a shower, earlier," she's looking down at her hands, twisting together just barely in screen. She looks upset. "It looked almost like, it hurt him. He really freaked out. I don't understand what happened, is that because of the circuit thing?" 

You think it over, swaying the desk chair side to side and tapping on the desk. It doesn't really make any sense that the reaction would be a holdover from the robotic body, since any circuitry damage wouldn't be read as pain, just as urgent popups. You haven't had any similar issues with water, so that makes it seem even less likely. 

You have, however, had a similar issue with food textures.

"It's probably a sensory thing," you say, looking back up at her face. "We're all autistic, you know that right?" It doesn't look like she did. "Dirk Strider special. It'd probably help to research that, and talk to Seb. I can't say for certain, but the water hitting his skin probably did hurt him. You might have better luck with baths or something." You shrug. "It's not an exact science." 

"Hm, alright," she says thoughtfully, "I suppose we'll be able to figure something out. Thank you, for telling me." 

You shrug again. It's not exactly a big deal. "Keep me updated about him," you tell her, and she nods. 

"Not a problem!" she chirps brightly. "I'm not actually sure where he's off to, so I better go make sure he isn't messing around with anything he shouldn't be, but I'll definitely let you know how things are going!" 

You bid her goodbye, and disconnect the call before turning away from the computer to slump on the couch. 

You suppose that you have a lot to think about, yourself. 

Chapter Text

Sleep for you has been hard to come by since the game. 

You're not entirely sure what causes it. Maybe there's more than one thing. Sometimes, it's nightmares. Sometimes you just can't get your brain to sit still long enough to actually let you fall asleep. 

At any rate, you'd started going a bit stir crazy with all of the extra time on your hands and the whole 'not leaving the apartment' thing. So in light of your recently acquired insomnia, you'd started making nightly trips around the city. 

There's nothing stopping you from going during the day, of course, but you feel oddly more comfortable at night, when the crowds have thinned down to almost nothing and you don't have to worry about fighting your way through swarms of people to get to where you need to go. 

So that leads you into situations like this; going grocery shopping at three in the morning, just for the hell of it. 

The store is pretty much deserted at this time, which is entirely the point. At this time of night (morning?), there's you, a few probably drunk people, and a frazzled looking mom with a crying baby strapped to her chest. You take a moment to hope that her kid is alright before going on your way to get what you need. 

You don't need much. You don't eat a lot, and neither do any of the others that you're sharing living space with (although you are pretty sure that they should be eating more), although you have been having fun introducing Dirk and Hal to new foods. 

Dirk likes oranges, tolerates apples, and loathes bananas with a passion you hadn't thought applicable to fruit. Hal's a fan of popcorn and goldfish, although the snack that smiles back had made Dirk sick for hours. The lot of you have managed to settle on a particular type of fish- Cod. Apparently there had been a lot of them where Dirk used to live. 

Most of the time, he just grills them on the stove, but you did catch him eating one raw once. You're not entirely sure if that's healthy, but hey, sushi is a thing, and he's not dead yet, so maybe you're not the fish expert you thought you were. You don't particularly care for it either way, but Dirk eats it for almost every meal. 

Hal, on the other hand, seems to eat primarily saltines. You've bickered back and forth with him about the nutritional value of the blandest crackers on earth, but he's insistent. If you try to argue that humans shouldn't eat like, one thing, he gets mad because Dirk technically eats like, one thing. You've started to get the impression that you're not going to be the one winning that particular argument. 

Dove, though. You're not really sure if he eats? Hal says that he does, and you don't think that he's lying about it, but you're also not sure what your alt-timeline twin has been eating. You're pretty sure you've never actually seem him eat anything except for the cup of ramen he'd had the one night the four of you ate together. He's been out of the apartment more than inside it ever since he'd gotten the wheelchair. Maybe he just eats out or something. 

At any rate, you're lucky that Bro apparently had more money than he ever let on. You're still quietly pissed about the fact that he could have easily used that money to buy you food or something for the first thirteen years of your life, but you've gotten the feeling that him withholding food wasn't about the money in the first place. Whatever. You're just glad to have it now. Part of you feels almost vindictive about using his money. You kind of like that feeling. 

You're pretty quick at shopping these days. It helps that you go on lots of small trips instead of the fewer, larger ones that the Lalonde's take. The cashier who works this late knows you by name now (and you know hers too. She's an old lady named Margaret who slips coupons into the machine when she rings you up. Margaret is the best.) 

"Alright, see you, Margaret. Don't stay up too late," you say as you gather up your bags, and she laughs at you indulgently. You'd kind of missed elderly people in the game. Fuck what other people say, old people are cute as hell. 

The problems don't start until you get home. Then things seem to unravel pretty quickly. 

You can tell that something is wrong from the moment you open the door to the apartment. Nothing has changed, but you step through the threshold to the sound of frantic shallow breathing that seems almost deafening in the quiet of the building. 

"Dirk?" you call hesitantly, hurrying to get the door closed behind you and the lights turned on. You regret that particular decision almost immediately, since you don't tend to bother with shades when it's pitch fucking dark outside, and now your eyes are smarting painfully at the sudden brightness. You blink through the pain and squint around until you can find where the others are. 

If you have a shit sleep schedule, then the other's sleep schedules are practically non-existent. Dove actually spends most of his time in the apartment sleeping, but you had started thinking that Dirk and Hal just didn't sleep, before you caught onto what was really going on. Both of them just sleep whenever, regardless of what time it is or whether it's light or dark outside. Dirk does actually mean to sleep, but you've noticed that Hal has a habit of just passing out at odd intervals after trying to avoid sleep with a passion. 

At any rate, neither of them tend to actually sleep at night. But now you find them both asleep; Hal slumped over in the desk chair, Dirk sprawled out next to the couch - not quite under it like he does sometimes. More like he'd rolled off the side of the couch at some point. Even from across the living room, you can see that Dirk is flushed and coated in a sheen of sweat. 

To put it succinctly? He looks like shit. 

You’re still trying to figure out what the fuck is going on when he suddenly grunts and jerks his arm, smacking it loudly against the metal bar at the bottom of the couch, and startles himself awake.

It’s not until he starts screaming that you put two and two together and realize that he’s just had a nightmare. And then you’re fumbling to get the door closed and the grocery bags on the counter so that you can run over and stop him from accidentally hurting himself, because he seems awake, but you’d bet Bro’s cash money that he’s not.

Some of the contents of the bag topple out onto the floor, which isn’t a priority right now, especially when the sound of it has turned Dirk’s wild gaze on you. He twists in a panicked attempt to get as far away from you as he can, but only manages to topple himself over in a mess of clumsy limbs. Instead of trying to get up again, he bows his head and bellows, “Sawtooth!” Hal jerks awake at the sound, toppling sloppily out of the desk chair and confusedly onto the floor.

You’ve been living with Dirk for a while now. He’s loud in the sense that he’s almost always making some kind of noise, but he’s generally pretty quiet in terms of volume. You'd started to wonder if that was just as loud as Dirk ever got.

Turns out it’s not. Turns out Dirk can be really fucking loud when he wants to be. Your neighbors are going to think that someone is being fucking murdered in here.

“Dirk, holy fuck, cool your jets,” you hiss, trying really hard to balance the line between nice because you get this and urgent because you want this to stop before you get a noise complaint. You’re not sure you’re hitting the balance quite as well as you would have liked. 

Dirk's lungs stutter over a breath, and he twists awkwardly to look at you. "Dave?" he asks, his voice raw after all of the yelling. 

“Yea man, it’s just me. We’re in the apartment, it’s just me and Hal here,” You’re not sure if Dove is here, and you gesture over to where Hal is still dazedly sitting on the floor under the desk, looking concerned. Dirk’s gaze flickers over to look at him before settling back on you.

You’re not really sure how to make it clear to Dirk that things are okay , but it’d clearly looked like he’d been trying to get ready for an attack earlier, it’s probably safest to start there.

It apparently does the trick. After a moment of staring, Dirk slumps back to the floor, dragging in huge shuddering breaths while you stand there awkwardly, not sure what to do. Part of you almost just wants to leave to give him some space, but you feel like that might be a seriously dick move. You settle on sitting down at the edge of the living room, where the tile meets the carpet. Worst case scenario, Dirk can just tell you to fuck off and then you won’t have to worry about it anymore.

Problem is that it doesn’t look like Dirk is going to actually calm down any time soon. He’s still deep breathing, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. You’d assume that Hal would be the one that would actually know what to do, but he’s just sitting there, glancing between you and Dirk like he’s expecting you to do something about it.

Fuck it. Talking is pretty much all you're good at, right? Might as well use it as a distraction. 

“Who’s Sawtooth?” you ask, and wince because your voice sounds crazy loud in the quiet room, despite the fact that Dirk was screaming just moments ago.

He looks over his shoulder at you for a moment before rolling over onto his back. You watch him struggle for words for several moments before he makes a motion with his fingers that you recognize as the sign for ‘fingerspelling’. You nod. Your signs are shit, but you know the alphabet well enough by now.

[He was one of my f-bots.] It takes you a stupid long time for you to put the letters together into actual words. You wonder about the ‘f’, if it’s part of the term or just a mistake. [He was the one that I had that was programmed to fight.]

Well, that explains why Dirk had called for him.

“Is that all he did?” You’re admittedly being more curious than distracting, but in your defense, fully autonomous robots aren’t really a thing you have any experience with, in or out of the game.

Dirk hesitates for a while before he answers. [No] is all he’ll sign.

All in all, the mental image that you’ve managed to pull together is almost kind of sad. You wonder how old Dirk was when Sawtooth got made. Maybe Dirk had made him, or maybe he’d just always been there in that apartment. Either way, it sounds like he was one of the only things around that Dirk had actual physical contact with.

You wonder if Dirk was going to spell ‘friends’ instead of ‘bots’.

"You don't have to stay in here if you don't want to," Dirk says out loud suddenly. He's no longer breathing so desperately, and he's lifted his head slightly to look at you properly. 

You’re not sure if this is an attempt to get you to leave without offending you, and your confusion is worsened by the way Hal finally moves to sign something that Dirk that gets resolutely ignored. You decide to just roll with it. He probably would prefer to be left alone at this point anyway. You’re aware of how easily you can become ‘annoying’ instead of ‘helpful’. Besides, you’ll only be in the next room, and Hal is still here.

“Alright,” you agree easily, hauling yourself up to your feet and barely catching the way Hal face palms. You glance at the abandoned groceries on the kitchen floor, and do a quick mental run through of your receipt to check if there was anything that needs to be refrigerated. The fish. You make a pit stop to put that in the fridge, and then say, “Let me know if you need anything,” to Dirk before heading into your room.

You don’t notice the slightly disappointed look Dirk sends you before your door closes.

Chapter Text

You would not ever say it out loud, because you're fully aware of the fact that it is not her fault, but you're beginning to become a little overwhelmed by Roxy. 

She's genuinely kind, and tries very hard to be helpful, but she also has no apparent perception of personal space or volume control. 

Again, you don't blame her for it, or hold it against her. Your developmental psychology is perhaps slightly rusty, but you're fully aware of the fact that these are social concepts that she should have learned in childhood, but never got the opportunity to do so. Personal space and volume control are things that you wouldn't need or be able to learn if you were the only person in your house. Or planet. 

So you're not upset about it, you're just sort of upset that it happens. 

You've managed to determine that it is, at least, some improvement from your life before the game. Your mother had seemed to understand that you liked having a certain amount of space, but she also didn't seem to know how much space was too much, which led to her occasionally going out of her way to avoid interacting with you for days at a time. 

Other times, you think she just forgot about you. 

Roxy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to pick up on your mild discomfort at all. She responds with unbridled enthusiasm every time she sees you and will make distinct attempts to convince you to do anything with her (and sometimes Jasprose) for any period of time. At no point do you have to wonder if she's forgotten about you or if she considers you to be an irritating presence in the house. 

You have learned, though, that if you remain in your room, Roxy won't go out of her way to see you. If she happens to go upstairs, she may stop to chat for a couple of minutes before returning to whatever she had been doing. However, because she spends the majority of her time on the sofa downstairs (despite your many reassurances that she could take your mother's old room, or any of the other rooms in the house), which allows you the space to easily take a break. 

Which is what you're doing now. 

You get the feeling that Roxy is incredibly lonely, and isn't as comfortable with it as Dirk seems to be. Sometimes you feel a little guilty for hiding from her (if it can really even be called that), but you're also aware that constantly putting her needs before your own will not do your relationship any favors in the long run.

So you allow yourself these quiet moments, tucked into your bed and rereading some of your favorite books from middle school that you haven't read in years. 

Some of them didn't age well, to put it kindly, but you still find yourself enjoying them, if only because of how poorly written they are. Others are still as genuinely entertaining and well-written as they had seemed the first time you'd read them. No matter which of the two it is, reading them still fills you with a deep sense of nostalgia that you strongly appreciate. 

Some frantic motion in the corner of your eye catches your reluctant attention, and you look over to see a flood of notifications popping up on your computer. You'd muted the program for the specific purpose of taking a break from other people, but no one has ever said that PesterChum was a functional program that did everything it was meant to do. 

You sigh. 

Part of you almost wants to ignore the messages entirely, which is probably what you would have done a few years ago, but you've been in too many life-or-death situations in the past years to avoid potentially important conversations any longer. You put a bookmark in your book and throw off the covers and bitterly think that whoever is messaging you is going to regret it if it is not important. 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]:

TG: holy shit
TG: look we all knew that im not exactly the best at complicated situations
TG: which is difficult because im literally living with a complicated situation
TG: yall were talking about coming down here
TG: i think yall might want to come a little sooner than anticipated
TG: it says youre muted
TT: Yet, here you are. 
TT: What happened?
TG: well i went grocery shopping
TT: Isn't it three in the morning in Texas?
TG: yes
TG: lets keep the questions and comments about my sleep schedule until the end of the ride
TT: Fair.
TG: so i went grocery shopping and i came back
TG: and dirk was having a nightmare
TG: and then he woke himself up screaming loud enough to wake up the entire fucking apartment
TG: his life was so fucked up
TG: and i cant fucking talk to people
TG: fuck
TG: i probably fucked this whole thing five ways to sunday
TG: what the fuck does that phrase even mean
TG: like where did it come from
TT: Dave. Focus.
TG: yea right like i want to focus on that
TG: we talked for a bit before i got myself the hell out of there before i could make it even worse
TG: im really not the one equipped to deal with this shit

It looks like you're settling in for a long night. 

Chapter Text

You wake up with vague memories of the shit that went down in the middle of the night, and you have to resist the urge to suffocate yourself with the couch cushions. 

The only thing that really stops you is the knowledge that you won't come back. You let your fingers trace the scars on your neck instead, staring despondently at the opposite wall, and wondering what the fuck you're supposed to do now. 

You know that you're not the only one who has nightmares. On the nights that you don't sleep, you've been able to hear Dave, Dove, and occasionally Hal, but they're not loud like you are. Roxy and even Jane have messaged you about their nightmares as well, but as far as you know, neither of them have ever woken up their housemates screaming like a psychopath and threatened to attack the people that they're supposed to be helping. 

You're a fucking wreck of a human being. Can't leave the damn house, can't provide anything useful, and now you can't even be quiet enough to avoid being an imposition. Incredible. 

You can't keep doing this. You can't keep this shit up and keep bothering them like this. Dave and Dove deserved a better brother than you even before you were around, and you can't even avoid upsetting them even worse now that you're here. You're not trying to prove that you're really an okay guy, how could you when your alt-self is the one who abused them for years on end (even if Dove refuses to see it that way)? You didn't even do that much of a better job with Hal. You don't deserve to prove yourself, you just wanted to avoid making everything worse. 

You're not doing a very good job. 

Your mind drifts back to the hesitant plans that you've been making. The ones where you just leave this apartment and go off on your own so that you can avoid all of this shit that you keep pulling. You know that Dave doesn't need you around to protect him, but you know that he'd be better off without you around, even if he won't admit it or realize it yet. Hal would be better off too, you've been trying to be nicer to him, but you can't imagine that you're actually doing a very good job.

Regardless, these plans are useless considering you haven't even progressed from the roof yet. 

If you're being technical, you probably shouldn't even have gotten to the roof stage of this whole Exposure Therapy ordeal. You had still been incredibly uncomfortable sitting in the window and watching, but you had gone ahead forward considering the amount of time that you'd already spent hiding on the roof. You forced yourself to focus more on the sight and sound of the people on the ground instead of focusing on the birds. 

It's been over a week and you still can't manage that for more than an hour before you have to cover your ears and retreat back to the center of the roof where you can't see any people. It's pathetic and you know it. 

Still, with the shit that you pulled last night, you're not sure that you're willing to allow yourself this consistent weakness any longer. 

You pull yourself up off the couch before you can think too long about this and decide not to do it. You're grateful that Hal has started taking the same long showers that you do, so that he's not here to ask you what you're doing and explain to you all of the reasons why it's a terrible idea. 

You force yourself out into the hallway, and are pleasantly surprised to find it completely empty. You don't doubt that there are more people outside, but at least this way you'll be able to avoid seeing any until the last possible second. 

You don't know why you're doing this. Maybe just to prove that you can. If Hal was out of the shower, you don't doubt that he'd be telling you what an idiot you're being. Roxy would probably tell you the same thing. 

Good thing neither of them are around. 

You opt for the stairs over the elevator. You'd used the elevator when you'd gone with Dave to the store that first time, and you hadn't liked the way it made your stomach swoop as you descended. Additionally, you think that there are likely to be fewer people on the stairs than in the elevator, or at least more room to run. 

You take your time on the steps. The longer you're out there without running into someone, the more settled you feel. You won't say that you feel better about the situation you're putting yourself into, but you at least feel marginally more confident that you might be able to pull it off. 

You make it to the lobby of the apartment building. There are sofas and tables there, and you should probably just call it quits here. It's sparsely populated, only a couple of people sitting on the couch or working at one of the tables, with a good view of the outside of the building. You'd be able to build up a tolerance to the crowd of people without having to interject yourself right into the middle of it. 

But, you've never been one to do things half-way.

You force yourself through the front doors, hyper-aware of the eyes on you as you do. You don't really care about their opinions, but you also don't like the weight of their stares on your back. 

The crowd isn't too large yet. You guess that means it's still earlier in the morning. Still, there are some people around. Hopefully a tolerable amount for you. 

You recognize that not knowing your limits is going to make this difficult, but not knowing your limits also makes this necessary. You won't know what you're capable of until you push yourself like this. This is the same way you learned how to fight, you're going to learn how to be in public with the same method. 

You don't have any particular goal in mind. If you had prepared for this a little better, you would have chosen something. You don't feel comfortable wandering aimlessly, especially since the apartment building you just exited doesn't have any distinguishing features that make it a good landmark. Navigating was a lot easier when everything was flooded. 

You'd passed a park on the way to the grocery store. It had benches there. 

You've updated your objective: Make it to the park and sit on a bench, twenty minutes. That's probably attainable. 

Now you just have to figure out how to make it there. 

Someone shoulders past you. Apparently you've been standing still for too long. You strangle a groan in your throat and force yourself to keep moving, your side smarting with the contact from the other person. 

Maybe it's the difference in lighting, but you're having a difficult time orienting yourself here. Your memory is pretty good, and you're fairly certain that you should at least be able to determine which streets you and Dave took to get to the store. At the very least, you should be able to recognize some of your surroundings. But you're finding yourself completely confused. 

You should go back to the apartment. This is a mistake. The entire point of this exercise was to try to prove that you wouldn't wind up a total burden on Dave, but at this point you're going to need him to come fucking rescue you. 

You turn around to go back before you get completely lost, and then the next thing you know, you're hitting the ground with someone else's weight on top of you. 

You shout, both in surprise and at the sudden stinging contact of their touch on your skin. The person -you think it's a woman- is babbling apologies as she tries to find the purchase to get off of you, and it's only the fact that you're worried about more people intervening that keeps you from shoving her off yourself. You groan again and try to center yourself, but it winds up another shout as someone passing by steps on your wrist. 

"Oh fuck off, jackass, you're not in that much of a hurry," the woman on top of you pauses to shout after the man who'd stepped on you, and then she quickly remembers where she is and rushes to get off. "Holy fuck, I'm so sorry. Are you alright? I totally wasn't paying attention to where I was going, my kid's at school and I've got to pick him up, and on the day when my car is in the shop. What luck, right?"

You're not at all tracking with what she's saying, but you nod anyway. You're kind of squinting, and it takes you a moment to think through why that is. Your shades. They're not on your face anymore. 

You look around at the ground frantically, and before you can find them, the woman breathes in a hiss of air. "Oh fuck, are these yours?" You look up to see her picking up your shades. Or, more accurately, what's left of them. 

Things are rapidly sliding out of your grasp. You're surrounded by people, who are still close enough to brush against you even though you're almost positive that it isn't crowded enough that they're not able to part a little to give you some damn space, you're fucking lost, and now your shades are broken. You really don't think this could get any worse. 

You shouldn't have thought that, because of course your brain decides to take you up on that challenge. Your brain starts buzzing uncomfortably, and you know without a doubt that you're about to lose your shit in the middle of a busy street without a single person you know around. 

"Hey, alright," the woman in saying. You realize that your hands are flapping frantically at your chest. You wonder if you're supposed to stop, but don't because you're pretty sure it's the only thing keeping you from hitting the floor. "Let's get somewhere with less assholes, yeah? Come on." She offers you a hand, and it takes you a moment to realize that she wants you to take it. 

You shouldn't. You don't know who she is, and you don't know what her motive is. This is probably an even worse idea than the one that led you out here in the first place. 

It's not like you have a better idea. 

You take her offered hand and let your free one keep flapping. She pulls you gently through the crowd and over to a secluded bench off to the side. You curl up in the seat and bury your face in your knees and groan because this is probably the worst thing to ever happen to you, including both times you got decapitated. 

"Is there anyone I can call for you?" the woman asks, sitting on the bench next to you, but not touching. 

You don't even have a fucking phone, you don't know Dave's number, and you couldn't talk to tell her in the first place. You're lost as shit, and you've effectively stranded yourself thanks to the fact that you had somehow failed to prepare for a failure this colossal. You're stuck out here. 

You press your face into your knees and ignore the steadily growing damp patches in the fabric under your eyes. You hate that you're in this situation and you hate yourself even more. 

"Dirk?" You recognize the sound of your own name, and you also recognize that the voice is not the woman next to you. You peek up over your knees, and see Dove, sitting in his chair on the sidewalk next to the bench, like he'd been passing by and had noticed you. 

You kind of desperately wish that one of those decapitations had taken. 

Chapter Text

You won't lie and say that you haven't been avoiding everyone ever since you got your wheels and the opportunity to do so. It's not like you've been doing anything except for wandering around the city aimlessly, trying to burn time and debating the merits of just dumping you and your wheelchair into oncoming traffic and just letting it happen. It's not like anyone would miss you, anyway. 

At any rate, you'd started considering the world outside of your apartment as the one place you could go to get away from the people that you knew. 

Dave doesn't go anywhere except for the grocery store, Dirk doesn't leave the apartment at all, and Hal doesn't leave either. You're not sure if he's like Dirk in that he can't, or just like Dave in that he doesn't have anywhere to go. You don't really care. 

So it's a real fucking surprise to be wheeling down the sidewalk to see Dirk curled up on a bench next to a concerned looking stranger. 

"Dirk?" you ask incredulously, and he glances up at you and somehow manages to look even more miserable than he had been once he recognizes you. Your surprise and confusion is not at all abated once you realize that he's crying. 

"You two know each other?" the woman asks, glancing between you and Dirk, and Dirk nods reluctantly. You wonder where the hell his shades are, then you notice the shards of them held gently in the woman's hands. Fuck. 

"He's my... brother," you decide, because that's about the closest thing to the truth, isn't it? You wheel a little closer to them. "What happened?" 

The woman grimaces, "I wasn't paying attention to where I was going," she admits, "knocked him straight down. Broke his sunglasses." She shows you the pieces in her hands. "My son was," she breaks off, looking alarmed. "Oh, fuck, my kid. I have to go get him. Are the two of you okay to get home by yourselves?" 

Your legs don't work, and Dirk seems to be doing his damnedest to smother himself in his jeans, but you're also not thrilled by the idea of showing this woman where the two of you live. "It shouldn't be a problem," you tell her, anticipating that it will absolutely be a problem. "Thanks for helping him." 

"It's no problem, I'd hope someone else would do the same for my son," she chirps, hopping off the bench and handing you the remnants of Dirk's shades. "I'll see y'all around, maybe? I hope you feel better, Dirk! Later!" 

She bounds off, nearly knocking down another woman on her way, and you're left just staring at Dirk, who hasn't moved an inch. You sigh, and almost regret it when it makes Dirk flinch. 

"Well," you say, "Are we going to get up and head back to the apartment, or are we gonna just sit here for a while? If you want, you can just shuffle over onto my lap and I can wheel us both back."

The only reason you offer is because you know damn well that Dirk isn't going to accept, and sure enough, he uncurls himself from the bench and very pointedly doesn't look at you as he rises to stand by your side. You wait for him to take the lead, but he doesn't. 

Instead, he rests a hand on one of the handles of your chair, and you're pissed at the implication that you'd need him to wheel you back when you realize that he's not pushing the chair at all. He's just standing there, waiting. 

Fuck. He's totally lost, isn't he? 

The trip back to the apartment is tense and uncomfortable. You haven't really spoken to Dirk since you'd yelled at him, and it's not like you'd know what to say in the first place. You're grateful for the fact that he's behind you so you don't have to worry about accidentally staring at the wet spots on his knees. 

The moment you're back in the apartment, Dirk has vanished into the bathroom, leaving you with a bewildered looking Hal and the remnants of Dirk's shades. 

Dave emerges from his room at the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut, leveling you with the same confused expression that Hal is giving you. 

You grimace. Why is this talking shit always left up to you?

Chapter Text

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]: 

TG: remember what i said about you hurrying
TG: might want to go even faster
TT: What happened? 
TG: dirk took off
TG: dont know where he was going but he didnt get far
TG: some woman found him
TG: and then dove found them and brought him home
TG: apparently he didnt even have any fucking shoes on 
TG: he had another breakdown out there
TT: Oh dear.
TT: I can certainly understand your sense of urgency.
TT: I did tell him to go slow.
TG: go slow for what
TT: Did he not tell you? 
TG: no
TT: Fuck. 
TT: He wanted help in managing these breakdowns while out in public
TT: I suggested that he try to build up a tolerance to the things that bother him
TG: you put him up to this
TT: I very clearly just said that I told him to go slow.
TT: I also told him to involve you.
TG: yea it doesnt look like he did either of those things
TG: fuck rose
TG: i dont think he likes me
TT: What gives you that impression? 
TG: he literally goes out of his way to avoid me
TG: were having this conversation because he wouldnt tell me what was up to
TG: and he left the apartment even though he clearly wasnt ready for it
TG: just to get away from me
TT: That's funny.
TT: According to Roxy, Dirk feels the same way about you. 
TG: what
TT: He worries that he reminds you too much of your brother.
TT: He worries that you're uncomfortable with him around.
TT: All of this is happening because you two Morons won't have a proper conversation with each other.
TT: Roxy, Jasprose, and I are certainly planning on making our trip there soon, but maybe these issues would be less of a problem if you two simply spoke to one another. 

tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

You're so frustrated that you could throw your phone clear across the room, were it not for the fact that you don't want to have to waste the funds to buy another one. As it is, you let out a wordless snarl of frustration and shove the phone into your dress pocket before storming down the stairs. 

Roxy looks up sharply when she hears you walking down the hallway, and her bright smile quickly turns into a frown when she sees the look on your face. 

"What happened?" she asks, voice panicky as she tries to shove the computer and loaf of bread off of her lap. "What's wrong?" 

"Boys," you snarl, walking over to drop on the couch next to her. She immediately moves closer to press against your side, and you're surprised to find that you don't mind the contact. It might even make you feel slightly better. 

"Oh," she says, relaxing slightly. "What happened this time?" 

"Our Striders aren't talking to one another," you explain. "Dirk attempted to leave the apartment on his own, and got stuck again. Davesprite - Dove, found him and brought him back, and then Dave expressed that he thinks that Dirk is annoyed by him." 

"The only one Dirk is even a little annoyed with is Hal, and he's been working on that. Plus, Dirk is the one who thinks that Dave doesn't like him." She makes a small sound of realization. "Oh. Yea, I see what the problem is now. What are we going to do about it?" 

"I'm hoping that my conversation with Dave will make him more receptive to the concept of facilitating an actual conversation like an adult," you say, well aware of the fact that you're ranting a bit. "And we won't have to do much. Unfortunately, I find that I have little faith in their ability to pull this off successfully." 

"Yea," Roxy agrees, leaning her head on your shoulder a bit. "I don't think Dirk could willingly have a feelings talk if you fed him for it." 

You tilt your head a little so that you press into the side of her head, and her little hum of happiness lets you know that it was a good idea, even if her subsequent wiggle jars your skulls against each other. 

"I think we're going to have to get down there soon," you say. "Although I'm hesitant to pressure you, since I don't doubt the difficulty of learning how to drive, especially when your instructor is a man on YouTube." 

"It's not a big deal," Roxy retorts. "It's kinda fun, for real. Even though that woman got really pissed at me when I slide-slid through that stop sign a bit the other day. I'm not too good at judging the dis-distances yet? But I can figure it out. I want to see Dirk. Dave too, he was funny." 

"His slips where you were concerned were definitely humorous," you agree, smiling at the thought. 

"I hope they get it fixed," Roxy sighs. "I hate being so far away again." 

"At least your Striders talk to you!" Jasprose shouts from their perch in the dining room. "Dove won't even fucking look at the computer long enough for me to even try to talk to him!" 

You sigh a little. "Yes," you agree. You hesitate, and then ask, "Do you want to practice driving a bit more? I don't know how comfortable you are with it, but I'm fairly certain that you're good enough a driver to make it to the airport by the end of the week." 

"Hell yea!" Roxy crows, leaping up and jarring your head away from her shoulder sharply. "Let's go! I'm gonna nail those stop signs this time, just you watch!" 

"Oh Fuck, wait for me!" Jasprose shouts, "I'm gonna need some practice getting out of that fucking car, and practice not sliding out of the damn seat when you stop, you utter maniac!" 

You smile slightly at their enthusiasm, and follow Roxy out to the garage. In all honesty, you're not as concerned with Roxy's driving capabilities so much as you're worried about the possibility of being pulled over. She's very good about obeying the speed limit, but tends to drive a bit more erratically than would be considered normal, and none of you have driver's licenses. Roxy and Jasprose don't even have any ID, which would most certainly be frowned upon if a cop did show up. 

You have an ID, but it's several years out of date, and you keep being mistaken for being much younger than you actually are. If anything, you'd be even more likely than Roxy to be pulled over simply because someone thought you should still be driving with a permit. 

So, despite the fact that your technically undocumented sister has never even see a car before recently, you're fairly certain that she's the best person for the job. At any rate, she's proven herself to be quite the problem solver. You're pretty sure that if anyone would be capable of pulling this off, it would be Roxy. 

Chapter Text

You can hear when Dove leaves your shades on the counter before he starts explaining to Dave, laying out the situation he'd found you in for their appraisal, and the feeling of wanting to be dead does not diminish for you at all. 

You take advantage of their brief conflict to flashstep past them, grab the remains of your shades, and disappear into the crawl space that you'd found a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, none of them noticed you. 

You're not hiding. This is just a tactical retreat until you feel more qualified to deal with the situation that you've made. 

You're starting to feel that you're not ever going to be qualified to deal with this shit. 

You curl around your knees again, tracing your fingers over the broken lens in your shades. You know that the loss won't be as sharp after a while, especially since you had been considering getting different shades that weren't copies of the one's Dave's brother had worn anyway, plus they're not even the first pair of shades that you've ever broken, but right now the loss still feels raw and painful. These were your shades. The one thing that had managed to maintain consistent ever since you'd woken up after the game. Even your clothes are different, since you're having to wear Dave's, but your shades had been the same. 

Now they're broken. You broke them because you were being an idiot. You made a decision that you knew was a bad one, and then you fucked it up, like you always do, and now you're hiding in the ceiling with a pair of broken sunglasses, because you're the biggest fuck up in existence, it is you. 

Around the sound of your own hitched breathing, you can hear Dave walking around the apartment, presumably looking for you since you're not in the bathroom. You make an effort to force yourself to be even quieter. You have no desire to be found any time soon. You don't think that he'd be mad at you, but you're still not good at identifying things like Emotions in other people. You don't want to take the risk and you don't want to hear him talk about how it's okay either. 

It isn't okay. 

The door to the crawlspace opens just enough for Hal's hand to shove the phone that Dave had bought for you at your feet, and then it closes again. You blink at it in confusion, and then pick up the phone carefully. 

turntechGodhead [TG] opened memo on board REAL ADULT CONVERSATION

TG: alright so dirks better at hiding than i am at finding
TG: which is cool whatever
TG: this conversation doesnt have to happen face to face
TG: but according to rose this conversation needs to happen
TG: and honestly id agree
TG: alright fuckin
TG: roll call so i know yall are paying attention
TG: this is stupid
TT: I'm here.
TT: Dirk has his phone as well, he's just being stubborn.

Bastard. You'd hoped that maybe he was cutting you a break, but apparently not. You bite down hard on your wrist, and then make yourself respond. 

TT: I don't know what you're talking about. 
TT: Conversations don't need to happen. 
TG: im disagreeing with that one dog

Well. It had been worth a shot. 

TT: Fine. 
TT: What conversation? 
TG: yea dave what conversation
TG: the one where we talk about things like adults
TG: and we all stop creeping around the apartment like a bunch of awkward preteen girls reconnecting after a fight
TG: because suzy broke up with bobby and cindy swooped in to get that hot ass
TG: and then suzy found out and oh shit shes pissed
TG: then hannah took suzys side and brenda took cindys
TG: please fucking cut this shit out before you get lost
TG: whatever
TG: you get my drift anyway
TG: point is
TG: time to be adults
TG: dirk
TG: rose said youd been talking to roxy
TT: Well you're going to have to be more specific than that
TT: I talk to Roxy all the time.

You wince as soon as you hit send on those messages. You're the one in trouble here, this isn't the time to be acting like a sarcastic shit head. 

TG: she said youd been talking about how you think you make me uncomfortable

You feel your breath freeze in your chest. You had been talking about that, sure. But you hadn't expected anyone to tell Dave. You hadn't wanted to have this conversation. In fact, you had wanted to avoid this conversation at all fucking costs. 

TT: I'm sorry.
TG: what
TG: what for
TG: actually dont answer that
TG: the point is that i thought i was making you uncomfortable

This conversation is proving to be incredibly hard on your lungs. You choke and then muffle your face in the inside of your elbow. You're grateful that you can't mentally text anymore. 

TT: How? 
TG: you talked about your brother
TG: on the meteor
TG: about how you admired him but never met him
TG: but you met me and i thought
TG: i dont know
TG: that i wasnt lving up to your expectations
TG: that you were somehow disappointed in me for not being as great as you had built up
TG: and i know its hypocritical as fuck
TG: considering im the one who impressed on you that you werent my brother
TG: and couldnt be responsible for any part of him
TG: so itd be wrong to imply that i could somehow disappoint you as someone other than myself
TG: but like
TG: well you know

You do know. 

You keep having to press your face into your shoulder to keep your vision clear enough to see the screen. This is the worst. You're the fucking worst. You had regretted saying anything the moment that you had spoken back then. Dave had spent twenty minutes chronicling the abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his brother and you'd returned the conversation talking about the incredibly famous brother that you'd never met, like you were rubbing it in his face. 

And now you're here and you've just found out that not only had he taken what you'd said to heart, but he'd actually started blaming himself for not being as good as you had built his alt-self up to be. 

God Fucking Dammit, you wish you were dead. 

TG: i dont know where you are but i can hear you beating yourself up about this
TT: That doesn't even make sense. 
TG: look the point is
TG: if this was between you two why did all four of us get added to this memo
TG: youre being stupid
TT: How is this being stupid? 
TT: I'm the physical reminder of the man who abused you 
TT: In This Apartment
TT: For thirteen years. 
TG: alright dont start typing like kanaya now
TT: I don't even know who that is.
TG: why do yall keep fucking saying that
TG: bro didnt fucking abuse us
TG: it was training
TG: you dont train like that with a kid
TG: and explain again how all that fucking porn shit had anything to do with training
TG: fuck you
TG: hes the only reason we survived the game
TG: fuck that
TG: everyone else did great in that game
TG: better than us even
TG: and their guardians didnt beat the shit out of them
TT: I guess this explains why we were added. 
TG: shut up hal
TG: bro was a hero you dont get to talk about him like this
TG: fuck you
TG: you remember when we were eight and we got into a fist fight with that kid at recess
TG: we barely even got one punch in but we got suspended for two days
TG: and after bro picked us up he made us strife on the roof
TG: and after he knocked the sword out of our hand and nearly fucking ran us through he threw us down the stairs
TG: and then actually went through the trouble of going to get us so that he could dump us on the roof and leave us there for hours
TG: not only did it take ages for the bleeding to stop but we actually got sunburned so badly we could barely move
TG: who the fuck does that to a kid
TG: that wasnt fucking training that was abuse
TG: and look man im sorry if you havent come to terms with that
TG: but im not gonna sit here and say that im wrong

You feel like you're going to be sick. Not only are you getting a high definition view of what their childhood was like, but you can actually almost see the training aspect that Dove was talking about. Almost. You can see the possible benefits, but also know that it's wildly dangerous and a horrible idea because of the wildly uncontrollable variables that aren't being accounted for. But that doesn't change the fact that for a moment you could see it, and you know that the alt-you did too. 

Just when you thought you couldn't hate yourself any more. 

TG: anyway were getting off fucking topic here
TG: dirk you reminded me of my brother for all of like twenty seconds
TG: neither you or hal remind me of him at all
TG: you couldnt remind me of him if i was half blind and you were trying your hardest
TT: Why would I even want to try? 
TG: youre just proving my point here
TG: you dont make me uncomfortable
TG: i was avoiding you because i thought i made you uncomfortable
TG: and hal
TT: Oh, am I getting involved in this drama now? 
TG: i avoided you because i didnt know you
TG: i get weird around new people
TT: I get it
TT: Though it's not like I particularly minded
TT: There's a high probability that you're stressing yourself out over nothing
TT: Something you and Dirk have in common. 
TT: Shut up Hal
TT: Whatever. I'm not the one who pulled the disappearing act and left his phone at home.
TG: you want to explain that while were all on the explaining train here

You debate the merits of just not responding. He can't make you talk to him, and he's already admitted that he doesn't know where you are. Hal knows, though, and you don't think it's below him to come pull you out and force you to have this conversation face to face, which would be much worse. And besides, you've gotten this far already. Might as well finish it. 

TT: Not being able to leave this apartment makes me a burden.
TT: I wanted to try and prove to myself that I could leave
TT: Look how that turned out
TG: ok first off
TG: youre not a burden
TG: its not like im doing a whole lot of leaving either
TG: and its also not like im working a job or anything
TG: technically speaking wed both be burdens since neither of us are actually providing anything
TG: and since were spending my brothers money
TG: turns out i actually dont care about that much at all
TG: its not like were pressed for cash or anything either
TT: I don't know how those things work. 
TT: Are you sure. 
TG: look im a bit out of practice too
TG: but im not a liar
TG: if there was an actual issue id tell you

You've mostly stopped crying by now, but there's still an achy feeling of upset and disbelief in your chest. This all feels like it got wrapped up too perfectly to be real. You curl up tighter to feel the pressure of all your limbs around you. You know that technically this matter has been 'resolved', but you don't want to leave this spot any time soon. 

Your fingers are still tracing over the broken lenses of your sunglasses, and when you slice your finger open on the jagged edge, you can't quite muffle the yelp of surprise in time. 

The door to the crawlspace opens, and Dave's head pokes through. 

"Told you you couldn't be quiet," he says, smirking slightly, and you frown, display the blood on your hand. It's not like you'd done it on purpose. "Yikes. Quit playing with those things, man." 

You put the broken shades on and push them up until they're resting on the top of your head. They're broken and you're going to have to get rid of them eventually, but not yet. 

"Look," Dave says, leaning into the crawlspace a little and resting his cheek on his arms. You try to pay extra attention to what he's saying so that you'll be able to understand him without him needing to repeat himself. "Why don't we both just start over. Forget our brothers and just, focus on this." 

You only hesitate for a moment before you nod. Part of you feels like there just aren't things that you can simply put behind you, but you also know that shouldering all the blame and running off by yourself isn't actually doing any work to improve you as a person. You've learned that lesson the hard way. 

"Cool. You want to get out of there?" 

You appreciate the fact that he asked, but you shake your head without even thinking about it. The conversation helped, but you still don't feel confident enough to actually force yourself out. 

Dave nods back easily, "Alright. Don't stay up here too long though, I don't know what kind of mold is hanging around this place, but other than that, take your time." 

You almost want to point out that those are two conflicting statements, but you couldn't talk even if you thought that was a good idea. Instead you nod again, and you do wish that you had some way of conveying your gratefulness as he heads back down and closes the hatch behind him. 

Chapter Text

You are through airport security and are practically vibrating with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. 

You, Rose, and Jasprose made your drive to the airport this morning, very early in the hopes of avoiding as much traffic and police as possible, and made it the whole way here without crashing or bumping any cars at all. You're pretty pleased with yourself, all in all. 

The security was a whole other weird beast. You got stopped by two different officers because you weren't doing the whole scan thing right, but you got it eventually. Now you're like a pro at it, so on the way back it shouldn't be an issue, and that's a plus. 

Now the only thing left is waiting for the person at the gate to call your boarding number or whatever and let you on the plane, and then in just a few hours you'll be able to see Dirk again. 

"Ha-ha-how long is the fli-flight?" you stammer. The more excited you get, the harder time you have with talking, your tongue thick and uncooperative in your mouth. You and Jane had tried to work on it a bit, but both of you had larger priorities at the time, so it hadn't improved as much as you would have liked. It helps that Rose doesn't seem to mind much at all. 

"About four hours and forty-five minutes until we land," she tells you, glancing at whatever 'itinerary' she has on her phone. "And then we'll get a taxi, and it'll take us about forty more minutes until we're at the Striders' apartment." 

You nod easily, trying to squash down the disappointment at how long it's going to take, and pull out your own phone to open up the cat app that you'd found a couple of weeks ago. 

"Our tickets have two different boarding times," Rose tells you. "Which means that we won't be able to get on the plane at the same time." 

"Why does it work like that?" 

"I have no idea," Rose replies wryly, "But since Jasprose will be going first, they can save us an aisle and we'll all still be able to sit together." 

"You're just jealous that I get to board the plane first," Jasprose says, aiming a particularly smug grin at Rose. 

The two of them dissolve into bickering that helps distract you from the fact that you're a little less certain about how this whole thing is going to play out. You had made it the whole way here in a car, though, so you don't think that finding a seat on the plane is going to be any more difficult for you. 

Like Rose said, Jasprose goes first, making her way to the gate while Rose explains that it's because people aren't allowed to have their big mobility devices on the plane. Rose gets up to get in line after explaining to you how to line up once your letter is called, and you watch her intently as she gets on the plane. 

It takes you a moment to figure out where your number is supposed to fit in with the others, but you get it worked out without an issue. Up until the man in front of you gives you a nasty look once you start standing behind him. 

"Do you mind?" he asks. 

You don't know what he's talking about. "Nope," you reply, giving him a brief smile before refocusing your attention onto the woman who's about to start calling sections to board on the plane. Your response earns you another scathing expression, and the man shuffles forward a couple of inches for some reason. You roll your eyes and wonder what that was supposed to be about. 

You watch as the people in front of you give their tickets to the woman at the computer, so you do the same, watching her patiently until she notices that you're still standing there and says, "You can go ahead." 

Rose and Jasprose are sitting in one of the first rows, and you nearly crash into the man in front of you in your excitement to go sit next to them. 

"Anxious flier? the old woman across the little aisle from you asks after you've situated yourself into the seat and shoved your backpack under the chair in front of you like Rose told you to. 

“First time on a plane ever,” you tell her, happy to have someone else to talk to.

The woman smiles at you, “How fun,” she says. “I’ve been on a few flights in my time, the first one is always the most exhilarating.”

You abruptly have to resist the urge to let her know that she’s the oldest human being you’ve ever seen in your life. You and Rose haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking about how things work in society, but you don’t think that pointing that out will be taken as the complement you’d mean it to be. You’re very happy for this old woman, having lived so long, but you think it’s more likely that she’d think you’re trying to be mean or something. You’re really interested in her, so you don’t want her to think that.

“Where are you go-oing?” you ask instead, buckling your seatbelt when you notice Rose doing it. You struggle a bit with the shape of it, since it doesn’t look anything like the seatbelt that was in the car, but you manage it.

“To see my granddaughter,” she tells you, seeming just as happy as you to have someone to talk to. “Her wife is going to be giving birth in a few days, so I’m dropping by to visit and help around the house.”

“Neat!” you breathe. You’ve never really gotten a chance to see a baby before either, and you’d ask for pictures except she’d said it wasn’t born yet. You’re kind of disappointed. “We’re going to see our bra-brothers,” you say, forcing yourself back on track for the conversation.

“How fun!” the old woman exclaims, you haven’t gotten her name yet. You need to ask her for that. She claps her hands a little to punctuate her statement, which you find incredibly adorable. Old people are very cute, you decide. “Do you have any plans, or is it just going to be hanging out?”

“Uh, just hanging ow-out,” you say, because you don’t even know what the hell exists in Houston. You literally haven’t thought a single moment past ‘I get to see Dirk’.

The woman nods knowingly, “My little nephews are the same way,” she tells you. She makes a demonstrative motion with her hand and makes an exaggerated face that you think is supposed to represent the people she’s talking about. “Hanging out this, hanging out that, I never know what those boys are up to.”

You laugh at her little faces, and the two of you continue your conversation through the rest of the flight. Every so often you’ll turn your head a little to check on Rose, who reads the entire time, but other than the both of you tensing when the woman in the aisle offers you drinks, the flight goes off without a hitch, and winds up going by faster than you’d anticipated. You bid the woman (who’s name you’d finally learned was Daisy) a very cheerful goodbye and tell her to tell her daughter’s ‘good luck’ for you before you’re finally split apart by the crowd in the airport gate.

“The two of you got along well,” Rose comments, smirking only a little.

“She was nice,” you tell her, and finally let out the thing you’d been thinking throughout the entire conversation. “I’ve never seen someone as old as her before.”

Rose’s smile only gets wider as she shakes her head a little, “You and Dave are going to get along famously.”

None of you have any checked bags, but you do have to pick up Jasprose's walker. They seem pleased to finally be out of the wheelchair that they'd had to be in since you'd gotten to the other airport. After that, you're able to go straight to the taxi and immediately head off to the apartment. 

By the time you get there, you’re incapable of sitting still and even you are able to tell that the driver is starting to get irritated. You don’t let it bother you though, and the moment he parks the car and lets you out you immediately start sprinting up the stairs to find the right apartment.

You have to stop around the sixth floor because you realized that you can’t remember which floor is the right one and you don’t want to text Dirk and ask him because you’re kind of really excited for this to be a surprise. It doesn’t take Rose long to catch up with you, and you’re able to start your trek again after only a few moments.

"Jasprose is going to stay in the lobby," Rose tells you. You stop on the steps and turn around to ask why, but Rose is already explaining. "Dove apparently doesn't spend any time in the apartment, and Jasprose is eager to give him a piece of their mind, so they're going to wait to ambush him there." 

You suppose that makes sense. 

Rose knocks on their door while you plant your hands on her shoulders and use her as leverage while you hop in place excitedly, barely able to keep yourself under control until the door opens and you’re allowed to go in.

Dave open the door, because of course it wouldn’t be Dirk, and you watch him blink several times before seeming to actually register who the two of you are.

By that time you’re physically incapable of waiting any longer, you shoulder past him (as gently as you can) and immediately spot Dirk perched on the balls of his feet on one of the couch cushions, looking intently at something on his phone (secondarily, you notice Hal sitting cross legged in the computer chair).

You start running, “Dirk!!” you shout, and before he even gets the chance to look up, you’re barreling into him with everything you’ve got, wrapping him up in an absolutely bone-crushing hug and squealing in delight at the started bird-squawk he makes as he topples backwards across the couch. Hal’s raucous laughter does nothing to undermine the sound. It takes Dirk a moment to orient himself, and then he’s hugging you back just as tight, and you don’t think you’ve ever been happier than you are in this moment right now.

Chapter Text

After you'd managed to readjust to your surroundings and actually take in the fact that Roxy is here, you're able to actually enjoy it instead of just glancing around in confusion with her weight on top of you. You manage to wrestle yourself into a sitting position leaned up against the arm of the sofa to free up the other couch cushion for someone else to sit on, and Roxy doesn't loosen her grip for a moment the entire time you're moving. She keeps her arms wrapped around your chest, and once you've settled, she moves only enough to sit up as well. 

It's been about twenty minutes and she's still glued to your side, one of her arms wrapped around your shoulders and the other hand playing with the hem of your shirt. Normally, you think you'd start to get annoyed by the feeling pretty quick, but you're still enjoying every second of it.

Rose took the other couch cushion, and Dave took the desk chair after Hal left it to go sit on the windowsill. Rose and Dave have been talking back and forth while you and Roxy are sort of listening. Mostly, you're just kind of sitting there, not really talking. Apparently neither of you are very good at the whole 'verbal speech' thing, which makes sense. 

"Roxy made a friend on the plane," Rose is saying, and Roxy perks up immediately, wresting her arm back from around your shoulders and jostling your neck hard enough to give you whiplash. 

"I did!" she exclaims, leaning forward to get in your face and as close to Dave's face as she can manage. "Her name was Daisy and she was hells of old! Her gro-gra-granddaughters are havin' a kid!" 

"Fuck yes, old people," Dave replies, sticking out his hand for a fist bump that Roxy cheerfully returns, nearly toppling off the side of the couch while trying to reach before steadying herself on your legs. 

Rose meets your eyes over Roxy's head, and you shrug. Your experience with people, much less with elderly people, is a bit limited to say the least. You don't understand the enthusiasm any more than she does. In fact, you probably understand it less. 

"Dirk," Roxy says as she leans back against your chest. "You should braid my hair." 

"I don't know what that means." 

"Yea I know. Rose taught me what it is, but it's still hard to do," she flops her head to the side to look at Rose. "You should teach him how to braid my hair." 

"I can do that," Rose agrees, "If he wants." 

"I still don't know what it is." 

"It's twisting," Hal says from behind you, and you look over at him to watch him do a twining motion that you're familiar with. 

"Oh," you say, understanding settling in quickly. "I know that." 

"You can do it?" Roxy chirps, sitting up so quickly she cracks your jaw with the top of her head. She tugs her hair free of the hair tie it had been in and hands it to you. "Do it!" 

You oblige her quickly, securing the band around your wrist as you start to comb your fingers through some of the tangles in her hair. 

"We had to do this with wires," you hear Hal explain in response to Rose's confused expression, "to keep them from getting tangled." 

"Yes," you agree, parting Roxy's hair into the pieces you'll need to work with. It's a little different from working with wires only because it's softer and there are lots of very thin strands to work with, but it's not any harder. It only takes you a couple of moments to twist - braid, apparently - all of her hair together and tie it off with the band she'd handed you. 

Her hands immediately reach back to pat down the braid all the way to the end before she lets out a pleased chittering noise in her throat and reaches back to wrap her arm around your shoulders again. "Thanks, Di-Stri." 

[No problem] you sign. 

When you look back up, you see that Rose is staring at the two of you with a small smile and Dave has his face buried in the crook of his arm that's resting on the back of the desk chair. You blink at them, wondering what they're reacting to.

"Would it be possible to get a tour of the apartment?" Rose asks before you can ask them about it. 

"Not much to tour around," Dave says. He gestures down the hall, "Bathroom on the right, my room straight ahead." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen, "That's the kitchen. Has a functioning fridge now and everything." 

"Your room?" Roxy asks, and you dig your elbow into her ribs, eliciting a growl of pain. She gives you the finger, but stops talking. You get the feeling that you're going to have that conversation later, regardless. 

"Yea," Dave replies, seemingly unaware of the brief conflict.

Rose hums, frowning slightly. "You weren't joking about the lack of space," she comments. 

Dave shrugs. "Warned ya." 

She gives him a look you don't recognize. "Yes, I suppose you did." She looks around at the limited space, "What are the sleeping arrangements at present?" 

Hal speaks up this time. "Dave sleeps in his room, I take the couch sometimes, or the desk chair, Dirk sleeps wherever the fuck he lands, and Dove sleeps in the shower sometimes." 

Rose looks at the two of you incredulously, since Dove isn't here. You shrug under the weight of her stare. You'd had an habit of sleeping wherever even back when you'd had your own bed (Several of the burn scars on your hands are the result of a poorly timed nap while in the middle of soldering something). 

"All of us can sleep just about anywhere," Dave says, shrugging. He jerks his head at Rose, "You found some pretty weird places on the meteor, yourself." 

"The meteor was a bit larger than this," she bites back, "but you're right. It's doable, if a bit cramped." 

"Do you have food?" Roxy interjects to ask, and you and Dave both go stiff. 

"Fuck," Dave says. "This is why you generally let people know when you're showing up at their place. Didn't do enough shopping for all of that." 

"What does that mean? What kind of food do you have here?" Rose demands, immediately getting up to go investigate the kitchen. She peers into the fridge an turns back to give Dave a pulled low look. 

"At least it has actual food in it now," Dave says defensively. "Look, there's a pizza place across the street. Me and you can go snag something to eat for lunch, and then I-we," he corrects when Rose makes a noise in her throat, "can go real shopping later, alright?" 

"Tolerable," Rose replies. "Are the three of you fine to wait here?" 

"Peachy," Hal says, and you give her a flat look. 

"You're right, that was patronizing of me," she says. "We'll be right back." 

Even through the closed door, you can hear Rose and Dave bickering back and forth about the food, though you're not entirely sure why. The fridge has a lot of fruit in it, and some yogurt (which you don't eat. Not after it made you sick, and definitely not when it has all of those weird slimy bits in it). Seems pretty solid to you. 

Roxy's hand slapping against your shoulder pulls you out of your thoughts, and you push her back gently. [What?] you sign. 

"You don't have a room here?" she demands. "Like, at all?" 

[Your room didn't just magically appear either] you point out [Where did you think my room would come from?]

She chitters at you lowly. "I don't know, but you two haven't talked about this at all?? I know how important your room was to you." 

She's not wrong, but also, [None of my stuff would even be there] you point out [It was important, but mostly because of the stuff in it. None of that stuff came with me.]

She slumps, defeated. "This fuckin' so-sucks," she mumbles into your shirt. You nod against the side of her head. "Where do you go when you freak?" 

"Bathroom or the crawl space," you say aloud, since she's stopped looking at you. "The bathroom is the same, at least."

"What crawl space?" 

You nudge her off of your lap gently, and heft yourself up onto the kitchen counter to pull it open and give her the space to look in herself, giving her a bit of a boost to help. 

"Nice," she exclaims, her voice echoing weirdly through the ceiling. She hops back down and watches you navigate your way back to the couch after her. "So, besides the room, did you and Dave talk." 

You nod, reaching out to grab her hand because you're feeling oddly bereft without her contact. [It's been better, lately. We talk more, and we started watching movies.]

"Your movies?" she asks hopefully, but you shake your head. 

[Those aren't made yet] you squeeze her hand a little tighter, and continue singing one-handedly. [I don't like it. Not being able to watch them. But the ones from now are pretty good.]

She makes a sad noise. "Fuck that game," she says, and you nod emphatically. "So, what kind of movies have you been watchin' instead, then?" 

You'd kind of been hoping that she'd ask. Your old movies aside, you'd watched one about a week ago that you're fairly certain that she'll love and you've been wanting to show it to her ever since. 

You're really glad that she's here with you again. 

Chapter Text

When you come back with the pizzas, it's to the sight of Dirk and Roxy sitting together on the couch watching the Aristocats. 

Your first thought at the sight is to be grateful that Karkat isn't around to start screaming about indecent public pale affection. Unfortunately, you'd spent enough time with the troll to be able to mentally imagine the tirade from beginning to end. Still, it's better that you don't have to shred your eardrums with the actual sound of it. 

Fuck, you really miss that bitchy little fucker.

"Pizza's here," you say instead of literally any of those things, setting the box on the counter and digging the paper plates out from the bottom cabinets. You don't miss the slightly put out expression on Rose's face at the sight of them, and you maturely stick your tongue out in response. It's not like the two of you hadn't spent years eating off of these things on the meteor. 

On second thought, maybe that's why she's so sick of them. 

Regardless, you don't think this apartment has seen a single real dish since it was built. 

(Actually, it's seen about one. The mug you'd been forced to bring home as part of some fucking holiday project in elementary school, which you'd gifted to Bro like you were supposed to. He'd thrown it at you later that same week. The memory makes you pause before you're able to shake it off.) 

You ignore the temperature of the pizza and pull a slice out and onto your plate, and then head out to the living room to join in on that hot movie watching action. You also don't want to be in the kitchen when Rose realizes that the two of you had forgotten to get any drinks. 

Roxy and Dirk get up to get plates for themselves and Hal. Roxy's plate substantially more full than Dirk's. No wonder Rose had insisted on getting more than two pizzas for the seven of you. Dirk eats like a damn bird (Even less than the guy in residence who actually used to be a bird), but it doesn't seem like Roxy has the same problem. You're actually a little worried that she's going to fucking choke. You glance back at Rose, who doesn't seem too concerned, and decide to brush it off, at least for now. 

As it turns out, after about thirty minutes, the one you're going to have to worry about is Dirk. 

You can tell that something is wrong by the way he starts shifting uncomfortably for the first time as his position as Roxy's couch cushion, and then you know something is wrong when he suddenly shoves her off and bolts for the bathroom. 

Roxy makes a weird chittering noise that reminds you of The Mayor when she falls, and Rose turns to give you a look as the bathroom door slams shut. You shrug vaguely, "It happens a lot." 

"And none of you have figured out what causes it?" 

"He's older than I am, he can sort shit out for himself," you protest. You're all for helping him out with things, but you're not about to start acting like the guy isn't nearly twenty years old and fully capable of taking care of himself. He made it sixteen years on his own, you don't think he needs your help getting along with the rest of his life. 

Rose pulls a displeased face. "Older doesn't necessarily mean better equipped to 'sort shit out', especially considering how he grew up." 

"95 percent chance he's lactose intolerant," Hal speaks up to interject, taking another bite of his pizza and jerking his head towards the bathroom, like you might have forgotten which one y'all were talking about. "He'll figure it out eventually. Thought he can take care of himself," he adds, a little pointedly, as he looks at Rose. 

She pulls a face. "I suppose I do see your point. Are you planning on telling him?" 

Hal smirks, in that weird way that suggests that his face is sort of frozen and unaccustomed to actually making facial expressions. "He'll figure it out eventually," he repeats. 

Rose turns to look at you this time. You shrug. "Hal and Dirk are kind of assholes to each other. I think they're working on it." 

'Think' being the operative word there. Sometimes you'll walk in and they're getting along just fine, other times you'll emerge from the bathroom after being gone for all of two minutes and find them entrenched in shouting/signing matches that take hours for them to sort out. 

Somehow, things between them are still going better than things between you and Dove. 

That kind of fucking figures. 

Chapter Text

The lobby of the apartment is quiet and largely empty. A few people wander past as they go in or out of the building, a couple of them stop to ask if you need help, but you politely decline. When Rose and Dave pass through, Rose brings you a book as they walk out, and Dave leaves you with a few slices of pizza as they head back up. 

It takes nearly four hours for Dove to show up, and the first thing he decides to try when he sees you is attempt to pull a 180 and flee. 

He might have even been able to get away with it (since it takes you a while to get standing and his wheeling speed is faster than your walking speed), if it wasn't for the book you have and your impeccable aim. 

The book nails him on the back of the head, and he nearly capsizes his entire chair with the exaggerated shock of the blow. He twists around to give you a dirty look over his shoulder, and you respond with a grin as you point to the couch cushion next to you firmly. 

He's not going to get out of this conversation, not even if you have to get out your walker and chase him down yourself. 

"What do you even want?" he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to get out of the chair to sit properly on the couch. "That troll girl isn't here anymore." 

"You're an idiot," you tell him plainly. You'd figured that a thought process like this was partly to cause for his avoidance of you, but you had also been hoping that he was smarter than that. Apparently, you'd been hoping for too much. 

"What?" he spits defensively. "Look, I'm not the happy-go-lucky, settled in my skin one anymore. She's not here, and everything sucks, so you're talking to the depressed bastard once again. Is that what..."

"Oh my god, shut the fuck up!" you interrupt. "I know that, dipsit. Maybe you managed to forget, but I'm the Rose that was with you in the other timeline. I know what you went through. I'm well aware of what kind of Dave you are. We were never only friends because of the part of you that was Nepeta. You can't get rid of me that easily; you're the Dave that doesn't talk to people and I'm the Rose that never shuts the hell up. Who else is going to tolerate us but us?" 

His face is still partially hidden by his shades, but you can still see the emotions battling in his facial expression. His eyebrows pull together and his jaw tightens convulsively as he breathes out a shuddering breathe and finally slumps towards you, burying his face in his hands as you shift your walker out of the way to drag him into a hug. 

"Everything sucks, Rose," he mumbles into your shoulder, and you pretend not to hear the fragile high-pitched tremble to his voice. "It sucks being here again, and all of my friends are dead, or they hate me, and I can remember what it was like to feel better again, but now that's gone and everything feels twice as shitty as it used to." 

"I know," you tell him, hugging him tighter. "But you don't have to deal with it alone. The whole 'cats are isolationists' is a myth, you know." You pull back to look at him properly, and his shades have slipped far enough down his face that you can see his eyes now too. "Birds aren't really made to be isolated either." 

That gets a weak, choked laugh out of him, which you'll count as a win. 

"Anyway, unless you're looking forward to some shitty pizza and a way too crowded apartment, we probably don't want to head upstairs yet," you say, inclining your head to your own greasy half eaten slice. "So, you know any good restaurants with accessible seating around here?" 

"Yeah, I think I can think of a couple," he says, wiping his eyes under his shades and sniffling surreptitiously. "You sure you can keep up though?" 

"Don't underestimate me, Strider," you nudge his chair weakly out of the way with your foot and slide your walker back into position to help you stand. "My legs are better than yours are. Are you sure that you can keep up with me?" 

"Let's try it, bitch." 

"Wrong animal, birdbrain," you say, and he bursts into peals of laughter. 

You know it probably won't last, but you're glad he's enjoying himself right now anyway. 

Chapter Text

Dirk is on the roof, Jasprose and Dove are still in the lobby, Dave and Rose are in Dave's room, and it's just you and Roxy, sitting in the living room, awkward as hell. 

The two of you haven't talked much since the game, and you won't lie and say that you haven't sort of been avoiding her a little bit. It's not that you don't want to talk to her, it's just that things got kind of uncomfortable during the game and you're not sure where even to begin with untangling that mess. 

You see her look up from her phone to look at you, and you freeze, your fingers halting on the pillow you've been stroking because aw fuck you did something to catch her attention and you don't know what it is. 

"You haven't told Jake about you?" 

That isn't what you were expecting. 

"Uh, no?" you say, your eyebrows furrowing. "Jake and I were never on particularly good terms, and Dirk and Jake certainly aren't on good terms now, no one else in this house knows him. When would we have gotten the chance to talk about my newfound person-hood? The one he can't invalidate to all hell?" 

That may have been a bit bitter of you, but in your defense, it's uncomfortable having the guy who can literally unbelieve you out of existence continually assert that you're not a real person. 

She makes an odd little noise in her throat, and types something back to whoever she's talking to, presumably Jake. You're hoping that you've gotten away scott free and are considering absconding to the roof with Dirk when she sighs, puts her phone to the side, and looks at you. 

Fuck. 

"Look, I'm sorry," she says, which also hadn't been what you were expecting. Apparently your ability to predict the actions of humans diminished incredibly once you became one of them. 

"For what?" you ask, because apparently the two of you are doing this. You turn to face her more fully, because if you're doing this, you're doing it right. 

She shifts uncomfortably, but doesn't break eye-contact. "For treating you like a spare Dirk. I knew he didn't return my feelings, and it was easy to pretend like you were a him that could. It wasn't fair, to you." 

Your chest hurts. You place a hand on your chest and wonder if maybe you're forgetting to breathe again, but your breaths feel steady. 

You jump when Roxy suddenly gets closer and throws her arm around your shoulders, an action that probably wouldn't have exerted enough effort to knock you down if you were more settled in using a human body. As it is, you nearly topple off the couch before she grabs you again and pulls you into her lap the same way she was sitting with Dirk earlier. 

"Do you forgive me?" she asks, leaning down over your face and hovering so closely that you go cross eyed in an attempt to focus on her. 

"Yeah, I forgive you," you say softly, and she squeals happily and squeezes you tighter. No one else around here is particularly fond of close physical contact, so this is somewhat of a new experience for you. 

You find that you kind of like it. 

Chapter Text

It's a while before you and Rose finally give into the inevitable and actually head back up to the apartment, and the sight you're greeted with surprises you as much as it doesn't. 

What's weird is the fact that this is the biggest group of people this apartment has ever seen, and the fact that this apartment was not made for that amount of people. What's less surprising is the fact that all five of them have somehow managed to squash themselves into the small space available. 

Trying to get anywhere in this apartment any time soon is going to be an absolute nightmare. 

"Alright, some of you are going to have to move if you want me to get anywhere past this door frame," you say into the room, looking significantly at the small amount of space left for you that does not accommodate your chair at all. 

"Sorry," Dave says, immediately throwing himself over the back of the couch to free up the space, narrowly avoiding clipping Dirk's head with his knee. 

"Idiot," the other Rose admonishes from where she sits under the windowsill. Dave flashes her a peace sign. 

You resist the urge to scowl as you wheel further into the room, finally allowing your Rose the space to get through the door and into the apartment. She takes one look at the setup and lets out an ungainly snort. 

"You're fucking with me, we're really all staying here?" she asks, shuffling her walker out of the way enough to shut and lock the door behind her properly. 

"We're figuring it out," the other Rose says. 

"Yeah, right," your Rose scoffs, moving over to the couch and getting Roxy to shuffle over into Dirk's lap without even asking. She sits down with ease that you almost envy. "What do you have so far?" 

"You, me, Dave, and Dove in the back room," Rose says, gesturing down the hall. "And the others in here." 

"That's the best we've got, huh?" you ask. "There's only a twin sized bed in there." 

"The Rose's can take it," Dave says. "There's floor space if I clean it up." 

"You're going to make the disabled guy sleep on the floor?" 

"Can't be any harder to get up and off of than the shower is," he fires back immediately, which... you admittedly can't argue with. That won't stop you from scowling at him, though. 

"It's enough to work with for tonight," Other Rose says (The whole 'Your Rose' versus 'Other Rose' thing is starting to get old, but it still feels weird to default to Jasprose. Your Rose said she didn't have a problem with the moniker, but it feels wrong to use it when you'd hated Davesprite so damn much). "We can always renegotiate the space tomorrow." 

"Someone could always stay here on the couch," Roxy offers. "Hal said he'll be sleeping in the desk chair, and Dirk said he'd take some floor space, but I can share the couch pretty easily. 

"I might take you up on that offer," your Rose (Jasprose, you reluctantly correct) says. "I will be a pleasure to sleep with since I can't kick in my sleep, but that makes me defenseless against anything Rose tries to throw my way."

"Oh, please," Rose retorts easily. "You and I both know that neither of us tend to move in our sleep." 

The two of them bicker back and forth with the same ease that Hal and Dirk do, and you and Dave exchange an awkward glance above the conflict. It's been over a week since your 'conversation' and the two of you haven't been getting along any better. 

Admittedly, it's probably mostly your fault. You know it wasn't Dave's fault that things went so sideways on the ship, so it's nothing but petty to keep blaming him for it. You know that he might have also had a point about your Bro (Even though you don't quite want to think about that shit yet. Admitting to that means admitting to a lot of things you don't feel ready for yet). 

So, it's probably your fault. 

As it turns out, most things kind of tend to be. 

Chapter Text

The Lalonde's have been here for about four days and you are aching with how ready you are for them to leave. 

Except, that's not true. You're really not. You don't want them to go, you just wish that there was some way for them to not be here for a while. Or, for you to be somewhere else. 

You're enjoying their company, but you feel like you're able to tolerate it less and less every single day that passes. You had been doing alright with just Hal and the others, but for some reason, the addition of Roxy and Rose and Jasprose as been nigh intolerable (Even if Jasprose has adopted Dove's pattern of never hanging around the apartment). 

It could have something to do with the fact that they talk to each other a lot more than anyone else does, and the increase in noise is driving you up the wall. You're not sure. The point is that you're stuck, and even though you'd told Roxy that you could retreat to the crawlspace, it offers no barrier from the noise. 

You're spending more and more time on the roof, although the light and noise out there isn't much of an improvement. The birds, at least, give you something to focus on that's relatively quiet. 

They're still investigating you cautiously, though you'll admit that you haven't been above occasionally bribing them with food. You have some to spare now, so why not? A large, heavyset crow has allowed you the closest so far, patiently enduring your careful fingers on her head in exchange for small chunks of fish. 

Today, she's brought you a small little chunk of brightly colored glass. In exchange, you give her a soft piece of string that you'd lifted off of Rose, as well as one of the oranges from your cup. She chirps at you and takes off; no petting today. 

You don't mind. You're starting to get that bunched up electric feeling under your skin that indicates that you should probably just go ahead and go back inside, except you don't particularly want to. The others have started playing a very competitive round of that glitched out skating game, trying to figure out who can make it bug out the worst (the last you'd been down there, Roxy had been kicking ass). 

It's fun to listen to them banter, but they get louder and louder the more worked up they get, and you're not interested in enduring that anymore than you're willing to keep listening to the sounds of car engines and people's conversations, even if you are twenty floors up. 

You close your eyes and tilt your head back, trying to focus on the hot sun and cool wind against your face more than the sounds assaulting your ears and the feeling of your hair brushing up against the back of your neck (You really need to drag out a knife and cut it sometime soon). It helps, but only marginally. 

There's a high pitched whine from the ground, and you groan to block it out, raising your hands to press them against your ears. You resign yourself to it; you head back inside, leaving your hands curled around the sides of your head for protection. 

The others are, predictably, still playing, although their noise level isn't as bad as you'd feared it would be. Still, you don't really know where to go to escape it. You wind up back in the stairwell, sitting about halfway up the stairs. It's not perfect, but it's something. 

You dig out your phone and find one of the videos that Rose had shared with you, the ones that are just hours of the sound of the ocean on repeat. They're not perfect, especially since you'd lived out in the middle of the ocean and most of these are recorded from 'shore', but they're close enough to be comforting. You haven't been able to get your hands on a pair of decently functioning headphones yet, so you just put on the speaker and prop the phone up against the wall. 

The noise echoes up and down the narrow stairwell, and with your eyes closed and your face buried in your arms and knees, it's almost good enough that you can pretend like nothing had ever changed. 

Almost. 

You manage to get yourself enough under control that when Roxy leans into the stairwell to say that you're going to eat and start a movie, you're confident enough to follow her out. 

Jasprose and Dove are both here, which is a nice surprise as much as it is unlikely. Their presence does mean that you can lean against the wall underneath a kitchen counter without Rose giving you any odd looks. Roxy puts her head in your lap, and you tap the back of your skull lightly against the plaster and think that this is fine, and that you can handle this. 

Up until you notice that Rose is staring at you, just in time for her to ask, "Dirk, are you alright?" 

You realize that your light tapping had, at some point, evolved into you just straight up slamming the back of your head against the wall. Roxy had barely looked up at the change, but now that Rose has asked about it she adjusts to look at you in concern, realizing that it's something that is apparently 'abnormal'. You try to get yourself to stop, but your muscles don't want to accept the memo. Your teeth grind against each other as everyone in the room focuses on you more intently, and wish that they would all turn back around and leave you alone. You'll be fine. Eventually. 

"What's bothering you?" Rose asks, and fuck you know that she's just trying to be helpful, but you don't know. You don't know what it is, and even if you did, you probably wouldn't be able to put it into words. You want to be able to answer her because she'd probably be willing to help in a way that's more conducive than bashing your brains out against the wall, but you can't. You can't. 

You can feel frustrated tears start to well up in your eyes, and you still don't have any shades because yours are still broken from your dumbass stunt a few weeks ago, and Roxy makes a sad noise in her throat at the sight of them. You don't mind the way that she's made a sound, but you don't like the way it feels in your ears. 

This is your life; everything gets worse forever. 

You wave your hand at the lot of them, your fingers curled awkwardly against your palm, trying to convey that they should all just fuck off and go back to what they were doing. Dave, Dove, and Hal seem like the only ones amicable to that suggestion. 

"Is there-" she cuts off sharply, and you glance out of the corner of your eye to see Hal with his hand on her shoulder, whispering sharply to her. You can't hear what he's saying. 

You suppose that that's kind of the problem. You thought you'd gotten used to living with other humans, but in reality, you just got used to living with Dave and yourself. Now there are new people that got added to the mix, and there's not weeks and spare rooms for them to hide in so that you can all avoid each other until you're better equipped to put up with this shit. There's just the seven of you in one living room and nowhere else to go. 

Doesn't mean you can't try. 

You shove Roxy off of your lap with little fanfare, and are relieved to see that she'd been expecting it and doesn't go crashing painfully to the floor. You make a low noise in your throat, like some kind of whale, and abscond as fast as you can manage without tripping over your feet to the bathroom. 

You turn on the shower, but can't make yourself actually get under the spray. You've reached that special shitty point where the water feels like needles on your skin, and you don't want to deal with that on top of everything else. You curl up in the little space beneath the sink instead, crossing your legs and rocking back and forth so extremely that you go from having your spine ramrod straight to being nearly horizontal with the floor within seconds and back. 

You feel like a glitched out bot that can't get fixed. Too many frayed wires and misplaced spark plugs to ever really wind up something functional. Not even broken like Squarewave, who was a bit of a mess because you'd always known him that way and couldn't make yourself actually change him, even if he would have worked a bit better. You could have fixed him, you just didn't out of some weird sentimentality. 

You're just straight up broken. You guess that you've always been that way, it's just that now you can't escape from it. And this time, you don't even have the excuse of too many splinter selves to explain it all away. 

You and your shitty brain are fucking this shit up all on your own. 

Chapter Text

You feel a brief pang of something like regret as you watch Dirk nearly topple over in his haste to escape into the bathroom, though you're not quite sure what you have to feel guilty about. 

You suppose that you wish there was more you could do to help him. 

Dave is watching the door with his face resting on the palm of his hand. "We need to get out of this place," he says. 

"What?" Roxy asks, looking up from where she'd been cleaning up the dishes and crumbs that had gotten knocked over when Dirk had gotten up. 

Hal sighs a little. "None of us hang around each other or talk nearly this much," he explains. "No wonder he's flipping shit now that you two are here." 

"You think he doesn't want us here?" you ask, but Hal shakes his head. 

"No, he wants you here, he just also needs a break that this apartment can't give him." 

You suppose that does make sense. 

It's also a good segue for another topic that you'd been hoping to breach while on this trip. 

"I think that the four of you should come live with us," you say, deciding that going the most direct route will be the simplest. 

"You what?" Dave asks, seeming utterly bewildered. 

Perhaps you were wrong. 

"I think that the four of you should come live with us," you repeat, painfully slow. 

He gives you an unimpressed look for your efforts. 

"We need to start making plans for the future," you explain, settling in because you've been thinking about this for a while now, "and while there's certainly nothing keeping you from remaining here, I simply believe that our house is the easiest one to reside in. Not only is it much larger than your apartment, and has the room for the lot of you, but it's also much more secluded. Dirk would be able to leave without having to worry about being overwhelmed by people, considering our driveway takes twenty minutes to drive out of. No nosy neighbors around to wonder why the younger four of us aren't in school. We also don't have to worry about rent or bills, since the house is self-sustaining." 

Dave looks at you for a while. "You've been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?" 

"Have you not been?" 

He doesn't even pause to think about it before he's shaking his head. "I've been actively trying not to," he says flatly. "I spent the past three years getting ready to die; I sure as shit don't have the capacity to try to plan for the damn future." 

He mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like 'I'm not the fucking time guy anymore', which you recognize as a sensitive subject and thus don't point out that even non-time players should be responsible for coming up with plans for their futures. 

"Well, someone has to," you say instead. "The others might not have to worry about this, but we do. We have enough money for the seven of us to fly back to New York and continue on like we have been for a while. We'll have to worry about things like careers and school in the future, but for now I think our living situations take the priority." 

Dave sighs. "You're probably right."

"What about Dirk, though?" Roxy asks. "He doesn't like leaving the apartment. How is he supposed to leave the apartment and go to an airport and get on a plane? Those places were really loud and busy." 

You'd been wondering about that. Honestly, it's one of the few hiccups in the plan that you'd encountered. Still, "I'm fairly certain that with our help, and maybe some new sunglasses and noise-cancelling headphones, he could tolerate the abrasive environment long enough to make it through the airports and the plane. We won't have to linger to wait for a taxi, since our car is still in the parking lot. Some of us could stay to get any baggage while you and Dirk went and waited in the car. Once we get to our house, it should be a complete non-issue." 

You don't know how Dirk will react to this suggestion, though. You're glad that you'd gotten the chance to talk it over with the others before involving him in the conversation, although you also don't want to wind up causing everyone to gang up on him. Still, you want him to actually think about this option instead of just instinctilvey objecting. You don't know him exceptionally well, but you do feel like just about anyone would be more comfortable in an environment that extends beyond a 900sqft apartment. Even if he didn't spend time outside of the house, he would at least have the space to have his own room instead of camping out on the floor of the living room. 

Still, you know that DIrk's decision is ultimately not up to you. You'll certainly do your part in trying to convince him that it's the better option, but you can't force him to say yes. 

You just do hope that it works out as easily as you've been planning out in your head. 

Chapter Text

Your instinctive reaction to hearing their idea is to object. 

You're not going to be able to make it out of the apartment, you're not going to be able to make it to the airport, much less through the airport and onto a plane and into a state that you've never been to in your life. You don't want to leave your apartment. 

That thought is the strongest, but it's also the one that gives you the most pause. 

Is this really your apartment anymore? 

Obviously, the construction of the walls and the building is the same, but none of these things are yours. All of the things that you had been attached to are gone, thrown into the void alongside your timeline. This building is Dave's, not yours, and although you've been more or less comfortable here, it still isn't yours. 

If that's the case, why be opposed to leaving? 

Besides the fact that your meltdowns will make the travel near impossible, what's keeping you here? Dave? But if he's going too, then what?

Nothing, really. Nothing at all. 

You wouldn't even have anything to bring with you. 

You play with a seam on the pair of Dave's jeans that you're wearing, and don't look up at any of the others, not even as you sign [How are we even supposed to get me there?]

"I've been looking around," Rose speaks up after Roxy has relayed what you'd said. "I've been able to find a lot of resources to help navigate the issues that you seem to be dealing with, without avoiding them entirely." 

"Alright," you say, admittedly unconvinced, but you still sign [If you think that this could work, then okay. I'm in.]

Roxy squeals happily, and throws her arms around you, squeezing tight enough that it's not uncomfortable. "We're gonna live tuh-gether," she crows, shaking you slightly for emphasis. 

"Yeah," you agree. [If this wasn't such a shit situation, it'd almost be like a dream come true.]

She chitters happily in your ear, and you snort at the sound of it. She continues clinging to you like a limpet while Rose talks about what things y'all will want to bring with you, and what things they have the option for selling for extra cash. You don't feel any particular attachment to most of the things in this apartment, so you wind up tuning the words out and simply letting the noise wash over you. You're feeling better after your earlier meltdown, but you're still tired as hell. You're kind of waiting on the others to decide to sleep so that you'll be able to crash, but you don't know how long that'll take. 

You and Roxy are both dozing when Rose says your name so suddenly that you startle severely enough to jerk the two of you awake. 

"What?" you mumble verbally, squinting around the room to see who's around and what she wants. 

"Sorry," Rose says, not seeming particularly apologetic at all. "I asked if you had any particular musical preferences." 

Hal isn't around and Roxy is already mostly asleep again. You rub your fingers against your eyes and try to think through what you need to say. "I have lots of music pref-preference. But most of it won't come out for a few years. At least." 

That's been another problem with being spat out several centuries before you were born. As cool as it is to be a real witness to how technology and media had evolved over the years, it's less cool when you're suddenly stuck with the out of date shit. Not only does your computer not work as well as it used to, but you also don't have any of the music, movies, or tv shows that you'd actually used to like watching. Some of the stuff that had been considered seriously old are still pretty new, but the majority? Doesn't exist yet, and might not ever actually wind up existing considering the state your timeline was in. 

"I can help with that later," Dave says. "We're gonna be making some sweet mixtapes up in here, dog." 

"Fuck yea," you mutter sleepily, despite your best efforts. Roxy is asleep again already, and you envy her quietly. 

"Alright, I believe that most of this can be put off until the morning," Rose says, finally taking pity on you. 

“We can go to my room and keep talking,” Dave offers, heaving himself up to his feet, and the two of them head off down the hallway, turning off the light in the living room as they leave.

You heft Roxy up easily, ignoring her growl of protest, and drop the both of you on the couch. It takes her a couple of moments to settle back in, and it seems like it’s only seconds after that that you’re asleep.

Chapter Text

You are having vague sort of mixed feelings about the current course of actions. 

On one hand, at least you'll be able to get out of this fucking cramped apartment and finally be able to have your own space again. 

On the other, your space for being able to escape the group is going to be limited, considering the fact that your chair won't jive well with a forest setting. 

You can't tell if that's a genuine complaint yet or not, considering the fact that you were never a particularly "outdoors" kind of guy to begin with, not before or during the game. The only reason you became one after the game was to get out of the apartment and avoid people you didn't want to see. Technically, in a house large enough to avoid people without having to go outside, then it's a nonissue. Isn't it?

There's still something that you're not sure about when it comes to this whole thing, but you can't pin down what it is. 

It feels weird to specifically move in with a bunch of people who don't want you around in the first place. 

That's probably it. 

With your current living situation, you'd just shown up here. You hadn't moved in so much as you had gotten dumped in, and because you'd had nowhere else to go, you'd stayed. With this, it's almost like there's an option. You'd have to choose to go with the others. 

But, what's the point? What do you genuinely have to gain by going with them?

"Bigger hallways, at least," Jasprose offers you when you voice some of these concerns. "You won't have to worry about getting stuck in your shitty apartment hallways." 

"Is that reason enough to move?" 

"Reason enough for other people," she says. "Why not you? Besides, aren't you thinking too hard about this?" 

"Takes one to know one?" you retort. "Besides, you weren't there on the ship; my presence does more damage to interpersonal relationships than you'd think." 

"That may be true, but it's not like there's no one around who'd want you to come. I want you to come. From what you've said, you and Hal get along fairly well. That's at least two people that you'll get along with, minimum. Roxy is very friendly, and likes people, so you'll probably get along with her once you get a chance to. You and Dirk will probably get along fine with Roxy as a buffer. That's a lot of people to get along with, and we're not even talking about Rose and Dave yet." 

"I think you're overestimating the social skills we all have to work with here." 

"Even better. None of you have any kind of social skills, so you don't have to worry about other people doing it better than you," she fires back without hesitation. "You're the one being pessimistic about this. And I get it, that's your vibe, and that's cool. But that makes it my job to tell you when you're being a dumb asshole and give you the real facts." 

"Alright, fine," you say before she can get too far down this rabbit hole. "But if this goes to shit, then you're taking the blame." 

"Oh, absolutely," she replies, gesturing carelessly with her hand. "If I'm wrong, then we can both escape to the woods to die. That way I'll be punished, and you'll be right, and we'll both be dead and won't have to worry about any of these problems any longer." 

"Deal," you say, sealing the deal with a fist bump. 

It's probably weird that this brand of humor comes so easily to the two of you, but you shrug it off. Call it the natural consequences of being in a doomed timeline. 

Chapter Text

You can tell that something is up with Dirk without even needing to get visual confirmation. You could tell that he was reluctant about the whole 'moving' situation from the beginning, and you'd known that something like this was going to happen. The fun part always was going to be finding out just what he's been angsting about this time. 

You, personally, don't really feel particularly strong about the notion of moving either way. You're used to a claustrophobic existence from your time in the shades, and are equally used to navigating unfamiliar situations and places. You don't have attachments to any physical objects (you own approximately two things; the puppet that you'd made with Dirk, and your phone), much less places, so you could really care less about the move. 

Dirk, however, is not you. 

You find him on the roof, curled into a pathetic looking heap on the cement with a bird pecking at his hair. Your presence causes it to startle and take off, and its absence causes Dirk to look back, scraping his cheek against concrete as he looks to see who's come to bother him. 

He looks almost relieved to find that it's you. You can't imagine any past-you believing that statement. 

"So what's the problem?" you ask, sitting cross legged on the ground near his head. "I know that there is one." 

It's a testament to how far he's managed to work himself up that he doesn't even try to bullshit you and act like he's totally cool with all the shit that's happening. He just rolls onto his back in order to free up his arms to sign at you. 

[We shouldn't go with them] he tells you, and you do a poor job of feigning surprise at this sentiment. 

"Oh shit, really? Well, one of us should go tell the others. They've been packing shit up for a while now." 

[Stop] he signs flatly, and you bite back the urge to sigh dramatically. Despite your theatrics, you do kind of genuinely want to help. [We], his hands freeze mid-sign, and you watch him struggle silently with whatever thoughts he's having. [No] he signs suddenly. [Not we. Me. I. I shouldn't go with them.]

"What makes you say that?" 

[I'm a bad person. Everything I fucking touch turns to shit. I ruin people. They'll get ruined because I moved in with them.]

You cannot say that you didn't see this coming. 

Dirk had never exactly had 'stable footing' in any of his relationships, not even with you when you were still a debatable copy of him. You suppose that's probably a natural holdover from the fact that Dirk hadn't spoken to another human being until he was almost eleven years old. It seems pretty natural to you that he would launch himself into a domineering protector tole to ensure that he never lost any of them and have to go back to complete solitude, and it even seems natural that his utter lack of comprehension when it comes to boundaries would cause an issue in that regard. 

At any rate, Dirk's relationships were never going to be typical, much less Movie Typical, which meant that he was setting himself up for failure by assuming that they would manage to measure up. 

He's also setting himself up for failure by acting like he was the only one to blame for what went wrong, hauling it all up on his shoulders, labeling himself a toxic person, and pulling back into a life of utter solitude. 

"No one here is ruined," you say, instead of any of those things, because breaking out the big argument against Dirk's claim is only asking for an immediate denial and shut down.

He laughs, wheezy and utterly humorless. [Everyone here is ruined. Dave and Dove, I did that. You too. I ruined you.] 

"I'm choosing to take offense to that," you reply. "I don't consider myself ruined at all, much less ruined by you. And didn't you and Dave already talk about this? About assuming responsibility for people who technically aren't you." 

[If I don't accept responsibility, that will only make it easier for me to become that] Dirk replies, an angry noise crawling up his throat as he signs. [If I let myself brush it all off, I'll only get worse.] 

You admire Dirk's determination to change, you really do. You just wish that he was being less of a stubborn idiot about the whole thing. 

"Do you think Roxy would be happy if you chose to stay behind?" 

He falters, and then steels himself and firmly signs [Not about making her happy. About keeping her safe.]

You sigh, rocking forward to bury your face in your hands. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?" you say, peering over the heels of your hands to meet his half-hearted glare with a blank stare of your own. You lean back and stare at the clouds through your vaguely red tinted shades. You are now in the very delicate situation of being the one to convince Dirk not to do something stupid that will wind up hurting him, Roxy, Dave, and probably even you. 

"Look," you start finally, tilting your head to look at him. "There's an easy solution to all of this that doesn't leave you here to starve to death in an empty apartment. You're worried about hurting them somehow, easy to take care of. Checks and Balances. I'll watch you. If you're being overbearing or controlling, I'll let you know. And," you interrupt when you see his hands begin to move, "you'll do the same for me. You let me know if I'm pushing boundaries and buttons. We'll keep each other under control, and it will work out fine. Not perfectly, but fine." 

He hesitates long enough that you know you've won without him even having to admit it. 

Sure enough, the next thing he signs is [Fine], followed quickly by a [I'm trusting you]. 

"I know," you reply, heaving yourself to your feet and nearly overbalancing before you're able to get it under control. You are the master of stabilization, it is you. "I'm not going to fuck you over on this, they're my friends too." 

[They're my friends too] your hands echo. 

He looks at you steadily, and nods. Part of you, a small part of you that you won't admit to, sighs in relief at knowing that he'll help keep you from fucking all of that up. That same part of you is part of why you'll do the exact same thing for him. 

"By the way," you pause to say as you head back towards the stairs. You wait until he looks up at you to continue, "Quit fucking eating dairy. You're lactose intolerant," and then you continue on your way. 

Let it never be said that you can't hold up your end of the bargain with honesty. 

Chapter Text

You didn't have much of an issue with the idea of moving to the Lalonde's place. 

Not until the matter of you packing up your shit came to slap you in the face like a scorned ex. 

In all honesty, you haven't seen the bulk of this junk in a long ass time. You'd dropped by your room for some well overdue reminiscing at some point, but hadn't stuck around for too long and definitely hadn't spent time actually thinking about all of the stuff that you had here.

Now you're trying to shove as much of it as you can into some fucking suitcases that Rose bought and you're at a bit of a loss. 

Do you want to bring your taxonomy shit? Your photography shit? Your music gear? You'd never really thought about the number of hobbies that you managed to maintain until it came down to trying to pick the ones that you actually want to bring with you and continue. 

You'd kept making music during your time on the meteor, but had been able to continue doing so without the use of the bulk of your gear. Technically it'd be one of the hardest things to bring with you, just because of its size and general fragility, and if you can continue without it then aren't you better off just leaving it? 

Your taxonomy shit would also prove difficult to move due to fragility. Plus, you think that you've spent enough time around death and dead shit without purposefully exposing yourself to more of it. (Although, you can't help but consider, it would be easier to get a hold of animals in a forest since you'd be able to gather them without looking like an asshole stealing roadkill off of the side of the street anymore). 

You don't have any intention of bringing any of your old photographs with you, but you think that bringing your camera would be fun. You don't know for sure if you'd actually wind up using it, but for something as easy to pack as that, you might as well. 

So ultimately, it's the music gear that's holding you up. Even if you opted to bring it, it sure as shit wouldn't fit into any of these suitcases, and you're also not psyched at the idea of leaving it to the mercy of a bunch of probably underpaid airport employees.

You stare down at the table blankly. You haven't even used it since you'd been dropped back in here, and it's been so long that you're not even sure if you still know how to use it. You have gotten good at just using the computer for these things; you might even be better off in the long run just keeping at that instead of trying to relearn this analogue shit. 

"You could always mail the tables to yourself instead of trying to pack them," Rose says from behind you, and you try not to flail in surprise at her sudden appearance. If there's going to be any downsides of moving, it's going to be having to deal with that horseshit all over again. 

"Yeah," you agree once you've gotten over your surprise and actually process what she'd said. "I'm kind of doubting that I even want to use it anymore. It's been years." 

She shrugs, "Up to you." 

It is. 

Except, you realize suddenly, it isn't entirely. 

"Oh fuck," you say out loud. "This shit is Dove's too."

It had been easy to consider what you'd wanted to bring and what you'd wanted to leave, but it's not like all of this shit is entirely yours anymore. You're going to have to worry about whether he wants to keep something you had been planning on ditching, or whether he wants to keep something that you had also wanted to keep. It's been easy to avoid thinking about it since he's been avoiding the apartment like it's a quarantine site for plague carriers, but with the move, it's going to be something that the two of you are going to have to talk about. 

"Is he even here right now?" you ask, turning back to look at Rose, who shakes her head. You can't say that you hadn't been anticipating that answer. "Man, I was bringing all of our clothes because the four of us are still sharing, but I hadn't even thought about the other stuff." 

"Maybe this will be an opportunity for the two of you to finally talk to each other," Rose replies pointedly, and you wince. 

"It's not like I want to have a shitty relationship with the guy," you say defensively. "It just keeps not working out." 

"Well, you don't have to be best friends with him," Rose retorts. "Me and Jasprose barely get along, but at least we can tolerate each other's presences. Just have a civil conversation about something, and then keep on doing that. It doesn't have to get any closer to that if you two don't want it to." 

You suppose that she has a point, but you get the feeling it's not going to be that easy. 

Nothing ever really is. 

Chapter Text

Your experience with more conventional forms of group travel are limited, but you feel like it really shouldn't be this complicated. 

It's four in the morning, the van you'd called is in the apartment's parking lot waiting for you, and for some reason, you're still not through the door yet. 

"We really should be leaving," you call again, for what feels like the fifth time. You're not even the oldest one here, why are you the one that got elected to be in charge of this clusterfuck. (Probably because it was your idea in the first place. That might have something to do with it.) 

"Just give me a fucking second," Dave shouts back, his voice bouncing through the eerily empty apartment from the back room. 

You sigh heavily through your nose, and cast a glance back on everyone else so that you can check and make sure that everything else has been handled. 

Dove and Jasprose are already waiting in the hallway for the elevator, some of the bags balanced precariously on their mobility devices. Dirk, Roxy, and Hal are still hovering in the doorway, with Dirk coiled tighter than a spring, looking jittery and uncertain as he fists one of his hands in the material of Roxy's sweatshirts. 

After Hal had divulged the fact that they were autistic, it became easier to understand Dirk's perspective and easier to piece together ways to make the travel easier, but despite your best efforts, he still doesn't seem assured. The noise cancelling earmuffs he's wearing seems to help, and you're hoping that the fact that you're all traveling as a group will help to ease the anxiety. Roxy keeps reminding him that once they're at the house, he won't have to go out again, and Hal keeps himself at Dirk's back, protecting it. 

"Dave!" you snap, and he finally rounds the corner and makes his way to the front door. 

"Chill out! I'm coming, I just had to find something," he says, shaking the hand that is tucked into his hoodie pocket, and coming to stand in front of Dirk. 

Dirk regards him in a manner that reminds you of a cornered animal. 

"I thought about getting you new ones," Dave says, apropos of nothing. "But I figured you might appreciate this more," and then he pulls out Dirk's shades and holds them out for the other to take. 

You had known about his plans to get the sunglasses fixed, and had noticed when Dirk had stopped wearing them a few days ago, but you can't help but wish that Dave had picked a better time to give them back. Although, you also can't help but notice the way the tension falls out of Dirk's shoulders, to be replaced by shock and awe. 

And alright, it's also sort of sweet. But it would be sweeter if you weren't already running late. 

[Fixed?] Dirk fingerspells, his non-signing hand hovering over the shades in Dave's hands like he's afraid to touch them. 

"Yeah, man. Same pair and everything, there's a place a few streets down that does this sort of thing," he says it casually, like he hadn't spent nearly an hour on his phone in the middle of the night looking for a place to take them. You'd laugh, but you don't want to ruin the moment. 

Hal nudges Dirk's side with his elbow, and Dirk finally reaches out and takes the shades, slipping them on his face and glancing around the room almost dazedly. 

"They good?" Dave asks, shoving his hand into his pocket and feigning a relaxed casualness that his nervous chewing on his lip negates. 

It takes Dirk a moment to respond, but when he does it's with a breathless sounding, "Perfect," in his odd, garbled voice. 

Roxy squeals happily, tugging on Dirk's shoulder to get a better look at them and cheerfully announcing that they look good as new, and then lurching forward to tug Dave into an impromptu group hug. You watch with no shortage of amusement as Dave lets out a yelp of surprise, and is left still trying to regain his footing when Roxy suddenly lets him go and starts pulling Dirk and Hal to the stairwell. 

"What took you so long?" you ask, lingering in the doorway to pick up the rest of the bags and make sure that the door is locked and that you have all of the keys so that they can be returned to the apartment's office. 

"Had to find them," he replies casually, but you don't miss the way he averts his eyes before answering, and pointedly starts hitting the button for the elevator. 

You feel a smug grin spreading across your face. "You were too embarrassed to come out and give them to him, weren't you?" 

"Oh my god, shut the hell up," he spits, reaching out to mash the Down button harder, as if pressing it a number of times will make it move faster. 

Your amusement from earlier comes back with a vengeance, and this time you let yourself laugh as Dave flushes and buries his face into the collar of his hoodie. 

"You're such a bitch," he tells you as you walk into the elevator together, and you laugh again. 

"Don't be so embarrassed," you say, mock wiping tears from your eyes just to get on his nerves. "You did a good job." 

He shakes his head like he doesn't believe you, but you don't miss the little pleased smirk on his face as he leans forward to press the ground floor button. 

You smile to yourself in quiet disbelief. Your brothers are absolutely ridiculous. 

Chapter Text

Your confidence in your ability to make it through this place is dwindling quickly.

You had been able to make it through the taxi ride to the airport, and you had been able to get through checking the baggage, and you’ve even managed to make it through the line to security.

Now you’re at security, and you’re ready to accept death whenever it comes to take you.

“I don’t understand what you’re telling me,” you repeat for what feels like the fourth time, still choking clumsily on the words. The woman you’re talking to makes the same face that she’s pulled the last four times you’ve spoken. You mimic it back at her. She doesn’t seem amused.

Rose huffs out an irritated breath from where she’s just finished arguing with a different agent about Dove’s wheelchair, seeming to realize that her time for arguing is not yet through. “Explain to me what the problem seems to be,” she demands, coming as close as she can to the agent without having to redo the entire procedure.

You don’t understand what’s going wrong. You’d emptied out your pockets and taken off your shades, and taken off your hoodie and your shoes, and fucking everything else that Roxy had told you to do. You’d put all your shit in the box and sent it through the x-ray terminal thing, and you’d gone through the larger x-ray for people, and you’d stood like they’d told you to, and the agents are still glaring at you like you’re doing something wrong.

"We're picking up metal," the woman says, gesturing to the little screen that she's been staring at and allowing Rose a closer look. "We can't figure out where it's coming from, and he isn't cooperating, so you're going to need to stay here until we figure it out." She gestures at you this time, and you make an affronted noise in your throat. You'd told her that you didn't understand what she was asking you, how is this your fault?

Rose's face twists into something that looks uncomfortable as she looks at whatever is on the screen, and then she schools her features, turns to you, and says, "Dirk, lift up your shirt." 

You'd remove all of your clothing right here if it meant that you got through this shitfest faster. You pull up your shirt, and the agent makes an uncomfortable noise in her throat as Rose gestures to something on your stomach. 

You glance down to see what they're pointing at. It's a thick, knotted scar just below your ribcage, from a very close call with an imperial droid. One of your first fights, from when you'd been ten years old and apparently large enough to count as human on scans. 

You understand suddenly what the problem is. Shrapnel. You had been inexperienced and terrified when dealing with this injury, and many sources had said that it was better to leave shrapnel alone instead of trying to dig it out, especially when you weren't some kind of medical professional in a hospital setting. So, you'd just left it. It's not a particularly sharp piece of metal, and the injury doesn't particularly bother you anymore, and so you hadn't through much of it. 

But metal is metal, and that's what's been setting off these sensors. 

"It's from a car accident when we were younger," Rose lies swiftly. "Will this be good enough or are you going to have to cut him open to remove it?" 

You're not sure if that's an actual option, but judging by the way the woman reacts and quickly ushers you through the x-ray to allow you to gather your things and be on your way, it's not.

"Sorry," Rose says when you're sitting on a nearby bench and struggling to get your shoes tied. "There was probably a more tactful way to deal with that situation, but I've found it's sometimes better to require people to do things like this in public." 

[It's fine] you sign, since she's been picking it up faster than the others have. 

"How are you holding up?"

You take a moment to think about the question. Your frustration with the TSA agents had temporarily overtaken your anxiety about being surrounded by people without any sort of weapon or defense. The crowds here are thinned out, but the sound of the PA systems and the noise from security are starting to dig at you a bit. 

You wobble your hand from side to side, a gesture for 'sort of' or 'maybe' that you'd picked up from Dave. 

She nods. "You can put the headphones back on if you want," she tells you. "We won't have to talk to anyone else, and the only thing we'll need to listen for will be the boarding time, but there's enough of us that you shouldn't have to worry about it." 

You put them back on gratefully. You and Dave had spent some time investigating new-old music that you'd enjoy, but you found that the sound of it just adds to the stress of being out in public. The headphones that Rose had gotten for you don't do anything except for block noise out, and they're surprisingly effective for something so low-tech, though they are mildly uncomfortable. It's definitely worth the aching sensation of them squeezing your head in exchange for not having to listen to all of the people around you. 

You, Rose, and Dove meet up with the others at the gate, where Roxy pools in your lap again and starts babbling about how she and Rose had to board separately on their flight here, loud enough that you can hear her through the earmuffs. You tolerate it only because it's Roxy. 

You and your entourage garner a few stares from other passengers just by the merit of your unusual behavior and appearances. You, Dave, Dove, and Hal with your sunglasses, and you with your headphones, Roxy with her thick white hair, Dove and Jasprose with their wheelchairs, and Rose, who catches other people's attention just by being the most normal of the seven. 

The fact that you sway side to side where you sit, with Roxy gesturing broadly where she sits in your lap, Hal bouncing clumsily where he stands (apparently too antsy to sit), Dave having wandered away in order to record the sound of a blown out light fixture, and Dove and Jasprose talking back and forth rapidly about some movie (and Rose, sitting primly in her seat with a book in her lap), doesn't help with the staring either. 

You ignore the way it makes your skin crawl and focus on Roxy instead, reminding yourself that once you're on the plane other people won't be able to look at you so easily, and once that's done, you'll be done with people. At this point, you're hoping that you'll be able to be done with people forever, though that doesn't seem likely (or 'healthy', according to Rose).

Despite your best efforts, you're shaking slightly and your stomach is cramping by the time the man at the gate starts to call for people to board. 

Rose and Roxy had been able to ensure that the seven of you would be able to board all together, considering the two wheelchairs, and you walk in the middle of the Strilonde train, watching Dave to see what you're supposed to do and feeling as comfortable as you're going to get out in public with Roxy and Hal guarding your back. 

Dove and Jasprose get helped into one of the front aisles, and Hal squeezes into the row behind them, and you follow, settling into the middle seat and taking stock of the things in the little pouch in front of you while Roxy sits on your right. Dave and Rose sit across the aisle from the three of you, with Rose in the middle and Dave in the aisle. 

Your next problem arises very quickly. Namely, the fact that your stomach is refusing to settle and that there's no way in hell you're going to attempt to elbow your way past the flood of people crammed into that tiny walk-space to try to get to the bathroom. 

The idea of vomiting into this tiny paper bag provided to you by the airline is no more appealing, unfortunately. 

Hal, who has been keeping an intense eye on you ever since you'd left the apartment for reasons you haven't quite been able to work out yet, tilts forward to get a better look at you and says, "You're going to be sick, aren't you?" 

You nod, swallowing a mouthful of saliva a bit convulsively, and catching Dave's attention. 

"Fuck," Dave bites out, reaching across the aisle (ignoring the presence of a now severely irritated looking man) to jostle Roxy's arm to jolt her out of the concerned stare she's fixing you with. "Roxy, make a path," but it's too late. 

You're not about to puke into your lap and have to deal with that for the rest of the flight, so you fumble with the stupid small bag and just barely manage to get it open in time. 

Walking traffic around you stops as everyone pauses in their quest for a seat to stare at the kid who's already sick. You gasp a bit desperately after your airway has cleared, and then find that you're having an increasingly difficult time catching your breath. Your stomach twists uncomfortably again. Can't they just fuck off?

“Alright, let’s move along,” a feminine voice says, not one that you recognize. A few of the people jerk forward as if they’ve been shoved lightly before continuing, craning their necks slightly to watch you slump miserably into your seat. A flight attendant enters your field of vision, her face pulling down when she sees the state that you’re in. “Oof, that’s always the worst,” she says, presumably talking about your being violently ill. “I can take that for you, if you’re done with it,” she continues, presumably talking about the bag of your vomit.

You try not to think about how gross this is as you pass it over with a mumbled apology. “Oh, don’t worry, honey,” she chirps, “you’re not the first person to do this and you won’t be the last, at least you got it all in the bag, you’d be surprised at how many people don’t.”

That’s gross, if slightly relieving to hear. You don’t want to think about how many people would be staring at you if you’d gotten vomit all over yourself and the seats in front of you.

“Well, the worst is probably over,” Roxy offers unconvincingly as the flight attendant makes off with your bag. Dave passes you the one that was in front of him as a back up. You nod at him, and then turn to give Roxy a look.

Your ‘looks’ aren’t really as effective as they are for other people, considering you have approximately one facial expression: Blank. But considering how Roxy glances away with a little shrug, tucking her head down between her shoulders, you think she understood anyway. You bump her arm with your elbow to make it clear that you’re not really upset, just in case she did misunderstand.

The flight attendant returns with a very small cup of water, which you take gratefully and which Roxy coos over like it’s a small animal and not a plastic cup. You give it to her once you’re done with it.

“What do I want your trash for?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at you.

You attempt to pull the corners of your mouth into a flat line to convey your emotion at this. She laughs at your attempt. You don’t know if that means you didn’t pull it off, or that you did, it’s just not as effective as you thought it would be.

You sigh. Facial expressions are hard.

The flight attendant returns and takes the cup from Roxy. “We’re going to be taking off in about five minutes. You won’t be able to get up during take off, but once we even out and the seatbelt light comes on you’ll be able to use the bathroom if you need to.”

Having already emptied your stomach, you’re feeling moderately better. Goofing off with Roxy also helps. You don’t think that you’re going to be sick again, but you also don’t know how the movement of the plane is going to fuck with you. You nod at her regardless, and make note of where the bathroom is when she points it out to you, and actually raise your voice to thank her. If your voice sounds weird to her, she doesn’t show it.

Take-off is somehow more terrifying than dying. Maybe that says something about your priorities.

Chapter Text

You’d slept your way through the flight on the way to Texas, but you’re not sure that you’re going to get the same reprieve this time.

Dove, on the other hand, is already asleep, curled in his seat with his earbuds in and his head leaned up against the window.

You sigh. This would happen to you.

“Do you want to play with us?” Roxy asks, reaching through the gap in the seats to tap you on the shoulder.

You twist as much as you’re able to look through the gap and survey what she’s talking about. Her and Hal have Dirk’s tray pulled down and a set of cards balanced precariously on the slick surface.

“What is that?”

“Poker,” Hal informs you, regarding you vaguely suspiciously from behind his shades.

You regard him in much the same way. The two of you haven’t spoken to each other at all, not even in passing, while you were at the apartment. You’re not really sure what to think about him, but Roxy seems to like him so he can’t be that bad. Probably.

“Sure,” you relent, twisting around a little more to get as comfortable as you’re going to. “Just go easy on me, and explain the rules.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not very good,” Roxy tells you happily, gathering the cards back up and shuffling them clumsily by sliding chunks of cards into the deck at random. You poke your arm through the gap in the seats and take them, turning around to shuffle them properly in your lap before handing them back for her to deal out.

“Speak for yourself,” Hal says, “I was pretty good at this game.”

“Yeah, you were pretty good,” Roxy agrees. “That was when you were still a fancy computer boy, and before you had a face. You’re not very good at the poker face thing.”

“That’s not a thing,” he argues mulishly, taking the cards she hands him.

“Yes, it is,” you say, almost incredulously.

He narrows his eyes at you again. “I’m calling bullshit,” he tells you, and starts flipping through his cards.

You shoot Roxy a look. She shrugs at you, seemingly unbothered, and passes you your cards.

“Usually the computer did this for us, it’s fun. I like being the dealer,” she tells you. “You should show me the fancy shuffling you did later, when we’re not on the plane anymore. That will probably help us not be such garbage at this game next time.”

“I can imagine that that would be the case,” you say dryly, although technically speaking, you don’t actually know. Your experience with card games is rather limited, since you’d never really had friends growing up and your mother hadn’t bothered with things like that. But it seems to make sense to you.

You figure it’s probably fine. Technically, Roxy and Hal hadn’t had those things either.

What a group you all make.

Chapter Text

By the time they let you off the plane, you can tell that Dirk is done with this shit and is on his last nerve. Rose passes you the keys with its cute cat-shaped brass knuckles keychain and its numerous jangly keys, and she, Jasprose, Dave, and Hal head off to get the few pieces of baggage that the group of you had managed to bring back, while you lead the others through the airport and to the parking lot that you’d left the car in last time you were here.

Dirk takes a moment to poke around the car a bit, listening to the engine when you turn it on and playing around with the stuff on the dashboard before crawling into the backseat and curling up there, leaving you to figure out how the hell to pack Dove’s shit into the van.

“Look, just lift me up and put me in the fucking seat and then hand me the chair, and I can do it myself,” he says, possibly a little irritated after all of the manhandling he’s already been through today.

“Just te-tell me how to fold it up. I can figure it out, I’m not an idiot.” You are also, possibly, a little irritated after the long day.

He sighs.

“Just get me in the van.”

You haul him into the van, and go on to continue bickering with him about his chair, up until Dirk comes out of his self-imposed solitude to fold it up and toss it into the trunk while neither of you are paying attention.

Dove puts in the earbuds he’s had in pretty much all day, and you head to the front seat, chattering idly to yourself, getting reacquainted with the controls of the car while you wait for the others. By the time the others show up, you’re ready to get going and you barely have the patience for them to load up the trunk and get situated before you’re pulling out of the parking lot and heading home.

Dove and Jasprose both have to take actual seats in the back, and Dave squeezes into the seat between them. Dirk and Hal get relegated to sitting in the footwell of the backseat, since they’re the smallest out of everyone (besides you, but you’re driving). Dirk doesn’t seem to mind, but Hal spends the entire drive complaining about it. Rose sits in the passenger seat up front with you. She has to keep reminding you to watch the speed limit and Dave spends most of the ride with his hand clutching the little bar at the top of the car over Dove's head that he calls the “Oh shit Handle” when you ask him about it. You let out a bark of laughter that nearly causes you to go off road, and Dave mutters something about not speaking again until the car has some to a complete stop.

He’s the first one to stumble out of the car once you’ve parked in the driveway. You get out next, and practically drag Dirk out, tugging him along behind you so that you can give him a tour of the house and show him the kitchen.

He’s irritated about the manhandling, but you can see him perk up when you show him the pantry. Predictably, because it is Dirk, he immediately begins rustling through the food, taking count of serving sizes and the numbers. You can already tell that he’s making calculations for rationing, and you let him do it despite the fact that you already have.

After that you drag him through the rest of the house. You show him all of the rooms, and how to get onto the roof. You want to take him to explore outside the house too, but he’s starting to lag and pull on your hand more than actually following you, so you decide to give him a break and take him back to the living room where you’ve been staying. Almost immediately he’s curled himself up in your collection of blankets behind the couch and you’re pretty sure he goes back to sleep, although it’s a little hard to tell through the bundle.

Your partner gone, you wander around until you relocate Rose or Dave. You find them shuffling furniture out of one of the rooms that seems to have only held wizard statues of increasing sizes. You snag one of the smallest ones and tuck it into your pocket.

“Where’s Dirk?” Dave asks, leaning up against one of the statues that Rose is trying to move.

“Resting,” you tell him, trying not to smirk at the sight of Rose’s obvious frustration.

“When he’s feeling up to it he can go around and pick a room,” she says, giving up on her attempt. “I’m going to leave this thing in here with you,” she tells Dave.

“Why the fuck did y’all have so many of these goddamn things?” he asks.

They both turn to look at you. You blink and reorient yourself with the fact that an alternate you was the one making the financial decisions in this house.

You shrug. “I just like wizards,” you say, pulling the small statue out of your pocket and showing it off.

Rose sighs. “I always assumed you were mocking me,” she says. “She was mocking me,” she corrects a moment later.

You shrug again. “I mean, I dunno. She might have been. We’re not the same person. But, maybe also she just liked wizards.” You mimic the weird little mouth quirk expression Dirk had made at you on the plane earlier.

“You can also pick a room,” Rose says after a moment.

You cross your arms a little defensively. “I know,” you say, because you do. “I might pick one after Dirk does.” It helps that he’s sort of in the same position as you, having to pick a new place. Technically the whole house is yours, as much as it is Rose’s, but so many of these rooms have evidence of having been lived in, instead of just large storage closets for necessary supplies. It feels weird to move into a room like that, especially when you don’t really have anything of your own to make it actually feel like it belongs to you.

The living room just feels easier.

Chapter Text

It’s a bit of a hassle to get yourself up over the step at the front door, but once you’re actually in the house, you’re already able to tell that it’s definitely going to be a massive improvement over the apartment you’d had in Texas.

It’s a lot easier to move around, the rooms and the hallways are wider, meaning there’s more space between you and the walls and more space between you and the furniture. It’s going to take you a while to get used to sleeping in a new place, but you’re willing to put up with it if it means more mobility around the house.

“Told you,” Jasprose says smugly, looking down at you like she knows what you’re thinking about.

Though, technically she had told you. You scowl at her anyway.

You’re careful with moving your bags into one of the rooms down the first hallway, pausing briefly to wonder why the hell the Lalonde’s house had this many rooms to begin with. You’re pretty sure that if anything was going to break, it would have broken at some point during the flight, but you’re not willing to chance it.

It had been… weird, when Dave had cornered you suddenly and started asking about what things you’d wanted to take from the room, explained that he had separated the shit already and told you that you could move it however you wanted.

You almost felt sort of guilty. You know what your awkward desperation to get along with people looks like (although it’s still bizarre as hell to see it in front of you, on a separate person), and you also know how easily you take even the most casual dismissal as painful rejection.

You sigh, unzipping the suitcase to get at the preserved animals inside.

You’re going to have to start trying harder at this ‘getting along’ thing.

Chapter Text

Choosing a room is becoming more of an issue than it needs to be, and it’s all because no one is listening to you.

Dave and Dove were able to find a room with little to no issue, Roxy is still following Dirk around, waiting for him to pick a room, and since Dirk hasn’t picked one, neither have you.

[You don’t have to keep following me around] Dirk signs at you. You try to figure out if he’s irritated or not, but he doesn’t seem to be shifting around in agitation or anything, so you think you’re in the clear.

“I’m waiting for you to pick.”

[You don’t have to pick after me.]

“I’m going to share with you.”

He looks surprised at that. You’re not entirely sure if this is the best idea that you’ve ever had, especially considering the whole point of this move was so that the lot of you would be less cramped. You’re well aware of the fact that there are more than enough rooms in this house that you don’t have to share with anyone.

It’s just that you don’t particularly want your own room.

[Why?] Dirk signs finally, tilting his head to look at you curiously. You mimic the head movement and stare back. You shrug, but he seems unimpressed with the non-answer. You wish that you had managed to retain your ability to deflect the way you used to be able to.

You glance away and look towards the ceiling so that you don’t have to watch his face while you admit this. You sign it, even though your ASL is still horrendously clumsy, because you can’t bring yourself to verbalize this.

[Because I always have before.]

You may occasionally give Dirk a tremendous amount of shit for his inability to cope with changes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re exempt from that particular trait.

The circumstances are certainly different, considering you didn’t technically used to occupy a space in his room so much as you occupied space on his face, but the point remains unchanged. The only time you existed separately from Dirk, you were a part of that sprite, and that was such a clusterfuck of out of body experiences that you’re not thrilled to replicate any part of that situation. Even once you’d arrived here and were able to occupy the meat space like a normal human, you and Dirk both slept in the living room most nights.

As it turns out, you do not particularly enjoy being alone.

You finally risk a glance back at Dirk’s face to find him staring at you with a facial expression he usually reserves for Jane or Roxy.

“Okay,” he says aloud, and for once he doesn’t seem inclined to push you into elaborating more, and the two of you are able to move on.

The two of you wind up in a relatively small room on the second floor near the front of the house with a large window that faces outwards. You don’t doubt that Dirk’s decision to occupy this room had a lot to do with its advantageous outlook position.

Roxy winds up in the room just across the room from the two of you. She’s gathered up all of her blankets and makes a little pile in her closet after leaving you and Dirk with your own small supply of the ‘softest ones’ according to her. You’re inclined to agree, but the softness seems to bother you more than should be possible. Later that evening, you’re able to locate one that is considerably less plush and more tolerable to your skin.

There are no beds in the room, though there is a window seat that Dirk is quick to occupy, despite the fact that its smallness means that you’re better sized to fit it. You’ll let him wake up with the cramped muscles if that’s what he wants. You instead make a little pile of the extra blankets and pillows in the corner until you deem it comfortable. (You can’t shake the fact that this is almost definitely some kind of remnant from troll culture, and you try not to think about it. It’s comfortable. You don’t have to think about it past that.)

Chapter Text

It’s late, and you probably should be going to bed, especially considering the fact that almost everyone else has already.

It’s nice to have everyone together, and not be practically piled on top of one another to be so, but it’s a little… tenser, somehow.

You’re used to seeing your friends dying (you’re used to dying). You’ll have to forgive yourself if you’re a little paranoid about their safety.

So, you’re checking the house, checking up on them as you head up towards your own room, turning off the lights as you go. (You don’t have to worry about things like electricity bills, but that doesn’t mean that you need every light on in the house all the time either).

You can hear Jasprose and Dove talking to each other in Dove’s new room, still organizing his things and marking out locations for newer shelves. You linger in the hallway and listen to them joke around for a few moments, to assuage your anxieties without having to intrude. You leave the light in their hallway on as well.

Then you head up the stairs, trailing your fingers over the banister and keeping an ear out for any strange noises.

You’re glad that Roxy had finally chosen a room, and that she’s seemingly made herself comfortable in it, curled in an odd little nest in the closet (of all places), dead asleep. Your mouth quirks humorously at the display, but you also make a mental note concerning figuring out how on earth to get large furniture like beds shipped to a house in the middle of nowhere.

Dirk and Hal’s room is next. Hal is curled up in a nest not unlike Roxy’s on the floor (although his seems made primarily of towels? Which you’re not going to question). Dirk, on the other hand, is still very much awake, and his head swivels away from the window to stare at you with wide eyes as your head pokes in through the door.

“Just checking on everyone,” you whisper, and he nods, jerking his head to indicate that you can come in if you want. You step in a little, peering curiously around his shoulders to see outside the window that he had been looking through. “Can you even see anything out there?”

He shakes his head, seemingly unbothered by it. Without prompting, his hands come up to sign an explanation, although you do have to interrupt to ask him to fingerspell when he starts using signs you can’t recognize yet.

[Streetlights were okay, soft, but none in ocean. Dark is familiar.]

He then clicks the screen of his phone on to show you that he’s listening to the ocean playlist that you’d made for him, and you smile.

“I’m glad it’s helping,” you tell him, and he gives you a thumbs up. “Goodnight,” you say as you leave, and he waves.

Dave is the last person to check on before you retire to your own room for the night. You’re expecting it to be the same quick in-and-out that it had been with Roxy, but the moment you peer through the crack in the door, you halt.

Dave is asleep, and safe, but he’s sleeping on his side, facing the door, and his arm is hanging loosely off the side of the bed.

In his hand is a knife.

You had known that all of the Striders (excluding Hal) had seemed jittery at the prospect of not bringing a single weapon with them for this move. It had been unavoidable, considering the state of airport security, but also not something that you had thought of as particularly healthy in the first place.

You had known it wasn’t going to be an easy transition.

You can’t even figure out when Dave had time to look through the kitchen to find that thing in the first place.

There are a lot of things wrong here. The fact that Dave’s first instinct in a new location is to seek out a viable weapon, the fact that his pose doesn’t seem unnatural to him at all, the ease in which his unconscious body keeps a grip on the weapon, the fact that you know without a doubt that if you were to open the door he would be on his feet and ready to fight in an instant.

The fact that you know that these things are not a result of the Game.

But these are not necessarily new problems, and as unsettling and painful as it is to see, you’re not going to intervene, at least not tonight.

It’s late, and you are admittedly tired, and if the knife is going to make Dave feel safer tonight then you won’t try to take it from him.

But you know that it’s something you’re going to have to address eventually.

There are going to be a lot of things that you’re going to have to address eventually.

Chapter Text

The day after you move in, your first priority becomes exploring the forest surrounding the house. Rose had been right about it being easier to handle being outside when there was an utter lack of people around, although you do have to make sure to constrain your forages outside to a specific distance so that you can ensure that you won’t get lost. The ocean’s flatness made navigation easy, the huge trees, not so much.

Right now you’re taking a suggestion from Roxy, who’s given you a spool of brightly colored ribbon and tips from her own history in navigation. It’s a little difficult to decide on which trees to mark, but you’ve been doing a pretty good job of it, if you do say so yourself.

Up until you take a moment to notice how the sunlight bounces off the little reflective bits in the ribbon and promptly trip over a huge ass tree branch and fall ass backwards into the dirt.

There is no one around to see you, and that is the only upside to this situation.

Also, when you’re on the ground, you catch a glimpse of bright green eyes staring out at you from underneath a little bush.

You’ve never seen a cat in person before, but you’re pretty sure that’s the name of the little creature that you’re looking at right now.

You sort of wish that Roxy had come out with you now.

Animals are animals, though, right? Getting the attention of a cat can’t be that much different from getting the attention of a bird. It might even be easier. Roxy always made cats sound a lot friendlier and more social than birds.

You make a little rumbling trilling noise in your throat, extending your arm to the cat to let it investigate you. Despite the indignity, you stay in the dirt rather than trying to get up. Cats aren’t prey animals, but that doesn’t mean that it’s likely to trust you if you make yourself look bigger than it.

It sniffs your fingers cautiously, and you very carefully don’t let your fingers twitch when you feel the brush of its nose against your skin. You remain still even as the cat comes out from under the bush to get a better look at you. It’s dirty as shit, and looks as skinny as you. It’s got ratty looking long gray fur with patterns that might be darker stripes underneath all that grime. You also take note of its nicked left ear and odd number of legs.

When it gets clear of the bush, you grab it quickly before it can squirm away from you. It makes its displeasure very well known to you by letting out a very pissed off sounding yowl and scratching four neat lines up the inside of your arm.

You ignore it, tucking its hissing and spitting, flailing little body closer to your chest and following your ribbon trail back to the house. You’re pleased to see that it was as effective as you’d hoped.

The cat has made its anger quite clear by the time you actually get past the front door, and your shirt is going to need a serious wash and some pretty solid stitches to get it back into shape. You’re a bit tempted to simply drop the cat once you get the front door closed, but something tells you that if you let the little bastard go, you’re not going to be able to find it again.

Instead, you take the time to track down Roxy. Luckily for you, she’s perched on the counter in the kitchen, swinging her feet as she watches the timer on the oven tick down and texts animatedly with someone.

You would have made a noise to alert her to your presence, but the cat takes care of that for you, letting out another yowl of indignation at your handling.

Immediately, the phone and oven are forgotten in favor of her practically launching herself over the counter to get a good look at the little beast in your arms. “Oh my god!!! Look at that baby!!!” she cries, wrestling the cat from your grip to turn it over in her hands. You let it go happily.

Within half an hour the cat has been washed and fed and is now significantly more content with its situation than it had been when you’d had it. Maybe Roxy just thinks that cats are friendly because they like her. Or maybe you’re just not qualified to handle cats. It’s difficult to tell.

“I’m naming you Mutie Jr,” Roxy coos at the cat as she feeds it shredded slices of ‘ham’. “Technically with all of the time shenanigans, I think you might actually be the senior, but you’ll always be the junior in my heart.”

[Four eyes] you sign curiously, something that you had been thinking about since encountering the cat in the forest.

“Mutie had four eyes,” Roxy tells you, petting the cat’s forehead with her index finger, “but not every cat dows, that’s why he was ‘mutie’. Most cats have all four legs too, so this guy is a mutant in his own right.” She pauses, and then quickly flips the cat over to glance at its belly. “Yea, guy,” she confirms.

You wrinkle your nose at the cat’s invasion of privacy, though judging by the way it’s -he’s- licking her arm, he doesn’t actually care. You wonder where this affection was when you were carrying it out of the forest, and you indicate the scratches on your arm for both Roxy and the cat’s perusal. The cat bites your hand. You flick it in the head.

“Don’t be mean to him,” Roxy says admonishingly, baring her teeth in a mock defensive expression as she whisks the cat out of your reach and cuddles it close to her chest. It purrs happily at the contact.

[Birds are better] you inform them both, flipping the cat the bird to emphasize your point.

Roxy gasps and cover’s the cat’s eyes with her hand. “The vulgarity ,” she exclaims, voice 100% scandalized in the same way you remember from movies. “Cat’s eat birds, you know.”

[So do I] you reply. Judging by the way her whole body slumps, that was not the response she had been hoping for, although it is true and you both know it. Roxy, for whatever reason, wouldn’t eat cats, but you had absolutely no problem eating the birds (although you did refrain from eating the birds that you considered your friends. Maybe Roxy just considers all cats her friends. Knowing her, you’re probably right about that.)

Mutie Jr has apparently finally decided that he’s fed up with all the manhandling, and wiggles his way out of Roxy’s grip to land neatly on the floor with all three paws. You worry a bit about the integrity of his other joints if he’s going to continue pulling rad stunts like that one, and find yourself thinking about the specs of a prosthetic when you realize that 1) the cat hates you, and 2) you don’t have anywhere near the kind of supplies that you’d need even if you wanted to build the damn leg. You’re more disappointed than you’re willing to let on.

Rose enters the kitchen just as Mutie Jr bolts out of it, and she pauses in the doorway to blink uncomprehendingly at the space where the furry little bastard had just blurred past her.

You’d forgotten that this was her house too. Maybe she doesn’t like cats. Probably you should have asked or something.

“I suppose that it’s a good thing that my mother was a hoarder,” she comments almost idly. “We still have Jasper’s litter box in one of the bathroom’s around here.”

“What’s a litter box?” Roxy asks, and the way Rose’s face moves expresses “pain” so clearly that even you can see it.

“We’re going to get on that immediately,” she says forcefully.

Chapter Text

Since the computer has yet to be unpacked and set up, you're at a bit of a loss as to how to spend your time. You know that Dirk set out earlier to explore the wooded surroundings of the house, but you hadn't wanted to go with him when he'd left, and you don't want to go out and find him now. 

That being said, you're not sure what other options are there for you. 

You and Dove got along fairly well in the times when he was in the apartment, but ever since Jasprose appeared it became clear that he preferred their company, which is fine. Roxy would be another option, but she's busy in the kitchen and is talking to Jane, so you don't want to bother her. You're not sure where Rose is, but she's probably either with Dave or she's on her own, and either way you're not sure if you want to bother her. 

So, it's just you. 

Really, that's nothing new for you. If you're being honest, there was a significant portion of time that passed during the game where hardly anyone would bother to talk to you. You were the only pair of shades that Dirk had at the time, so he'd brought you along places, but he'd made a point of ignoring your messages, and so did everyone else. Honestly, you should be used to this. At least now no one is ignoring you intentionally, they're all just busy, so it really shouldn't even be that bad. 

You're fine. 

You aren't Dirk, who freaks the hell out every time he's left alone for too long. You don't need the presence of other people to assure you that nobody hates you and wishes that you were dead. That would be ridiculous. You've even called Dirk ridiculous for those thought patterns before, so there's really no way that you're falling into them now. 

After all, it's not like anybody's ever hated so much that they tried to kill you or anything. 

You hear Roxy shriek in delight from downstairs, and you flip onto your side and curl further into the blankets that you'd found yesterday. Part of you wants to go investigate, but part of you is afraid that you'll ruin it if you try to join in. 

Fantastic. You're really starting to sound like Dirk now. 

You'll get over it. It'll be fine. You're not Dirk, and you don't need the same things he does. You're not the same person, and you don't need to be anymore. (Your own voice echoes in the back of your head, "Because I am literally you, actively in the process of being in this situation." You shake your head to get rid of it and bury your face into the fabric beneath you.)

This isn't anxiety. This is boredom. You're just not used to being bored because it used to be easy to find things to do, hacking or reading or coding or whatever the fuck. You're fine. Absolutely fine. The fact that some part of your brain has registered the sensation of 'pain' coming from your hand doesn't mean anything at all. 

You glance down anyway, and realize that you've chewed straight through the skin on your fingers. 

Great. 

You're so frustrated that you could scream. You almost do, but that would bring someone else over to investigate and the last thing you want is to be seen like this. You bite down viciously on the inside of your mouth as if that could help defuse the tension curling under your skin, and barely resist spitting in disgust at the taste of metal in your mouth. Fuck. You're only making things worse, and you know it. You don't know any other way of doing it though. You're not used to these sensations; how else are you supposed to deal with them?

A dark streak of something squeezes through the gap in your door at a dead sprint, and you don't yelp in surprise at the sight of it, and there's no one around to prove otherwise. 

The whatever-the-hell pauses when it sees you, narrowing its little eyes suspiciously. You return the expression. You think it might be a cat? You've read about them because Roxy liked them, but you're pretty sure that they're bigger than this thing is. You're not great with quantifying size, because of your old size, but still, you're pretty sure that you read that they were more in the 3-foot size range.

When you don't move, it creeps closer and investigates you cautiously. You stick your hand out for its perusal because you're not sure what else to do with it. It sniffs your fingers curiously, and licks at the breaks in your skin, then butts its head against your palm. 

You stroke it clumsily. It lets out a little motor sound. 

"You're a weird little bastard," you tell it quietly, and it hums again. 

You kind of like it though. 

Chapter Text

It's been three days since you've gotten back to the house, and Dirk won't quit fucking staring at you. 

"Holy christ, what do you want?" you ask, halting your spinning wheel's motion to glare at him properly. The two of you haven't spoken much, and he's pretty skittish, so you'll admit to being a little surprised when he doesn't even flinch at the sound of your voice. 

He signs something at a rapid pace that you have no hope of following. You give him a look, and after a moment he seems to understand the problem. 

[Can I take it apart?] he signs, significantly slower this time. 

"Take what apart?" 

He gestures at the wheel. 

"Fuck no," you say, "This thing cost like, nine hundred dollars." 

He looks at you blankly, as if asking why the fuck he would care about that. You suppose that trying to get the guy who grew up in a post-apocalyptic ocean to understand the monetary value of things was a bit of a long shot. 

"It's hard to replace," you say instead. "They're expensive, and hard to find. If you break it, I won't be able to get a new one." 

He looks almost offended now. 

[I wouldn't break it] he protests. [I'm good at putting things back together.]

"There is absolutely no verifiable proof of your claims," you retort, setting the wheel spinning again and continuing to ply the new yarn you're planning on passing along to Rose. 

[I made Hal] he informs you. [And Lil Seb. Sawtooth. Squarewave.]

"I don't even know who those last three are," you say once he's finished painstakingly finger-spelling. 

He falters. You wonder if they somehow didn't make it through the game's seemingly random decision making process that chose who got to come back and who didn't. 

[More complicated tech than that] he finally decides to say. 

"That's not convincing either," you tell him. "This isn't tech; it's wood. You could be the best mechanic out there and I still wouldn't trust you to take this thing apart and put it together. Do a puzzle like a normal person." 

[What's a puzzle?]

You stop the wheel again. "Are you fucking with me?" you ask. You're having a hard time telling when they are and when they aren't. You'd spent nearly two minutes trying to explain to Hal how the moon landing was, in fact, a real thing before he'd finally burst into laughter and told you that he knew full well that humans had been to the moon. Now you don't trust either of them. Their nearly incomprehensible body language and facial expressions don't help you out either. 

Dirk shakes his head, and he seems genuinely baffled as you scrutinize him carefully, and you finally decide that he's probably telling the truth. 

If you find out he's fucking with you, you're going to kick his ass down the stairs. 

"Alright fine," you push the wheel out of the way gently, and pull your walker closer so that you can stand up. You don't miss the way Dirk's eyes track the movement of the wheel carefully, like he's getting ready to lunge for it the moment it's far enough away from you. "Come with me." 

He follows you reluctantly to the closet under the stairs where your mother stored all of the games and toys that she'd gotten for you in fits of drunken impulsiveness that you'd never cared for enough to touch. It takes a moment of shuffling, and forcing Dirk to help you since you can't lift boxes and stand simultaneously, before you're able to find some of your old puzzles. You shove the box into his hand with little fanfare, and lead him back into the dining room to set it up on the opposite end of the table from you. 

As you're explaining how the pieces fit together, Dirk looks around you and waves someone over. You glance over your shoulder to see Hal approaching, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

[Bet I can put it together faster than you] Dirk signs. 

"Bullshit," Hal retorts, yanking a chair back and immediately beginning to dig through the pile to find pieces that match. 

At the sight of barely scabbed over wounds on Hal's hands and fingers, you pause momentarily, and wind up sharing a meaningful look with Dirk. He shrugs, smiles a little, and then elbows Hal's hand out of the way to get to a piece before he can. 

You shake your head a little, and head back to your side of the table to continue on with your yarn, tuning out the sound of Dirk and Hal's quiet argument as you go. 

Your new brothers are weird as hell. 

Chapter Text

You were never really a fan of spending time in the outdoors, although you do have to admit that Rose was right in saying that it's a bit more comfortable outside without the constant flow of noise and people around you at all times. As such, you're a bit more comfortable than you would have been in Houston accompanying Dirk on some of his expeditions to the forest. 

The contrast between him now and him back at the apartment is enormous, and you're pretty relieved that he had agreed to this plan in the first place. Outdoors definitely seems a bit more 'his element', and you're glad that he's able to enjoy it without flipping shit. 

But, him in the forest is absolutely nothing compared to him when he finds the lake. 

You're not even sure if Rose had known about this place, judging by how far away it is from the house. Judging by Dirk's reaction to it, he also hadn't known it was there until the two of you stumbled upon it. 

The moment he'd laid eyes on it, he had burst into a flurry of excited movement and noises, tugging impatiently on your shirt before giving up and running there himself. He'd halted at the edge of the water long enough to sniff it curiously (you can't even imagine what the hell he's sniffing around for), and before you can ask him 'what the fuck' he's stripped all of his clothes off into a neat pile in the grass, and has dived in faster than you can say 'water based parasites'. 

"Holy shit, dude," you shout into the void he's left behind, because like hell are you about to hop in there after him. That's some seriously suspicious shit, and you're not about to make yourself vulnerable to the fucking leech population in this creepy huge ass lake in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. 

Dirk has surprising lung capacity (maybe not so surprising, all things considered), and you're starting to wonder if maybe he just went ahead and fucking drowned himself right in front of you when he suddenly surfaces again, with a fucking fish clamped firmly between his teeth, completely undisturbed as it flaps wildly in a futile attempt to free itself from Dirk's jaws. 

"What the fuck!?" you don't screech, because that's pushing things, but you do say it very loudly and forcefully. 

Dirk signs something back at you, that you don't understand because you don't know sign language well enough to decipher what he's signed yet, and you patiently wait for him to emerge from the water and deposit his fucking fish that he caught with his damn teeth like some kind of fucking dolphin or some shit on the ground a suitable distance from the water's edge. He wipes the fish blood from his chin with far too much casual cool, and makes some kind of pitchy throat noise that you think is meant to convey excitement. 

"There's fish in there," is what he tells you once he's gotten a better grasp on actual words. 

You blink at him in mild disbelief from behind your shades. "Yeah, no shit," you reply, gesturing at the weakly gasping fish at your feet.

Fuck, that thing is kind of making you uncomfortable, you didn't know that fish could live this long out of the water. Should you like, step on it or something, put it out of its misery? Dirk probably caught this thing with the intent of eating it later, so maybe stepping on it isn't the best course of action. It's just staring at you though. Goddamn. You can almost maybe see where vegans are coming from. 

You finally manage to pull your gaze away from the fish in time to see Dirk making a beeline for the water again. 

You get the feeling that you're going to be stuck standing here for a while.  

Chapter Text

Most of your rooms still lack the most basic amounts of furniture, but at least you won't be running out of fish anytime soon. 

You had been happy about both Dirk and Dave's spending time outside, but you still hadn't managed to anticipate them stumbling upon a lake with a rather large fish population. You also hadn't anticipated them returning to the house with a heft load of said fish. 

You manage to hold Dirk off long enough to at least google the fish to confirm its edibility (it's a bass, apparently), and then he's off to the kitchen to prepare it. 

"Where did he even find them?" you ask Dave, concern welling in your chest a bit as you examine several guides on the safe eating of fish. 

Dave shrugs, "There was a lake," he says, spreading his hands out in front of him as to re-express the fact that he doesn't actually know. "The moment he saw it he hopped right in. Didn't even bother with any sort of... anything? He caught those things with his teeth." 

"Hell yes, water baby!" Roxy crows from the kitchen, loud enough to interrupt your conversation. "Mutie is gonna love this shit!" 

"Water baby," Dave repeats, in a slightly dazed sounding deadpan. "Sounds better than what I was thinking." 

"What were you thinking?" 

"Feral dolphin man." 

You try to adequately express the emotion this phrase causes you via facial expression. "Yes, 'water baby' certainly does seem like a step up." 

There is a sudden resounding crash from the kitchen. 

"Aren't they supposed to be older than us?" Dave grumbles, already heading off to investigate. 

What you find is Roxy and Dirk in the middle of a strife that seems to have been caused by Mutie stealing some of the spoils that Dirk had brought back. In the scuffle, the cat has gotten away with its stolen catch and is happily eating the raw meat and watching the chaos that he's caused.

You clear your throat pointedly and manage to capture Dirk's attention long enough to point out the cat. He bird-squawks at it loudly to startle it into running, (thankfully) leaving the fish behind. 

"Don't be mean to him," Roxy chitters, slapping his shoulder lightly enough to make it clear that she's joking, but hard enough to make it clear that she's sort of not. Dirk signs something to her and grins sloppily at her ensuing animalistic growl of mock-outrage. 

From a purely observational point of view, watching them communicate is utterly fascinating. From a more subjective point of view, it's sort of sad. 

"Are you planning on cooking it all tonight, or are you going to store some of it?" you ask, watching distastefully as Dirk picks up the fish the cat hd been eating and drops it onto the pan on the stove without even pausing to think about cleaning it. 

He blinks at you. [Store it?] he asks finally. 

"The fridge would keep the meat from spoiling as quickly," you tell him. "Did you not have one?" 

He shrugs, [I did. Busted it down for spare parts.]

That figures. 

Chapter Text

Making the decision to try harder to get along with other people and actually Getting Along with other people are turning out to be two different things, and you're not sure why you were surprised.

It's not like you've ever been particularly good with people. Before the game, your only friends were three people you met in random chat rooms online. You hadn't been able to make friends in real life if someone paid you to make them.

Part of it had been because you didn't want to have to worry about people asking questions that you didn't know how to answer. Like 'Why are you bleeding?' and 'Where did those cuts and bruises come from?'. Most of it was just because your cool kid act hadn't even begun to touch your social anxiety.

The act is dropped now, but you're just as socially incompetent as you've always been.

"You're not going to make any progress in here," Jasprose tells you pointedly one day, freeing up one of her hands to gesture at your room.

You know that she's right. It's not even like you've been doing anything in here, except for arranging and rearranging the few possessions that you'd brought with you. Even walking around the city had been more entertaining than this. But your options are limited now.

You just... Don't know what to do. You feel like it should be easier to get along with yourself than anyone else (you'd gotten along with other you's fine before you'd realized that your timeline was doomed). Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.

That seems pretty par for the course.

So, when Dave knocks on your door one afternoon, it's actually a bit of a surprise.

"Is it cool if I come in?" he asks through the door, and you grunt out an affirmation as you shift from your bed into your chair.

Dave walks in with anxiety poorly disguised as relaxed carelessness and a plastic bag.

"What is that?" you ask, rolling a little closer but trying to keep your distance.

Dave shakes the bag, and you can hear the heavy weight inside of it shift. "Dirk and I went out earlier, and we found this raccoon. It's been dead a while, I figured you could keep the bones. If you want. If not I've got to put this shit back out there because it smells like shit."

"No shit," you respond dryly, but you move close enough to take the bag from Dave and give it a once over. Most of it is already decayed, and there are some lingering bugs, but it won't actually be that hard to clean. You don't have any raccoon skeletons, since they're pretty hard to come by where you live, and so it'll be a neat addition to your collection.

Dave is still hovering nervously in the doorway, like he isn't sure if he should stick around or leave.

You open your mouth to thank him, because even you aren't that incompetent, when you hesitate.

This could be an in.

"Thanks," you say, and then, slower and more hesitantly, "Do you want to help?"

Dave actually does a double take.

"What?" he asks, voice blank enough that you're starting to regret offering.

"Do you want to help," you repeat. "With the raccoon." You shrug, "You don't have to if you don't want to, but..." you trail off, not sure how to finish your statement.

It takes Dave a second to respond, and you're getting ready to plan your upcoming suicide when he grins and the tension in his shoulders loosens.

"Fuck yeah, I'll help," he says. "Let's do this shit."

You manage to smile back. "Let's make it happen, then."

Chapter Text

"I don't know if this is quite what I was expecting when you said you were going to play with the cat," Rose says, tone dry. 

You crouched on all fours on the carpet, entangled in an intense game of keep-away with Mutie Jr. The two of you are fighting over a ball of scrap yarn that Rose had given you when you'd asked earlier. 

You sit back on your knees, letting Mutie snag the ball with a claw and pounce away with it. "How else was I going to do it?" you ask, head tilted curiously. Your old cats all used to play like this, but maybe cats in the early 21st century play differently. 

Rose shoots a look over at Dirk, who has been watching you and Mutie from his crouched position on the back of the sofa. It takes Dirk a moment to realize she's even looking at him, and then only gives her a blank-confused look in return, clearly not understanding what Rose wants from him. 

Rose sighs. "Never mind," she says, "Ignore me. As long as you're having fun, do whatever you want." 

You are having fun, so you give her a smile and then throw yourself forward, snatching the ball away from Mutie's paws and sweeping it towards yourself. You watch Mutie's ears twitch around as he searches for an opening, but before he can make his move, you bat the ball towards Dirk. 

Dirk has been wiggling in place for a while now, clearly wanting to join in but being held back by his and Mutie's mutual distaste for one another. Maybe one day they'll warm up to each other, or maybe one day a bird will follow Dirk home and then they can play together. Either way, at least for now, you're able to include him in this way. 

Mutie sits at the bottom of the couch, tail waving back and forth slowly as he debates going after the ball in Dirk's hands. Dirk teases it in Mutie's field of vision for a moment, takes a moment to re-roll the ends back up, and then throws it full force across the room. 

You and Mutie bolt after it, Mutie purring furiously as he runs. 

You're pretty sure that there's nothing about your current situation that could possibly be improved. 

Chapter Text

You have been living at the Lalonde's house for approximately two weeks when the universe decides to remind you that it will never stop fucking around with surprises. 

You're jolted out of your foray into Animal Planet documentaries by a loud noise that you eventually place as the front doorbell. It takes you a moment after connecting this sound to its source to register the fact that it means that there is a person at the door that you now have to react to. You and Roxy share an equally uncertain look before making your way down the hall. 

Your experience with other humans is still limited, so you're not quite sure what to expect on the other side of the door. Regardless of what you were expecting, the idea of it being John Egbert, Jane Crocker, Lil Seb, and Dad Crocker (Dad Egbert?) in the flesh, standing on your porch, had never even begun to cross your mind. 

John, Jane, and Seb break out into a clearly coordinated shout/gesture combination (minus the shout on Seb's part). You shut the door in their faces. 

It isn't until you're up the stairs to go hide in your room that it registers that that probably hadn't been the most 'socially acceptable' course of action that you could have taken, but Roxy is down there squealing excitedly for you, so you're pretty sure that it can be excused this one time as long as you don't make a habit of closing the door on surprise visitors. 

You not so subtly hope that you'll be unable to form the habit due to there being a lack of surprise visitors in your future. 

Hal barely looks up at your arrival, until you wave your hand in his field of vision to tell him that Lil Seb is downstairs, and then he takes off faster than you've seen him move in a while. 

You aren’t displeased per se about their arrival. You’re kind of actually a bit excited about seeing Jane, especially considering she is neither fucked up out of her mind on Trickster bullshit or mind controlling tiaras. You probably wouldn’t be upset at all if any one of them had decided to give you some kind of heads up in regard to their decision to fly across the sizable United States portion of the North American continent to get from Washington to New York.

You can hear a commotion down the hall that presumably marks the point in time where Egbert managed to find Dave’s location. Thankfully, your room is given a wide berth.

You try to keep your mind off of the commotion downstairs by settling down on the floor, rocking back and forth as you dismantle and reassemble an alarm clock that you’d found in one of the drawers in a bathroom. You still don’t have much in terms of tools, but you’re able to make do with the kit of stupidly small screwdrivers that you’d found in a cabinet in the kitchen.

You complete this ritual about four times before you decide that you feel enough like a human being to tread downstairs and face the music.

You pass by Dave’s room where you can hear him and John talking loudly. You don’t know John well enough to want to interrupt them in order to greet him, you’re more interested in locating Jane. If you’re lucky, she’ll be with Roxy and you won’t have to struggle through an attempt at conversation with the only one of your friends who had a traditional socially acceptable childhood.

A bit unfortunately, Jane is the first person to notice you, not Roxy.

You’re suddenly less sure that this was a good idea.

Chapter Text

You're suddenly less sure that this was a good idea. 

You had been the one to suggest that you all go and visit the Striders and Lalondes, after all. They had expressed their plans to make the move to New York together, and your dad had been the only opposing voice to this idea. He worries a lot. You could tell that even though the move was over and done with, and that they had gotten there safely, he was still bothered by the whole thing, so you suggested that you just go drop in and see how they were doing. It wasn't entirely a suggestion for your father. You also hadn't seen your friends in a very long time, and you'd missed them. 

It had been John's idea to keep your visit a surprise. You're not entirely sure if this actually constitutes as some kind of prank, but it hadn't been the worst idea you'd ever enacted, and so you'd figured that it couldn't go over that poorly. 

You'd known from the moment Dirk had laid eyes on you that this was apparently not the case. 

"Don't mind him," Roxy tells you after she'd properly invited the four of you into the house and led you over to the couch. John had run upstairs to find Dave, and Rose and your father had remained by in the hallway, chatting. Lil Seb clung to your legs until he saw Hal come downstairs, and then he'd darted away without a glance back. "He'll chill out in a bit, it's not your fault or anything." 

You trust that Roxy is not lying to you, but you also can't help the fact that you feel guilty anyway. 

Still, you try to maintain your attention on Roxy, since she's the one who's actually in front of you and is the one who is actually excited to see you. You even manage to do a pretty good job, up until movement in the corner of your eye causes you to turn slightly and catch sight of Dirk hovering uncertainly at the doorway. He shrinks back a bit when he notices you looking, but then visibly steels himself and walks in, waving at you. 

You wave back, "Hey," you say as he sits next to Roxy on the couch. "Sorry about the surprise. If I had known you didn't like them, I would have given you a warning." 

He does something with his hands before stopping himself and depositing them back into his lap. "Don't worry about it," he tells you. "Just took me a moment to adjust." 

You nod instead of pushing and try not to think about the odd way words make their way out of his mouth. It's different from the unusual way that Roxy talks. 

You don't really like to think about the circumstances that your friends had grown up in for too long. It had felt so much easier when you had thought that they were all pulling some kind of wool over your eyes about growing up on isolated islands or apocalyptic wastelands, but apparently, they hadn't been. They had been growing up in horrible circumstances, completely alone and forcibly independent, and you had wasted their time complaining about the fact that you had a guardian who loved you. Meanwhile, Jake's grandmother was dead and he had disposed of her body as a child, Roxy was sort of raised by carapacians, and Dirk grew up without anybody except for animals and a few robots that he built himself when he got older. 

You feel incredibly guilty about these things, even though you were not the one who decided which of you would grow up under what circumstances. 

You wish the game had decided to fix that, instead of doing whatever it had done.

Roxy pushes her way into his space like a cat, leaning up against his shoulder, and Dirk reciprocates the contact heavily. You remember how Roxy used to do the same thing to you, sit and stand too close since she had no idea what the concept of personal space was, and how it had sort of annoyed you until you’d stopped to think about why she was like that. You had sort of thought that Dirk was more touch adverse though. Maybe it’s different because it’s Roxy, you’re not sure.

You should probably spend less time thinking about your friends in the abstract and spend more time actually paying attention to them in real life.

You're opening your mouth to ask something about how they've been doing, or something equally stupidly inane, when Dirk's hands suddenly lift again, and this time he follows through with whatever he had planned on doing. [Ask her if she wants to watch the documentary with us] he signs to Roxy. 

"A documentary sounds fun," you say, "What about?" 

Dirk stares at you blankly. You realize that he hadn't actually signed to you directly. Did he forget that you knew it? The expression, or lack thereof, on his face makes you think that he might have. You don't think that he and Seb ever really got on the same way that Seb and Hal do, maybe that's why. 

"I use sign with Lil Seb, remember?" you say hesitantly, and you watch in quiet fascination as he ducks his head and flushes red. 

[I forgot] he signs, refusing to look at you. Roxy coos over him in a way that is almost parody-like, and you resist the urge to do the same. 

"Don't worry about it," you say, signing as you speak, just in case. "What's the documentary about?" 

Chapter Text

You probably could have guessed that Dirk was going to react to your surprise appearance in such a negative way, but at least Hal seems happy to see you.

The two of you wait around in one of the spare rooms until Dirk is done freaking out, and then you move to go sit inside of their actual room. It's pretty fucking empty, that's about all you have to say about it. 

"So, what have you been up to?" Hal asks, leaning up against the wall to sit, since they don't actually have any furniture. 

[Playing,] you sign, and then dig around in your sweatshirt's front pocket until you can tug free the cards that you keep in there now. You pass them over to Hal by the little metal loop they're all kept on. 

He flips through them, reading each one and taking note of the little pictures drawn on them. "They're cute," he tells you, passing them back. 

[Jane made them,] you tell him. [For John and Dad.]

Hal makes a noise of understanding. "Because they don't know sign?" he asks, and you nod. You like them. They're so that you can ask for things or say things when Jane isn't around to translate for you. She'd made them after you'd gotten so frustrated that John wasn't understanding what you were trying to say that you kicked him in the knee. You don't tell that part to Hal. 

"Have you held up your end of the bargain?" Hal asks, and you nod. 

[Got easier,] you tell him. 

"Same here. What's your favorite? Do you have one?" 

You think about it for a moment. [Raisins] you decide on. They're small and don't taste like much, so you can eat them easily. The texture is a little odd, but it's not the worst one that you've encountered so far, and Jane says that they're healthy. She puts them in cookies sometimes too, which is fun. 

"You know, I don't think I've had those yet? We'll have to buy some. I like crackers." 

Your fingers curl in disgust. [Sharp] you sign. 

"Crunchy," Hal corrects. "That's why I like them." 

[You're weird.]

"You're weirder." 

That's highly debatable, and you tell him so. He makes an attempt to swat at you, but you duck out of the way and he misses, nearly overbalancing and falling to the floor. He gives you the finger, and you mimic the sign back at him. 

He laughs. "It's really good to see you, man," he says. 

You don't smile, but your hands start to flap in front of your chest. 

You feel the same way. 

Chapter Text

You can respect John’s dad for what he’s doing, but you’re starting to get annoyed.

You never were someone who grew up with particularly overbearing parents, and you haven’t been around an actual adult in quite a few years now. His paternal act has been slowly grating on your nerves since the moment he’d arrived and had wanted to check the state of your pantry to ensure that you weren’t ‘only eating junk food’. You had allowed him to indulge, because he had come all this way to check up on you and you suppose that that should count for something.

But now that’s he’s going from room to room and seeming increasingly more disappointed by what he finds inside of them, you find your already thin patience is growing quickly thinner.

Dirk and Hal’s room is by far the one he is most displeased with. Part of you can understand that for what it is, considering their room is filled only with dismantled electronics, a single blanket bunched up on the window seat, and a pile of them bunched up on the floor, but you don’t like the way he makes several overemphasized disapproving hums as he peruses the odd piles of metal parts collected on the floor. The only thing that stops you from snapping at him is the fact that he is very careful to not touch any of them.

“You kids really should get some better furniture in here,” he informs you, and you curl your hands into a fist and let your nails dig into your palms.

“We’re not children,” you say, keeping your voice light, “I turn seventeen next month. Dirk is nearly twenty. However, going furniture shopping has not been high on our list of priorities as of late.”

He turns around back to look at you, and his face softens. “I’m being overbearing, aren’t I?” he asks, giving you a sort of self-deprecating grin. “John and Jane keep telling me I need to work on that. I’m not attempting to diminish the work you’ve done with taking care of yourselves, especially considering the circumstances. It’s just that, while I’m here, I might as well make myself useful.”

You forcibly remind yourself that John’s dad is an actually responsible adult who isn’t pulling any weird mind games with you. He’s being actually genuine, as unusual of an experience as that is for you.

You make yourself relax, and you nod.

Chapter Text

The moment you'd heard the knocking at the door, you'd suspected that you weren't going to like what was on the other side of it. 

The moment you'd heard John's voice coming from the front of the house, you'd known that you were right. 

You're starting to wish that you were anywhere but here. 

"You're going to see him eventually," Jasprose points out unhelpfully from where she's perched on the couch that you call a bed. 

"No, I won't," you reply, equally as steadfast in this fact. It would be a pain in the ass, but they're presumably not going to stick around for ever. You have a lot of experience sneaking around a room because you don't want anyone to notice that you're there. It'll be harder now that you're in a wheelchair, but that's not going to stop you. You don't have to let John see you for a single fucking second, and you doubt that he's going to ask about you. 

You doubt that he even realizes that you'd stuck around after the game in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that everyone fucked up a lot of shit while you were stuck on that ship, but none of that changes the fact that John had never liked you to begin with. 

It didn't matter how excited and relieved you had been to talk to a John that wasn't dead (because he had died. All of your friends had died, and you'd left the one that survived to die too, all alone in that shitty timeline. That was your reality), John had never seen you as anything other than a novelty and a stranger and the two of you were never going to get along like you used to. 

You doubt that any of that has changed. 

Especially because you certainly hadn't helped the situation by acting like a complete asshole on that ship. 

You've fucked up a lot of things, you'll admit that, but you're also not going to be the only one to apologize for it. 

If that means that you have to spend the next however many days/weeks holed up in your room, refusing to come out, then so be it. 

It's not like anyone would care enough to notice that you were gone in the first place. 

Chapter Text

The Egbert family showing up was never going to be anything short of absolutely messy, but Dad Egbert forcing you all to sit down at a family dinner is sort of the first sign that things are going to start going to shit. 

The seven of you had eaten together a couple of times at Dave's apartment, but even then you were rarely all together. Since you'd gotten back to your house, you're pretty sure that no one has even bothered to eat at the table. Most of you eat whenever you remember to, standing at the counter where you'd made the food, or sequestered away in your rooms. 

But Dad Egbert is in charge now, and apparently that shit won't fly anymore. 

He doesn't even let you stand up to be the one to move the fibers out of the way. 

"Worry not, young lady, I'll clean this mess up. You just sit and wait." 

You debate the merits of protesting the phrase "young lady", but doubt that the argument could go anywhere productive. Instead, you get comfortable in your chair and get ready to relish in the fact that you don't even have to do any work to be able to sit back and watch this shit show go down. 

It takes nearly twenty minutes for the Egbert family to round everyone up and force them to find a place at the table. You're lucky that your mom had a tendency towards the dramatics and had bothered to buy such a large table in the first place. The two of you had rarely sat at it together, but the length of it and the number of its empty chairs had made every occasion as thematically appropriate as possible. 

Dirk sits at the table like he's never sat at one before. It's possible that that's exactly the case. The look he gives you as Jane forces him into a seat, and then leaves again to go find Roxy, is nothing short of utterly confused. You shrug in response to his unasked question, and sign at him to calm the hell down. Hal slides into the seat next to him a few seconds later, and echoes your instructions out loud, though he seems just as uncertain at the table as Dirk does. 

Dave and Rose are next, dragged down from where they'd been upstairs talking with John. Rose looks up and down the table, and the two of you share a look in solidarity of the fact that the two of you had thought the same thing about the table finally getting people sitting at it. 

Jane and Roxy come in, shuffling plates in front of people, and forcibly stopping everyone from eating until "everyone has arrived". Dirk asks what the point of that is, and gets berated, but never gets an answer. You can tell from the irritated tilt to his eyebrows that he's going to stay fixated on this until he gets an answer, so you're the one who has to speak up to explain to him that it's a social nicety that none of you have ever bothered to adhere to before, because it's a waste of time. 

This gets you berated. 

Dove and Dad Egbert are the last to arrive, with Dove being forcibly pushed into the room by Mr. Egbert, looking for all the world like a pathetically pissed off cat. He steadfastly refuses to look anywhere near John's direction as he gets wheeled into the spot next to you, and John does the same. 

Boys. 

Dad Egbert sits at the opposite head of the table, and looks unreasonably satisfied to have herded all of his wayward chicks into a single table in time for dinner like Normal People. 

It's a shame that not a single one of you were ever going to be normal people. 

Dirk and Hal both get in trouble for "sitting incorrectly" in their seats, and both of them demand an explanation for why sitting one way is better than another, when one is clearly more comfortable. How either of them are comfortable with their legs squeezed between the table their chests is beyond you, but the argument lasts for nearly five complete minutes before Egbert seems to realize that he's not going to be winning this argument, and decides to back down. 

Dove mulishly refuses to eat or speak to anyone at the table, including you (which is almost fair, considering the fact that your only present response to his injustice of being forced to attend this dinner was to laugh at him, although you're definitely making a plan to have a Talk with Mr. Egbert about autonomy and mobility devices later on, when you don't have an audience). Dave does a decent job of pretending to be comfortable, but you know that you're not the only one that notices how he flinches every time Dad Egbert moves too quickly. 

Rose sits politely in her seat, and eats her food as primly as fucking possible. Just to be contrary, you make a show of lapping at your food with your tongue, the way you used to when you were Jaspers. 

The look of utter contempt and disgust that Rose aims your direction makes it entirely worth it. 

"So," Dad Egbert says, seeming possibly a little frazzled after having to endure a Genuine Strilonde Dinner, but keeping his cool as well as ever. "Who is ready to go shopping tomorrow?"

Due to the fact that you had taken an ill-timed sip of water, you promptly snort water out of your nose as Egbert boldly makes this exclamation. 

If he thought that dinner with the group of you was a disaster, you cannot fucking wait to see how he'll react to seeing the lot of you in public. 

Chapter Text

Jane’s dad wants to take you all to the “mall” to get things for your rooms here.

Part of you knows how important it is, part of you doesn’t see the point. You’ve never ‘chosen’ anything for your room. Everything you had was just already there. You’re also not thrilled at the idea of having to go back out into public when the whole point of you moving here was specifically to avoid that.

Hal offers to go for you, and by this point you trust him to get things that you would at least be able to tolerate, but Jane’s dad is insistent that you go too. The others tried to protest for you, but you stopped them. You heard Rose and Jane’s dad talking the other day, about how old you are. You hadn’t caught the rest of the conversation, but if there’s even a possibility that you as the oldest one here are the deciding factor in all of your ability to stay here, then you’re going to have to prove yourself.

So, despite your misgivings, and the way Hal keeps asking you if you’re sure, you decide to go with them.

There’s no way in fucking hell all eleven of you are going to fit into one single car, but Jane’s dad seems intensely uncomfortable with the prospect of letting Roxy drive, even though she and Rose both assure him multiple times that they have made the drive in the past. You’re a bit peeved at his consistent dismissal of your abilities. You all had been the ones to defeat the game, not him, but you’re taking cues from Rose, the one among all of you who actually has experience dealing with semi-decent adults, and since she’s not protesting, neither do you.

But that doesn’t change the fact that you kind of want to.

Instead, he makes Jane drive, since she has an actual driver’s license (though she admits that she’s never actually had much experience with driving). You don’t like the idea of having to get into a car with Jane’s dad, so you go with her even though the other car has more room. Rose sits in the front to give Jane directions, and Roxy sits between them in the front seat since that’s where she fits. You, Hal, and Dove sit in the back seat. You get an actual seat this time, squished in between the door and Hal.

You think you prefer sitting in the foot well. there’s something intensely unsettling about moving this quickly.

At any rate, when you get to the mall, stumbling out of the car is a relief, and you notice at least one woman staring in shock at the sheer amount of people stumbling out of your small cars.

You have your shades and the noise-canceling headphones, and hope that they’ll be able to stave of your inevitable freak out. Roxy sticks close to you, for once seeming as overwhelmed as you are. You offer her your hand, and she takes it gratefully.

Jane points at the two of you. [You okay?] she signs, looking “concerned”. Roxy nods. You sort of shrug. She sticks closer to the two of you after that.

[How am I supposed to pick?] Roxy asks you, staring at the huge windows full of furniture and decoration with the same expression she’d had when fighting some of the harder enemies towards the end of the game.

You shrug, wondering why she’s bothering to ask you of all people. [Pick what you like?] you hazard. [Or just what costs the least.] You still don’t understand the ins and outs of currency as you’d like, but logic dictates that less is probably the best, since it’s a finite resource.

[Alright,] she signs slowly. [I can do that.]

The problem is that you’re not positive that you can.

Chapter Text

Yeah, right. Like you have any experience with owning physical possessions.

This whole trip is a shit-show, and it hasn’t even started yet.

“Alright, kids, where do you want to start?” Jane’s dad asks, looking for all the world like someone who’s been anticipating this moment his entire fucking life.

It’s a shame that not a single one of you have any idea what the fuck you’re doing.

Even Rose seems at a bit of a loss (though considering the fact that she’s the only one in the house with an actually furnished room, courtesy of it being her fucking house, that’s not entirely unsurprising.)

He falters only slightly at the ten blank faces staring back at him, and then makes the executive decision that you’re going into an enormous furniture store and can double back for anything else that you need later.

You can’t even think of one thing that you need, much less multiple things that you would need to double back for.

You’re in real life actual Hell.

“Bed’s are important,” Dadbert declares. Which you suppose is true (though you and Dirk have been fine without one). “Why don’t we start there. Who here doesn’t have an actual bed yet?”

You and Dirk share a look, and raise your hands. Dove and Roxy raise their hands. Four beds is going to be a lot of beds to fit into two very small cars.

Dadbert doesn’t pause to think about this. He herds all of you into the section of the store that contains beds, and eagerly tells you to pick one out.

You don’t know what the fuck the difference is.

“Do you think he’ll let us get away with not getting one?” you ask Dirk, echoing your words with your hands so that he can understand you despite the clunky headphones he’s wearing. He smirks, and signs back that he doesn’t think so.

[If we just bought one, we could trade off.] he suggests, which you’re not opposed to. You’ve never actually had the opportunity to sleep in an actual bed, and Dirk rarely slept in his back when he had one. You doubt that it’s much different from sleeping on the floor.

“You can’t buy only one,” Jane protests, and you startle because where the fuck was she even watching you from? “You both need a bed. It’s important.”

[Hasn’t been important so far,] Dirk protests, and you nod your agreement.

She doesn’t seem swayed.

After meeting her father, you can tell where she gets it from.

“If neither of you want to pick your own bed, just get a bunk bed. It’ll even fit in your room better, since you two are sharing.”

“What’s a bunk bed?” you ask. It sounds vaguely familiar in a way that a lot of things from this time period are, but you’re pretty sure that none of your friends had one, and you can’t actually pin it down.

She gives you a sort of sad look.

The lot of you have been getting a lot of those looks lately.

Apparently a bunk bed is two beds stacked on top of each other. You appreciate its compactness. It’s not the worst piece of furniture you’ve encountered so far.

[I get the top,] Dirk signs before you can.

“Yeah right,” you scoff, like you hadn’t sort of wanted it yourself. “Like I’d be able to haul my clumsy ass up that ladder without falling off and breaking my neck.”

[Maybe you should take the top.] Dirk signs, but his fingers flutter with humor.

You shove him, knocking him off balance and stumbling into Jane. “Bitch,” you say, but you’re smirking.

Maybe shopping isn’t the worst thing ever.

Chapter Text

You’ve never really had enough actual human earth currency to buy yourself a lot of things. Mostly, you had to spend what little you could scrounge up on food to keep yourself alive.

You had things, lots of them actually, but not anything that you had chosen and bought.

Bro gave you things, sometimes. Hand-me-downs of old gear once he’d bought himself new ones, and occasionally actually new things that he got just for you. Most of these things were given to you after a particularly bad strife. You think he gave them to you because he started to get worried that you would finally tell someone what living with him was like.

He shouldn’t have worried. Even now, you can barely get yourself to say any of it out loud.

But you don’t have to worry about that shit right now. There are no underhanded tactics or strings attached to this particular shopping trip.

It’s probably not normal, how suspicious that makes you.

As long as you try not to think about it, and try to have fun instead, then things probably won’t spiral out of control as badly as they could. You’re holding yourself together with threads and scotch tape, as you listen to John ramble about god knows what, while his dad hovers over you and your group as he walks you throughout the store.

You’ve never really thought of yourself as nervous around bigger men, but this is the first time in a long time that you’re actually around a guy that’s taller than you are.

You’d gotten used to guys like Hal and Dirk, both of whom are several inches shorter than you. Even in the game, on the meteor, the only one close to your height was the clown, who spent most of his time lurking out of sight. Karkat was taller than Dirk, but still shorter than you are. Some of the girls were your height, or taller, but they were women. It’s different.

You’re lucky that John’s dad is a pretty decent guy, who seems to realize that he makes you nervous and keeps his distance from you without asking you questions. You can appreciate that, even if the guy makes you nervous as hell.

You startle out of your thoughts as John reaches over to elbow you in the ribs, pointing at a display desk set up like a small office. “Remember that huge MMORPG we all used to play,” he snorts, clearly amused, but you have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

“Uh, I don’t think that was me,” you say hesitantly. “If that was some ship shenanigans, that was Dove you’re talking about, remember?”

John falters and looks downright dejected, which isn’t what you had been aiming for at all when you’d corrected him.

“Sorry, man,” you say, cramming your hands into your pockets and trying not to freak out. There are just some things that you can’t handle while in a crowded store, and emotional comfort is one of those things. “He’s just right over there if you wanted to joke about it though.”

If anything, John looks even worse. You are going to flip your shit.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, averting his gaze from both you and Dove, who is somewhere to your side talking to Jasprose. “It’s just like, I don’t know, things got really messy on the ship. He was kind of an asshole.”

Jade had said something similar when you’d mentioned Dove a few weeks ago. You try to think about what would cause you to suddenly start acting like an asshole to two of your closest friends. You’re pretty sure that something would have had to happen to cause that kind of reaction.

You’re not sure if you’re the one who wants to broach this possibility, especially not when you’re here, in the middle of a mall surrounded by nearly everyone you know and hundreds of people you don’t.

“We can all be assholes, sometimes,” is what you settle on instead, casting a sideways glace in Dove’s direction. The two of you had sort of been assholes to each other for a while there, before you’d finally decided to start working shit out. Now you get along almost decently. If the two of you can do it, you’re pretty confident that John can too.

All he says in response is a halfhearted, “Yeah,” followed by a none too subtle shift in conversation topic, but that’s more than okay with you.

There’s more than enough time to talk this through later.

Chapter Text

You’ve barely made it past the beds and into the storage section when you start to notice the fact that Dirk is getting increasingly fidgety. Then you notice that the little one, Sebastian?, is getting antsy in the exact same way.

You don’t doubt that Dirk could keep pushing himself and be able to remain here for a short while longer, but you do doubt that that scenario could turn out anything short of disastrous.

You get his attention by waving at him until he notices you, and then you sign [Do you need to leave?]

He stands there for a moment, looking at you, his hands curling tensely around the bottom edge of his shirt, and then finally he nods.

You nod back understandingly, and then turn to Sebastian to ask him the same thing. He blinks at you in what you think might be surprise, and then he nods as well.

“Dirk and I are going to step outside,” you say out loud. “Sebastian?” you say questioningly, and he nods his affirmation that you’ve gotten his name right. “Sebastian is going to join us.”

“Do you need me to come with you?” John’s dad immediately asks, and you force yourself still to keep from bristling. You shake your head, with what you’re pretty sure is a placid facial expression. He doesn’t look convinced, but maybe he is learning, since he doesn’t push either. “Keep an eye on Seb,” he says instead. “He likes to bolt, and doesn’t pay attention to cars.”

Sebastian doesn’t scowl, but his hands curl into rigid shapes at his chest. You think these are probably the same thing.

“Alright,” you say, instead of arguing, because you’re in the middle of a store and you don’t need to make a scene over something so trivial. You linger long enough for Dirk to tell Hal that he doesn’t need to follow, and then the three of you head off back to the car.

Sebastian does run ahead, but you never see him get close enough to a car to warrant anxiety.

[He’s smart enough to not run into a car] Dirk signs, tugging the headphones down around his neck now that he’s free from the ambient noise of the store. [He pays attention].

“I assumed as much,” you tell him. “You made him?”

He nods. [For Jane] he elaborates. [He used to look like a bunny]. He moves his hands from the ‘rabbit’ sign to the back of his head, mimicking ears.

You smile, glancing over back to Sebastian to watch him as he bounds forward in an odd little skipping run, his hands flapping wildly in front of him as he goes. “He certainly has the energy for a rabbit,” you say. “John’s father is overbearing, but I think it’s just an innate quality of his. John used to complain about it a lot even before the game begin. I doubt that experience made him any more relaxed.”

[It’s not just me?] Dirk asks, his non-signing hand rising to thread through his hair anxiously. [I heard you talk about our ages.]

You shake your head firmly. “Definitely not just you, he’s been doing it with all of us.” You pause, thinking. “Is that why you decided to come today?”

He shrugs, like it’s not a big deal, but you can see the tension in his shoulders. [Thought he wouldn’t let us stay if I couldn’t. I’m the oldest.]

“Rest assured, the rest of us aren’t depending on you to make a good impression,” you tell him. A small part of you wants to tell him off for being ridiculous, but it isn’t as if you hadn’t been feeling the exact same way since the Egberts arrived. You’re used to taking care of yourself. Someone else offering to do it for you always feels like a threat. “He may be an adult, but he certainly doesn’t have any jurisdiction over any of us.”

Dirk seems like he’s gearing up to say something else, when Sebastian practically materializes at his side, tugging impatiently on his shirt until he looks down. You peer around Dirk’s side to get a better look at the card that Seb is holding out for his perusal, it has a small picture of two people running, and the word [TAG] emblazoned on it.

[I don’t know what that is] Dirk tells him confusedly, and Sebastian scowls with his irritated hands once again.

“There’s a park a short walk that way,” you intervene smoothly, pointing. “We could go over there and play.”

Sebastian watches you, face blank, but you get the sense that you’re being thoroughly examined. Eventually, he nods, tucking the card back into his sweatshirt pocket and hopping impatiently from side to side.

To Dirk, you say, “There are probably going to be a fair number of people there, but we’ll probably be able to find a place far enough away from them.”

[What’s tag] he asks, instead of answering your question. You suppose you should have anticipated that. Before you even get a chance to answer, he continues with [If they’re not too close it might not be a problem.]

“Tag is a game. One person is “It” and it’s their job to try and catch the other players to switch the position,” you explain, and then reply to his other statement, “We’ll be running around, so that will probably keep people a fair distance from us.”

Dirk dips his head in a nod. [Running sounds nice,] he says, and takes Sebastian’s hand when it’s offered to him.

You send Dave a text to let him know where to find you when they finally finish this little shopping trip, and then take the lead in the walk to the park. You don’t think you’ve ever played tag before. You hadn’t had many friends as a child, and back then you had a tendency to think yourself “above” those sorts of games, because you had to be an “adult”, since your mother wasn’t.

You suppose that sixteen is as good an age as any to finally learn how to play.

Chapter Text

The park isn’t nearly as bad as the mall was, and Rose was right when she said that the running around would be enough to deter others from getting too close. You’re not particularly good at the game, but you can’t deny that you are having a fair bit of fun, and that the running is doing a good job at helping you burn out the overstimulated and anxious energy that had been building up under your skin since you’d gotten out of the car.

You suppose that’s why Lil Seb wanted to play it.

You’re actually almost disappointed when Rose gets a text from Dave telling her that they’re on their way back to the car so that you can go back to the house.

The good news, at least, is that the house has enough isolated outdoor space to make playing again entirely possible.

That being said, if getting to the store was difficult, then going home from the store is nigh fucking impossible. John, Dave, and Rose offer to stay behind at the mall with some of the boxes in order to ensure that you’ll actually be able to get it all back to the house. Jane’s dad insists that isn’t necessary.

As you’re sitting in the backseat of the car with Roxy and precariously balanced stacked bedding bags on your lap, you’re pretty sure that it was damn fucking necessary. At your side, Hal is crunched into a nearly painful looking position, the space at his feet completely occupied by boxes. By the time you get back to the house, you wind up stuck in the car for several more minutes, trying to work enough feeling back into your legs to be able to stand up without falling back over.

Inside, Jane’s dad helps Roxy build her bed. You tell Jane that you and Hal will be able to finish yours on your own, but she insists on staying.

“It’ll go faster with three of us,” she tells you. “And then you can help me bake the cakes afterwards.”

[Alright] you say, conceding defeat. [Just let me know if you need help with something.]

“Can do!” she chirps, her hands signing along with her words.

“Thanks,” you say aloud, since your hands are occupied with prying open cardboard boxes. When she looks at you confusedly, one eyebrow raised in silent question, you stop to gesture at her hands and elaborate. [For signing and talking. It helps.]

Her face goes soft and kind of sad. You don’t miss Hal silently excusing himself from the room to give you space. “How much verbal speech do you understand?” she asks, and you try not to stiffen at the display of pity. You don’t owe her an answer, but you find yourself wanting to tell her anyway.

[About 70 percent?] you hazard. [Some people are easy, like Hal. Sometimes it just takes a while for it to connect. People who have accents or talk fast are harder.]

She winces. “Then Jake must have been...” she drops off, her hands faltering a bit at the mention of him, and the implications of what you’ve just told her.

You nod, fiddling with one of the screws from the bed’s box instead of looking at her. [I don’t think he ever actually noticed.]

Her laugh sounds a little wet. “That sounds like him.” She stops to take a long steadying breath, “We should finish up here. And then, cake. Lots of it. Have you had it before?”

You shake your head. [I tried cookies though].

“Fresh ones?”

[From a…] your hands falter, unable to remember the sign, or the word. You make a little shaking motion with your hand, like you’re shaking the little thing that they’d come in.

“Package?” she offers, and you nod quickly.

“Package,” you repeat, verbally and signing, filing the word away so that this won’t happen a second time.

“That’s terrible,” she informs you, her voice very matter of fact. “I’m going to make you real cookies. It’s important that you know what real ones taste like, and then refrain from ever eating packaged sweets again.”

“Hope you plan on sharing with the rest of us,” Hal says, walking back into the room casually, like he hadn’t ever left. You sign your thanks at him subtly, and he waves you away.

“Of course,” Jane says, seeming almost affronted that he could imply that she wouldn’t be able to make enough for everyone.

[Bed first?] you interject.

“Oh shucks, yes,” she seems a little flustered at having forgotten so easily. “Yes, the bed first. Pass me that booklet. Let’s see where we should start.”

She’s inherited her father’s strength, and it comes in handy. The three of you finish in record time, and she climbs to the top bed to put on the soft orange bedding that Hal had chosen for you while you re-organize your piles of metal and circuit boards on top of the drawer set in the corner.

“Alright!” she chirps, hopping down from the top to land neatly next to you. She grabs your hand and practically drags you from the room, giving you a full view of Hal leering at you mockingly. You flip him off behind her back. Jane either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, “Let’s go make some cake!”

Chapter Text

Your recent revelations about Dirk’s experiences have made you sadder, but you cheer up quickly as you watch him try to help you bake.

He, like Roxy, doesn’t seem to know many foods or ingredients by name, so you take care to describe things rather than name them when you ask for them. As you work the mixer, you catch him stealing pinches of ingredients to taste, and you almost give yourself away by chortling when he tries out the flour and makes one of the cutest facial expressions you’ve seen from him. He doesn’t seem to like the sound of the mixer, but he tolerates it alright with one hand pressed almost idly to one of his ears to muffle it.

You let him taste the batter before you pour it into the baking pan, and then promptly regret it when he keeps trying to steal more of it as you’re trying to pour it out.

[Stop it!] you sign scoldingly, as well as you can with only one hand, that is. [Raw eggs aren’t good for you, they’ll make you sick.]

[Won’t] he signs back, with such certainty that you’re hesitant to ask for fear of what you’ll find out about his pre-game eating habits.

“Well, if you eat it all, then there won’t be any for the actual cake,” you say instead, and that finally gets him to back off long enough for you to finish. You stick the pan in the oven and the bowl in the sink, where you fill it with water to keep him from eating anymore.

This time, you can’t stop yourself from laughing when you see the way he pouts in disappointment.

He’s surprisingly impatient about waiting for the cake to be done, so you go ahead and start making the cookies now. He tries to get you to let him help with setting them out on the pan, but the moment you hand him a chunk of dough to roll up, he simply pops it into his mouth and you have to slap him away from the rest.

He laughs through the mouthful of raw cookie in his mouth. [Just a joke] he signs.

[Trust broken] you sign back, and he laughs again, bright and loud in a way you’d never truly expected from him. From the way he talks and typed, you’d always thought of him as endlessly casual and stoic. Instead, he laughs like a kid. Like he’s never had anyone tell him to quiet down before.

You suppose that he hasn’t.

You do let him help you ice the cake, only after he swears that he won’t try to lick the frosting off the knife that he’s supposed to be using on the cake. He keeps his promise, but the moment you declare the cake finished, he drags his finger over the flat side of the blade to eat it.

You give him an unimpressed look that you’re not sure if he understands, so you sign [weak technicality] to clarify. This time he shrugs, his mouth pulling into that odd little smile of his.

When you finally allow him a slice of cake, you can practically see the conflict on his face as he debates whether to eat as much of it as he can, or to eat as little of it as possible in order to ration it out for longer.

Wordlessly, you slide him another piece, and when he just looks between you and it blankly, you sign [I can make more tomorrow.]

He doesn’t seem convinced.

[At the very least, John won’t eat any of it, so you can have his portion.]

[Why?] he asks, still not going for it.

You shrug. [He never really says. I think he just doesn’t like it.]

Dirk’s disbelief at that statement is very clear, and you wonder if you should be flattered that he can’t seem to make himself believe that there would be someone who doesn’t like the cakes you made. Mostly, you still just feel kind of sad.

It takes John himself coming into the kitchen and whining loudly about how he can’t get away from the sugary confections that Dirk finally breaks and scoops the cake into his mouth, fork entirely forgotten. John makes a disgusted noise that you think has more to do with the fact that Dirk is eating cake rather than the way he’s eating it, and Dirk only reacts to flip him a frosting covered middle finger.

You’re going to miss him, you realize. You have a sudden crushing need to stay here with him and Roxy, to ensure that they’re okay and that they have all the cake they could possibly want, to make up for the fact that they’ve never had it before. You’re not sure how realistic the desire is. Would they even want you to stay? What would your father have to say about it? (Not that you need his permission. You’re quite old enough to make these decisions on your own, thanks very much, but you did only just get him back, and it feels wrong to not at least talk to him about it). You know that he’s concerned about the Striders and Lalondes as well, but it’s a bit different for you. He worries about them as orphans that he knows about, but they’re your friends.

You have to make sure that they’re okay.

More than okay, you have to make sure that they’re happy.

After all this time, you think that they more than deserve it.

Chapter Text

You are currently definitely enjoying the forest outside of this house more than you ever enjoyed the street outside of the Crocker house. 

You're not sure if you have the dictionary to explain exactly why it is, but you appreciate the fact that there are less people around to stop and ask you questions, and act upset or concerned when you don't answer them. 

There are also less cars, and that means less Jane's Dad following you around and telling you to avoid cars. 

You don't even like running near them. Their engines are too loud and clunky and their emissions smell weird. Dirk could make a car a lot better than any of the cars that exist now. You could probably make a better car than the ones people have now. You don't feel like it would be that hard. 

Right now everyone is too busy to play with you, which means you're on your own. You're pretty fine with that. You like playing with other people, but you're smart enough to do things on your own and not get lost (again, unlike what Jane's Dad has to say about you. No matter how many times anyone tells him, you're not sure if he has the processing power to understand that you are not an actual six year old human child).

No one had seen you leave the house, except for Dirk, and you'd unconsciously braced yourself to hear the "wait for someone else to go with you" that you got used to hearing from Jane's Dad. But this is Dirk, who has never waited for anyone and who wouldn't see the point. The only thing he does is point to a brightly colored ribbon that's tied around one of the trees near the house, and tells you that if you get lost in the forest, he's put enough of them up that you should be able to find your way back. 

That's all the information you need. 

There are a lot of bugs in the forest, which is cool. You were pretty used to bugs from Jane's house, which had small spiders and ants sometimes, but she would always kill them because she didn't want them getting into the food. You haven't asked, but you're pretty sure that it's okay to leave the outside bugs alone. There is no food outside for them to "get in to", so they're probably okay. 

You're not the biggest fan of the way their legs feel on your bare skin, so if you pick them up to look at them better, you make sure to only put them on your sweatshirt. That way you can watch them crawl around and not have to worry about the legs. Which, in your opinion, they have too many of. They should consolidate. Six, seven, twelve legs is too many for one organism. You get around just fine with two, so they should as well. 

You're in the process of observing one such bug when you're startled by a voice off to your side. 

"Fuck a bastard," the voice, which you recognize as Dave's, the not-orange one, says. "That's a big ass roach." 

You don't know what a roach is. You glance down at your chest and point questioningly at the bug on your sweatshirt. Dave walks a little closer, and nods. "Yep, that's a roach. Haven't seen one this big since public school." 

You have never been to public school, but you understand that it is an indoor space. Bugs don't belong in indoor spaces. Except for schools, you suppose. Dave is the expert on those indoor buildings, and not you. You'll take his word for it. 

You pry the roach off of your chest and offer it to him to hold. He leans back from it uncertainly, "No thanks, little dude. I'm totally chill, over here, on the not-roach train. I'll stick to birds and shit. Bugs have too many fucking legs." 

You definitely agree with that statement. 

"So, what are you doing out here?" Dave asks, squatting down in front of you to talk the way that Jane does sometimes. 

[Got bored inside] you tell him. [People were busy]. 

It takes him a long time to figure out what your signs mean, and he has to ask you to fingerspell some of it so that he can learn a sign he didn't know before, but you appreciate his effort. The cards that Jane made are very good, and you like them, but you like signing better. You like that he is learning instead of making you (and the others) figure out a new way of doing things for him. 

"Huh, yeah that's rough. You want to hang out with me instead? I don't know you super well, but I'm down to fix that." 

You did a lot of running yesterday at the park, which was fun. You could do that again, or you could do something else. Namely, you could climb some of the trees here. There were a lot of things to climb in the game, but there isn't as much in Human Society. There had been a few trees on the Crocker's street, but Dad Crocker didn't like seeing you climb them. 

Dave doesn't know that. 

[Climb?] you ask hopefully, depositing the roach back on the ground so that you don't accidentally swat at him while you start bouncing in anticipation. 

"Climb what? The trees?" Dave tilts his head back to look at the swathe of leaves and branches above him. "Huh, why not? I've never actually done it before, so you'll have to teach me. I'll probably fall but like, who gives a shit right? Falling out of a tree like a dumbass isn't heroic or just so I'll be fine." He pauses for a long time, and then says, "Actually I won't, because I'm not god-tier anymore. We're talking permadeath now. That's chill though, I just won't fall. This will be fine." 

You're a little less certain of this, but Dave seems like he knows how to fall and not land on his neck. So maybe he's right and he will be fine. 

Either way, you think you're going to choose a small tree to start out with. Just to be safe. 

Chapter Text

You won’t lie and say that you haven’t recently started appreciating the fact that there are now more than two people living inside of your home.

You used to think that you liked being alone. You definitely recall that you preferred it over the company of your mother, who was always either wasted or trying to treat you as a peer. It never seemed to work, probably because your own peers didn’t seem to like your company any more than you liked theirs.

Things are different now, and you are mildly surprised to find that you like it.

You remember, from the doomed timeline, that there was a time where you and Dove lived together, burning time while you waited for your own inevitable deaths that would come as a result of the fact that you existed in a doomed timeline. That hadn’t been particularly pleasant, but you think that it had more to do with the fact that your family and other friends were dead and that the only thing you were doing was waiting to die yourself.

Now, you have a seemingly limitless future ahead of you (although you’ll admit that you’re not entire sure what to do with it. What does one do after living through the experiences that you’ve had? Go to college? You technically haven’t even finished middle school. Something you’ll have to think about later), and a family bigger than you could have ever imagined, and you’re something not far away from happy.

You don’t miss when it was just you and your mom, living in a house so big that neither of you knew what to do with all of the space that it afforded you, and trying your hardest to avoid running into each other because neither of you knew what to do with each other either. You don’t miss your mother alternating between acting like a drunken child and a demanding presence, never sure whether she wanted to be a parent or free of the responsibility that came with the title.

You prefer it now, when it is you, and Dove, and Rose, and Roxy, and Dave, and Dirk, and Hal. You’ve even started to get the sense, from Jane’s guilty glances between her friends and her father, that there might even be more people sticking around once the Egbert’s decide to go home.

You used to think that you were better off on your own. Taking care of yourself and refusing to acknowledge the fact that you liked spending time with other people. Believing that you were different from them, and that you didn’t need their company.

You’re glad that you’ve changed.

You like that you’re able to acknowledge the fact that you like teasing Dove and Dave, trading biting snark with Rose, watching movies with Dirk and Roxy, and having senselessly long-winded conversations with Hal. You’re even beginning to enjoy talking recipes with Jane, and watching Sebastian unabashedly getting into situations that he knows he probably shouldn’t.

You know full well that Rose feels exactly the same, and that feels nice too.

The Game was absolute bullshit, and part of you will always wish that you had never played it. Will always miss what it has taken from you, what it’s taken from the others. You’re physically disabled, and debatably less mentally stable than you were before the game began, but part of you wonders if you aren’t better off than you were before you started playing.

There are no time players any more, and you’re not a Seer any longer, so there’s no way of knowing how things could have been different, and maybe you’ll never know if the damage the game dealt was more than the positives that came as a result of it, but that doesn’t change the fact that, overall, you’re happy.

That’s more than what you could have said for the first thirteen years of your life. You think that has to count for something.

Chapter Text

When Janey tells you that she’s thinking about trying to stay with you, you almost cry.

You’ve missed her a lot, and seeing her again was so much fun and such a relief. You’ve been feeling better about your situation with Rose and Dirk around, but if Jane was here too? You’d be perfect.

She’s so nice and cool. She’s helpful, she bakes, she signs for Dirk, she helped you through withdrawal when you quit drinking back on LOPAN. She’s not perfect, but she tries her best, and you love her for it.

You really want her to stay.

“We’re all adults, Mr. Dad,” you try, leaning into Jane’s side to try to comfort both of you. “We can totally take care of ourselves.”

You don’t mention that you and Dirk had been taking care of yourselves since you were born, but only because Jane always gets that really sad slump in her shoulders when you do. You’re not trying to make her dad sad, you’re trying to convince him that you’re capable enough for Jane to live with you. You also don’t mention how Jane is also capable of taking care of herself, considering she did it for the three years that she was in the game. If she wants to bring up that point, she can.

“If things were normal, I’d be in college already,” Jane points out instead. You don’t even understand what college is, really. “It’s not like it would be that unusual for me to not be living at home at this point.”

He nods, but it doesn’t look like he’s really agreeing. You’ve noticed that he does that a lot whenever any of you bring up the way that you do things here. You wonder if that’s just an adult thing, or if he’s the only one who really does it. You don’t know enough adults to discern the difference. “You should be in college,” he says. “You should be able to live a normal life and go to college, and not be living alone in a house in the middle of nowhere.”

Dirk perks up from his perch on the couch, and looks almost offended, an odd little quirk of his head in Jane’s dad’s direction. Frankly, you agree with this sentiment.

“She would hardly be alone,” Rose points out. For the most part, she’s been observing more than participating in this conversation, but you appreciate her stepping in. “There are seven of us living here already. That’s more than she would be getting in a dorm room.”

You make a mental note to ask what a dorm is later, while John raises his hand to contribute. “Plus, sorry dad, but none of us are really normal anymore. I’m still giving it a shot if you want that though.”

Jane laughs kind of wet when John says that. You choke back a comforting chitter, only because Jane’s dad gives you funny looks when you make those noises, like he sort of recognizes them but doesn’t understand why you’re making them, and you’re trying to convince him that you’re good and normal enough for Jane to live with right now.

“I’m fully capable of taking care of myself,” Jane continues. “Dirk and Roxy are fully capable of taking care of themselves, and so is everyone else, even Sebastian. I love you, dad, but I don’t need you to take care of me all the time anymore.”

You think that’s probably one of the most truthful sentences that’s been said during this conversation, but it makes Jane’s dad slump in his seat.

“I suppose you are right,” she says, though he doesn’t look happy about it. You wonder if you should feel guilty about this or something, but frankly, you don’t know him super well and so you find that you don’t really care much about his input on the matter. If Jane wants to stay, then she should be able to stay, regardless of what her dad says. You’ve never gotten your mother’s permission for anything before in your life, and you’ve turned out just fine.
Well, mostly. But it still counts.

You’re expecting him to argue more, because he’s only been here for a couple of weeks and already you know that he doesn’t have a tendency to admit that he is not perfectly in charge of situations at all times. Instead, he pulls himself together to smile at Jane. “I am expecting you to call. Once a week, at least.”

Jane surges forward to hug him, and you’re excited enough about the implications behind that statement that you do too. Dirk doesn’t, but you can see the way his shoulders slump in relief.

“I promise I will,” Jane says, pulling back from the hug to look her father in the face. “Thank you.”

You find yourself shoved out of the little group hug by Lil Seb, who’s forcing his way into the center of the group to tug demandingly at Jane and her dad’s shirts. [Me too] he signs. A statement, not a question. You see Hal perk up from the corner of your eye.

Jane’s dad’s face twists into a grimace that you fight the urge to mimic. It’s quite the expression. “Usually, I would have to say no. I couldn’t possibly leave a child in the care of other children. But,” he continues, barreling over the beginnings of arguments from Dirk, Hal, Seb, and Jane. “But, I know that none of you are particularly typical children. Jane has always taken care of you, and so has Dirk, from my own understanding, even if circumstances were different. I know that you would probably be miserable if I forced you to come back with me. But,” he looks away from Seb to look at everyone else in the room, including you, “him staying means that you must contact me if there is ever a situation that you feel you can’t deal with.”

“Of course,” Jane says. “You know I would.” She pulls her dad back in for another hug. “Thank you.”

Later, once the excitement has died down, and people have broken off into their usual groups, you’re the one to ask the question you know that the others probably won’t.

“What about Jake?”

Dirk and Jane immediately go stiff and uncomfortable, which you had anticipated. “Things got weird,” you allow, because even though most of it hadn’t involved you that doesn’t mean that you were completely oblivious to it. “But it feels weird to have all of us here and not even ask him.”

“I suppose we should at least ask,” Jane says, glancing over at Dirk uncertainly. “There’s no guarantee he’ll accept, but Roxy is right about how it feels weird to not even mention this.”

Dirk nods, but his face is twisted like he’s in pain. [I haven’t spoken to him since the game ended], more to Jane than to you. Mostly because you already knew.

Jane looks just as uncomfortable. “Neither have I.” She scratches uncomfortably at the back of her neck. “There were… a lot of things said, while I was...” she makes a gesture around the top of her head. “Wearing the tiaratop.”

The two of them continue speaking, and you decide to both give them space and take initiative, so you pull out your phone to message Jake.

tipsyGnostic [TG] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT]:

TG: hey jaek
TG: jake^
TG: u there?
GT: quite present!
GT: although I was about to leave! You caught me at the perfect time!
TG: sweet!!
TG: have you ever thought about coming stateside with the rest of us?

It takes him a while to respond. You start to wonder if maybe he’d gone ahead with his plans to go wherever when your phone buzzes again.

GT: I thought about it a bit
GT: jade has been wanting to
GT: but I like being able to just spend time adventuring on the island
TG: u dnt have to if u dnt want to
TG: but janey is living with us now too
TG: it felt yuck to not ask if you wanted to too
GT: im glad to hear that the three of you are together!
GT: but im more than happy staying here
GT: perhaps you could come visit someday!!
TG: hell yea
TG: island party!!!!

You won’t lie and say that you’re not disappointed, but you also know that Jake hadn’t really liked having to be face to face with people all the time, and that he had been missing his island throughout the game because it was simpler. You’ve talked about it a little, since the game ended. This new life isn’t simple by any stretch of the word (though it’s nowhere as complicated as the game had been), so you’re not entirely surprised that he’d turned down the offer.

You pass his response along to the others, and don’t miss how they slump a little in relief.

“This doesn’t mean that you can ignore him,” you admonish them, and they both nod dutifully. You don’t push, but only because you think that they have to work out the awkward between them about the uncomfortable ‘we both liked him and you got him and then the relationship imploded, and then you threatened to make him some weird sex slave while mind controlled’ thing that’s going on. After they sort that out, you’ll push it more.

You sigh happily and drag them both close to hug them tightly to your chest, and can’t help but be insanely pleased with how things are working out.

Chapter Text

Putting together puzzles is quickly becoming one of your favorite pastimes now that you have yourself a body (you'd tried some of the online puzzle games back before you'd gotten yourself your nifty human body, but the janky controls left a lot to be desired, and they always pissed you off more than they were enjoyable. Regular Real Life Puzzles are significantly better to use, even if your body's control leaves a lot to be desired some days), and dragging other people into it is also turning out to be fun. 

Dirk is currently wrapped up with Jane and Roxy, watching some kind of movie about fish and the ocean (Part of you wonders if Dirk shouldn't be tired of the ocean by now, but most of you knows that of course he isn't. You doubt he ever will be. Beaches still exist during this time period. You should look some of those up), and most of the others are hanging out together. That leaves just you and Seb, but he's a pretty good companion to do puzzles with, even if he can't really sit still for them. 

Instead, you curl up on the floor next to the still-unfinished puzzle, and keep an eye out for when Seb occasionally pauses in his constant stimming circle of the room to point out a piece he's noticed will fit. It's a system. It works. 

"You excited about staying here?" you ask, pressing your cheek into your knee as you reach out to press a piece into its place. 

Seb lets out an excited sounding chattering of teeth, and flaps his hands happily. Your own hands twitch in an echo of the movement, and causes you to dislodge about three pieces from the puzzle. That figures. 

"You going to keep staying with Jane, or do you want to move in with me and Dirk?" you ask, trying to get the pieces back in place. Putting together a puzzle on a carpet seems less than ideal. You should probably have set this up in the hallway or something. Somewhere with more solid flooring. Maybe the bathroom. (Or, you realize a little belatedly, just a fucking table.) 

He hums thoughtfully, bouncing in place while he thinks. You can't tell if he's just being his usual hyperactive self, or if the extra energy is coming from his excitement over the prospect of being able to stick around here. Either way, he's kind of fucking adorable. Part of you, an old part of you, wishes that you were that cute, because if you were, chances are people would like you more. Instead, you're a vaguely depressed sarcastic bastard. 

But, hey, everyone has their shortcomings. Yours just happens to be most of your personality. But people seem to like you more lately than they used to, you can count that as a win. 

Seb lets out a short noise, meaning that you should pay attention, so you look up from the puzzle to watch him sign. 

[Why with you?]

"Why not with us?" you retort, grabbing the piece that he's kicking at with his foot to put it in its place. "All the Dirk's in one room. It'll be a fucking party every night." 

[I'm not Dirk] Seb signs. He gives you a long look that you feel shouldn't be coming from a six year old. [Neither are you.]

"Alright, you got me there," you relent, because he's right, and because there's no point in being a bitter bastard to a kid, just because you're being sort of insecure. (Because what if Dirk having more friends here means that he doesn't need you anymore, and you go back to being the insignificant piece of shit asshole that no one liked and no one wanted to see or talk to. You're harder to forget about now that you're bigger, but you're also easier to hurt, because you're human. Harder to kill, though, so you have that going for you. You cut the thoughts off before you can trail too far down that rabbit hole. You and Dirk are getting along, so are you and Jasprose, and you and Dove, and you and Roxy, and you and Seb. None of that shit is going to happen again. No one is going to kill you. Probably. But that probably is enough for you. It has to be) "But still, we're like... I don't know, more related than the others. Brothers. It'd be cool to share." 

[Brothers] Seb signs, like he's thinking about the word. He nods firmly, which you suppose means agreement. You're way to cool to admit to the way that makes your chest crumple with relief and happiness, but your fingers flutter in response to the feeling anyway as you search out a new puzzle piece to keep them busy. [Jane has more room in her room. But maybe another day.]

"Maybe another day, huh? You planning on sticking around for a while?" 

He kicks you lightly as he passes you on his circuit, and you laugh loudly in response. You can practically tell what he's thinking without him having to even say anything. Part of you wanted to hear him say it out loud (sign it out loud) anyway, but you know that he's sticking around anyway. The old, hurt part of you hurts a little less. He pauses in his pacing to drape his heavy little body over your shoulders in a vague approximation of a hug, and you wonder if he can tell. 

You think he probably can. Your brothers are pretty great like that, after all. 

Chapter Text

You won't lie and act like you hadn't spent most of the weeks since the Egberts arrived holed up in your room, steadfastly ignoring everyone around you, but that doesn't mean that you're callous enough to not at least say goodbye. 

After all, John's dad is the reason why you are now able to sleep on an actual bed instead of some shitty couch, and is also the source of the ever so helpful bars in the bathroom that help you get in and out of your chair with a significantly lessened risk of slipping and drowning yourself in the most humiliating way possible. You can give him props for that. 

You're not really expecting anything out of it, mostly you're sort of just doing it so that Jasprose doesn't get to lord it over your head as an example of your social incompetence. 

So it's a real fucking surprise when John walks up to you and looks you dead in the eyes. 

"Sorry, dog," you say, your voice edged with sarcasm. "Wrong Dave." You wheel your chair back and forth a few inches demonstratively. He flinches a little at your words, but doesn't turn away. Instead, it seems almost like he's bracing himself to stay. 

"I'm sorry," he says, words clear and distinct and almost practiced, and you feel your heart clench in your chest in a massively uncool manner. 

You blink at him blankly from behind your shades. "What?" you ask, your voice flat. You'd heard what he'd said absolutely perfectly, but that doesn't make them any easier to understand. Logically, they don't make any kind of sense, not to you. 

John's eye-contact finally wavers, but he still doesn't turn away. Instead, he just stands there, and fucking repeats himself. "I'm sorry," he says, and then he even continues. "I acted like a real ass towards you, pretty much since the beginning, but especially on the meteor. And you kind of acted like an asshole too, but I was one first." He finally glances away fully, but only to look down at his feet and rub sheepishly at his arm. "I'm sorry I treated you like some kind of shitty replacement Dave, and I'm sorry I let things get so fucked up between us." 

You might actually, for the first time in your goddamn life, be stunned fucking speechless. 

Because what the fuck do you say to that? How the hell do you respond to this? Man, you must have fantasized about this exact fucking situation dozens of times before, yet somehow you have no clue how on earth you're supposed to reply. 

You can feel John staring at you, waiting expectantly for some kind of reply, and so you try desperately to pull your frayed thoughts together to come up with something. You roll back in your chair for something to do with your hands as you try to figure this little fucking puzzle out. 

"Yeah, well... I'm sorry I acted like a vindictive asshole about this shit too," you finally manage to choke out, somehow managing to keep an embarrassed flush off of your face only because you're still a pro at the fucking poker face and monotone combo. "I crossed some lines, and I knew it, and I'm sorry for it." 

You manage to pull together the balls to actually look John in the face, and some part of you is braced for him to laugh and say that he was fucking with you, that of course he still hates you because what is there about you to like? But instead, he just looks relieved, muscles uncoiling with the release of tension and eyes shining with actual tears. Fuck. Goddamn. 

"Oh man, we should have done this sooner, probably," John laughs, wiping at his eyes not at all surreptitiously and practically beaming at you. "We could have actually hung out a little before I had to leave." 

You shrug, trying desperately to appear casual and not like a huge chunk of your understanding has been turned upside down and shaken down for all it had. "Well, you know what they say, better late than never." And you had thought that it would be never. Your John died, and you had missed him a hell of a lot, and your second chance at making sure that he was safe and alive in order to stay your friend got flipped on its head when this John seemed to disregard you straight from the fucking start. 

Apparently, not for any longer though. 

You're startled out of your little reverie by the sound of John's dad calling him from outside. That's right, putting this little conversation off until the literal last minute means that you're both a little pressed for fucking time. 

"Guess you better get going, bro," you say, like you're not totally wishing that he couldn't stay a little longer so that you could make absolute sure that this was actually happening to you. 

John smiles, but the emotions you're frantically cramming down your throat are on full display on his face. "Guess so," he says, and makes to finally turn to leave. 

"Hey," you say sharply, and he stops to look over his shoulder back at you. "Don't be a stranger, yeah?" It takes every ounce of courage that you fucking possess to make yourself stick your fist out towards him. 

His smile is worth it. "Heck yea!" he chirps, reaching out and knocking his fist against yours in what is an absolute travesty of a fist-bump yet is somehow so thoroughly John that you can't help but grin at it. "Talk to you later?" 

"For sure," you say, and wave before he finally turns to go out the door. 

Turns out that making your own PesterChum account might not be a huge waste of time after all. 

Chapter Text

You wake up in your new bed to the thick smell of food and the sound of Roxy and Jane laughing downstairs. 

You lay there for a while, running your fingers over the soft bedspread and listening to the sounds of Hal breathing rhythmically in the bunk beneath yours, Dave rambling under his breath as he walks down the hall to get o the stairs, the rustling and jangling of Sebastian playing with Mutie in the hallway, and Rose greeting the other girls in the kitchen. 

You roll over to look out the window, and watch the birds on the bird-feeder down on the front lawn, and the trees swaying in the wind. You can see Dove and Jasprose making their way down the driveway for one of the walks that they've started taking recently.

There is something settled in your chest and relaxed about you, despite the fact that things are so different from the way they used to be. You lost three years of your life to a shit game that turned your life upside down, but now you're living in a house with your brothers and your friends, and you're pretty sure that you are happy. 

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you think that things are going to be okay.