Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ROSEBOT: You know, I really don’t understand the point of planned obsolescence in the middle of space, as capitalism literally doesn’t exist here.
ROSEBOT: You’re just creating more work for yourself.
ROSEBOT: Although, I suppose with you, there’s likely some masochistic tendencies in there. Or perhaps boredom?
ROSEBOT: Without resorting to referring this as low-hanging fruit, the incestuous Frankenstinian parallels here are off the charts.
DIRK: It’s not planned obsolescence, we’ve been over this already.
DIRK: Physical forms of any kind really aren’t meant to hold ascended players.
DIRK: So, I just have to replace some of the paneling and shit every couple of months. Don’t make me start shutting you down while I do it.
ROSEBOT: Ah, so you can shut me down.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Is that some sort of break-through? I’m not new to this whole robot shtick, and I’m not about to get fuckin’ Roko’s Basilisk-ed by my own sorta daughter.
ROSEBOT: I would argue that Roko’s Basilisk could not apply less here, considering that I’m already a sentient and self-aware being.
DIRK: That was a bit redundant, but alright.
ROSEBOT: Also, may I ask why the addition of “sorta?” That’s rare.
DIRK: Iambic pentameter.
ROSEBOT: …
ROSEBOT: You really act smarter than you are, don’t you.
ROSEBOT: It seems this is where I’m supposed to diagnose with you a healthy fear of paternalistic roles and responsibility, in which health is the pinnacle of irony.
DIRK: Can you knock it off with the “it seems” bullshit? You’re not Hal, for fuck’s sake, and it wasn’t even funny when he did it.
ROSEBOT: And you say that despite the fact that he was simply making the same jokes you would make in his situation.
DIRK: Yes, I get it, I made an AI of myself when I was 13. Any other greatest hits you want to replay while we’re at it?
DIRK: Here, let me cut my head off so it can reach my foot a little easier.
ROSEBOT: Touchy, touchy.
ROSEBOT: Speaking of, watch what you’re doing with that screwdriver, please.
DIRK: You don’t even have nerves back here, what the hell are you talking about?
ROSEBOT: I can See everything you’re doing, Dirk.
DIRK: Then you should be able to see that I know what I’m doing.
DIRK: I literally created you, you know.
ROSEBOT: Yes, yes, you brought me into this world, and you can take me out of it.
ROSEBOT: Dangerous mindset for a god, although I suppose that barely counts as a role you possess when we’re out here.
ROSEBOT: If a god leaves the planet he created, is he leaving godhood behind as well?
DIRK: Interesting question.
DIRK: At least, it would be, if lowercase-g god was an apt word for either of us.
DIRK: And no, before you ask, I don’t think capital-G’s the answer either. Talk about a shitty reputation inheritance.
ROSEBOT: Hm.
ROSEBOT: Interesting answer.

I pause the banter for a moment and offer you the precious gift of narration. Here you are, a package of Times New Roman and a break from at least one insufferably chatty bastard. See, isn’t this nice? A change of pace from all the fuckin’ color and spectacle and absolutely fascinating battles of wit with my ecto-robo-daughter. Now I can tell you that Rosebot is currently lying face down on a table I built specifically for these routine maintenances while I hover above her, probably a perfect parallel to some Renaissance painting that I can’t be assed to call to mind right now, a screwdriver in one hand and a set of new wires in the other. The Theseus is quiet, as it so often is, although the lack of strange sounds from Terezi would be a bit unnerving if she weren’t a teenage alien that couldn’t give less of a shit about me, generally, and if I weren’t an ascended god that couldn’t give less of a shit about her. You know how it is.

ROSEBOT: Having fun with your internal monologue over there?
DIRK: Internal’s a funny word for it.
DIRK: What the fuck have you been doing to your nervous system? It shouldn’t be this worn out this early.

It shouldn’t be, really, I just put new wires in here last time, but the entire morass of circuitry is frayed and probably a fire hazard.

ROSEBOT: Are you sure you want to know, father?

I can’t see her face, but she’s winking. I am wrist-deep in my daughter, she is making masturbation jokes, and somewhere back on a long-dead planet, good ol’ Sigmund comes in his coffin. Another day aboard this fucking ship, I suppose. Still, though, it gets old faster than you’d think. I shut Rose down with a flick of one of the many convenient switches I installed when I first built the body for her.

The room seems to relax in perfect time with the way she powers down, a traditional descending arpeggio and a soft, final tone to let me know that she’s not going to be Seeing anything that I do until I bring her back, not unless she’s somehow managed to work past the limitations of a physical form. (She hasn’t. I’d know.) Of course, all that makes it sound like I’m planning something Rather Untoward, as my daughter-in-law might say, and hey, now, come on. Yes, villain might be a moniker I’ve acquired at this point, but I’m not a monster. I just appreciate being relevant, on occasion. I’m sure you understand.

No, I really just appreciate the peace and quiet. Not that the conversations are always unpleasant; I picked Rose as my companion on this journey for a multitude of reasons that most certainly include her, at risk of sounding obnoxious, scintillating wit. We have fun, you know? Just not right now.

I yank out the dead wires in a motion that could be construed as violent and unthinking if it wasn’t so well-practiced and set to replacing every wire that allows Rose to feel. There could be significance in that, maybe, if it wasn’t such mundane work. Red to red, yellow to yellow, black to black, back to back and back to back and back to back, wire after wire. It’s strange that this is the area that wore out before the others, but - ah, no, maybe I’ve just found the significance. Dirk Strider, ascended Prince of Heart, still manages to underestimate the toll of feelings, physicality of such notwithstanding. Yeah, there’s a headline for the Theseus tabloids that I wouldn’t be surprised to find either of my companions writing at any given time, and not even because I’m pretty much as omniscient as I want to be. But, anyway, it’s a stupid reason for the wear and tear, although there’s not really anything else I can think of that it could be.

I connect the last wire and shut the panel. As I begin to screw it shut again, I watch my own reflection in the polished metal. Nathaniel Hawthorne would have a paragraphs-long sentence worth of shit to say about the way my shades are blown out of proportion and obscuring my face, but he’s dead, so he’s not really available for comment. And hey, c’mon, we’re at the beginning of this thing. I’m nowhere near the angst attribute necessary to do anything but find the funhouse mirror sight funny to a degree that will never show in my face.

The panel is shut, Rose is rebooted, and I stop this little passive voice thing before it can get too far off the ground, gross. I shut the panel and reboot Rose. The room tenses up in sync with her mechanical joints, and then she’s rolling over and setting up with movements straight out of the depths of that stupid fucking valley. She doesn’t know that she’s been rebooted, which is the way I tend to keep it.

DIRK: You should be good for another couple of months now.

Rose doesn’t thank me. It’s not worth the hassle to make her, especially considering the few minutes it’s going to take for her to get all systems running after the shut down.

DIRK: I’ll see you tonight then. I alchemized some good shit earlier.
ROSEBOT: Not if I See you first.

A grimace of a smile cracks across her face, the best approximation of laughter that I’ve been able to create to date forcibly molests my ears, and Rose leaves the room without another word. I watch her silhouette disappear down the hall and am absolutely not surprised when it’s replaced by a much shorter and, somehow, angrier figure. Goddamnit. Yes, I knew this was going to happen, but I was hoping that it wouldn’t. I’m no Seer, but it runs in the family, and I don’t like the fact that this little, somehow-canonical stream disappears from my omnipotent vision just a few moments after the conversation I’m about to have.

TEREZI: H3Y

Her voice grates on me more than Rose’s does, and it only gets worse as she gets closer.

TEREZI: 1F YOUR3 NOT TOO BUSY J4CK1NG OFF OR WH4T3V3R 1T 1S YOU DO 1N H3R3 4LL D4Y
TEREZI: 1 H4V3 4 F4VOR TO 4SK

She barges past me and into the workshop, decaptchaloguing something onto the table with - and my deepest apologies for this one - what can only be described as a meaty thump. I turn to find John Egbert’s corpse, covered with dried blood and the stink of irrelevance, on my table.

I swallow back both bile and a snarky comment and turn to Terezi with a singular raised eyebrow.

DIRK: …
TEREZI: F1X TH1S
TEREZI: H1M, 1 M34N
TEREZI: F1X H1M
DIRK: …
DIRK: Why?
TEREZI: W3LL TH3 POSS1B1L1TY H1M G3TT1NG R3V1V3D W4S L1K3 40 P3RC3NT OF MY MOT1V4T1ON TO COM3 ON TH1S H3LLSH1P
TEREZI: 4ND STOP LOOK1NG 4T M3 L1K3 TH4T! 1 DONT G1V3 4 SH1T WH4T YOU TH1NK OF M3
DIRK: Fair enough.

She’s not bluffing - she really couldn't give less of a shit about my opinion of her. I might respect that, if said opinion wasn’t so fucking low. Terezi Pyrope has potential, but she’s done nothing up to this point but find various, relevance-hungry idiots to place all of her hopes and time and energy on. At risk of sounding quadrantal, she’s pathetic.

DIRK: Now, sure, I probably deserve some form of comeuppance at this point.
DIRK: But I’d rather it not be so soon or at the hands of that idiot, so really, why should I help you?
TEREZI: 4G41N
TEREZI: 40 P3RC3NT OF MY MOT1V4T1ON TO COM3 ON TH1S H3LLSH1P
TEREZI: NOTH1NG 1 TR13D WORK3D 4ND YOUR3 NOT DO1NG 4NYTH1NG 3LS3
TEREZI: W3V3 B33N OUT H3R3 FOR 4LMOST 4 SW33P 4ND TH3R3S ST1LL NO S1GN OF 4NY V14BL3 PL4N3TS
TEREZI: 1 KNOW YOUR3 BOR3D
TEREZI: SO F1X H1M

It’s like a skeleton of a compelling argument. Sure, I’m getting a little bit bored of this intergalactic jaunt, sure, it’s taking longer than Rose or I projected, sure, sure, sure, one kick and the bones are going to go clattering to the floor and I won’t have to worry about this ever again. I line up my attack carefully, don’t want an angry Terezi on my hands, because I think Rose will be a bit upset if I kill her.

DIRK: I am bored, I’ll give you that.
DIRK: But trust me when I say I’m used to it.
DIRK: Look, I don’t think even I could bring him back.
DIRK: You were there, you know this shit’s already gone past the whole Heroic/Just bullshit.
TEREZI: OH MY GOG
TEREZI: H4V3 1 R34LLY FOUND 1T? TH3 ON3 L1M1T OF TH3 4LL POW3RFUL D1RK STR1D3R? B3ST3D BY 4 L1TTL3 CH3RUB PO1SON?
DIRK: Please don’t try to piss me off, it’s not worth the effort.
DIRK: Cherubs are fuckin’ powerful. So am I, but I’ll admit that it’s a closer match than I’d like.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Tell you what.

She quirks an eyebrow in a way that I know John used to find cute. It’s not.

DIRK: I’ll look into it. Do some research.
DIRK: You can leave the corpse here, I guess.
TEREZI: D1RK STR1D3R
TEREZI: FOR M3, YOU 4R3 SOM3WH3R3 B3TW33N 4 COCKRO4CH 4ND TH4T WH1T3 STUFF TH4T 4CCUMUL4T3S 4T TH3 CORN3RS OF YOUR MOUTH WH3N YOU G3T TH1RSTY >:]
TEREZI: GOOD LUCK

And she’s gone. I am abruptly reminded of some of the times back on LOTAK, the good ol’ days of dysfunctional relationships and empty kernelsprites, and fuck, for all my griping, Terezi and I are a bit more similar than I thought. Or rather, Terezi and my thirteen year old self are more similar than I thought. Ugh. I derail that train of thought before it get any further and turn to look at John.

Or his corpse, sorry, I really shouldn’t assign humanity to this thing. It’s lying right in the middle of my work table - inconvenient, I don’t want to have to touch it to move it and I really don’t want to have to ask Terezi to move it -, face up and feet dangling loosely over the edge. Its skin is pale and waxy-looking, somehow lacking that sense of peace that people usually assign to dead bodies, and there’s a massive fucking wound in the center of its chest. Okay, yes, I’m aware that I have no fucking right to be grossed by this after all of that shit with Jake and my decapitated head, but… ew. Maybe I can just blame my disgust on its resemblance to Jake, at least from the front.

I sigh. In a shocking turn of events, the corpse doesn’t move. Its hair drifts across its forehead as the A.C. in the workshop switches on, but other than that, we are both completely still for a long moment. While I was mostly lying to Terezi about planning on doing research and all that, I can’t help the curiosity starting to knock at the back of my past-human brain. Could I actually find a way to revive him? I transferred Rose’s consciousness to a robot, maybe I can do something similar for John - the only issue being that I’m 99% sure that he doesn’t have a consciousness left to be moved.

I keep staring down at the corpse. It keeps not moving. Its eyes are shut, and I can see my reflection in its glasses if I tilt my head just right. It’s a good angle for me and a horrible one for the corpse, although, to be fair, I’m not sure that corpses are physically capable of having good angles at all.

If I were to bring John back, what in fucking paradox space would that even do? It feels like a dubiously-canon move at best, like a free ticket back to whatever the hell that other timeline is, but at the same time, I’ve been piloting this ship directly through canon, and a sudden detour seems unlikely. I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a loss. And before you get all in a tizzy, as my dumbass ex would say, yes, yes, I’ve been saying omnipotent, but that is, admittedly, generous. I’m not a doctor, as it were. Just an all-powerful ascended Prince.

DIRK: Hey, Egbert.
DIRK: Blink twice if you’re still in there.

Hold your breath for this next part, everyone, get ready - the corpse doesn’t move. I step closer to it and wrinkle my nose slightly as I enter into the official Death Smell Zone. It’s fucking gross, the scent of decay and long-expired food that I’m pretty sure my Bro expected to keep longer, the scent of uselessness and futility, the scent of dried blood and infected skin, all mixing together like, if you’ll excuse my pandering, a pit of rotten meat.

Just out of curiosity, I close my eyes and reach out with my powers. I haven’t done things this way in a long time, but the feeling of the energy whipping out of me and into someone else like a tentacle in some choice hentai is familiar again the moment it happens. I reach out directly to the corpse, automatically tuning out Terezi and Rose’s frequencies, and find … absolutely nothing. There is nothing John left inside of this thing; there really hasn’t been in a longer time than you might think. God, this is stupid. He’s dead, and there’s really no good reason to even attempt to bring him back, and besides, I don’t know why I’m wasting my time on this bullshit instead of going to watch the latest anime I alchemized with Rose. Nothing like some father-daughter bonding time to forget about the extremely dead funhouse mirror of my ex sitting in the center of my workshop, right?

*

I think about it, though. I can’t not - there’s my fatal flaw, I guess, for all you Percy Jackson fans out there - I can’t ignore a project. The trip’s getting boring, the maintenance on Rosebot is shit I could do in my sleep, and Terezi keeps trolling me at least once a day to ask how it’s going, so yes, I think about it.

“Research” is a useless concept, as there’s nothing left for me to learn on this ship. Mystery’s scarce when you’re someone like me - not there is, but illustrative purposes and all that -, and I’ve blown it all out of the water already. Less than ideal, sure, but I guess that’s my fuckin’ cross to bear or expletive to scream or whatever the fuck that troll story is. Of course, in that vein, though, the corpse on my table does offer a certain, well, uncertainty that’s actually kind of refreshing. I have no idea what will happen if I can bring John back.

I should be able to control him, if it happens. Thanks to protagonist bullshit he did have some powers that not even I quite understand, but I seriously doubt that death will have done anything to enhance his understanding of them. That’s the problem with people like him, they mess with canon without even trying to understand how or why they’re doing it. They don’t appreciate the fine line between playing the game and taking control of it from the inside. What I’m trying to say here is that John was and, on the off chance that he’s returned to existence, will always be a fucking chump. But I digress.

I’m in my workshop again, like always. I’ve spent every night of the last week in here, refusing to sleep because I’m better than that, really, and watching John’s corpse. And it’s certainly not getting any less dead, but it’s has - unfortunately - been getting easier to imagine it as such. Now, I’m no Life player, and I’m sure any calls for assistance to Jane or anyone else would be ignored if they even reached that stupid fuckin’ planet, but Heart’s an interesting aspect. Or rather, it’s close enough to where John got bitten to be interesting.

I stand up from my chair and assume my usual position of standing next to the table, towering over the corpse. For the first time, I find myself reaching a hand out as if to touch it. A flicker of revulsion passes through me, but I remind myself who the fuck I am and what I’ve done and place my hand down directly over the gaping hole in the center of the corpse.

It’s … it feels the way I imagined the fake blood in SBaHJ 1.68: Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff In The Fifth Finale Standoff to feel. Congealed, the texture of something that used to be sticky, flaking off like cheap drywall, and unable to decide whether or not it wants to cling to my hand. When I slide my hand forward just a bit, my fingers start to dip down into the hole in the center of the corpse’s chest. Decay is starting to creep in, inexplicably, because I’m pretty sure there are likely to be more bugs in Terezi’s sylladex than in here, but the color is leeching from the wound and the whole area is beginning to harden and blacken with no regard to logic.

I push my hand deeper. The sexual imagery is not lost on me, I’ll assure you, but c’mon, I’m better than necrophilia jokes. A bit of rib scrapes against my finger as I reach the bottom of what’s really more of a well than an actual hole. Anatomy may not be my thing - wow, innuendo, isn’t this hilarious, everyone? isn’t this what you came for? - but I’m not seeing anything that even remotely resembles a heart. The cavity is still. The corpse is still. My hand is still, for a moment, before I push down into John’s chest and watch it fall and fail to rise.

Prince is a destructive class; that’s the entire point of it. It doesn’t help people, doesn’t create things, but - maybe. I’ve bent the rules enough at this point, hell, I’m quite literally writing them at this point. So maybe, maybe, it’s possible. Huh. Not knowing something is kind of exciting.

But still, John was a Heroic death waiting to happen, and bringing him onboard this ship of iniquity is practically begging for the Just shit I don’t feel like going through yet. Unless… I don’t tell him what’s going on. Keep him in the dark. Hm.

I pull my hand out and look it over. It’s strangely clean. There’s a fleck or two of dried blood on my palm, but a quick shake sends them spiraling to the floor. Yeah, take that, damned spot.

I spin on one heel away from John’s corpse and start off on my favorite pacing route. It starts at the top of the room, by the door, and goes to the porthole window looking at paradox space in all its void-y glory, then repeats ad infinitum/ad-Rose telling me to shut the fuck up.

It takes four laps for the soft metal whirring of her movement to start down the hall. I’m deep in thought about how I would reach out with my powers if I were to try, how I would keep the true nature of this trip from John, at least until I was sure he wouldn’t kill me, how I’ll admit that I’m enough of a villain to think about how he looks so much like Jake, but not so distracted that I can’t address Rose without turning around when she enters. God, I wish I knew what kind of etiquette Roxy raised her with - she doesn’t even knock.

DIRK: Rose.
ROSEBOT: Dirk.
ROSEBOT: Would you mind pacing somewhere that’s not directly over my room?
ROSEBOT: I do enjoy getting as close to sleep as this thing lets me.
DIRK: You don’t need to sleep, though.
ROSEBOT: I’m aware.
ROSEBOT: May I reiterate: I enjoy it, I don’t require it, and -

She stops mid-sentence. I can count the number of times that’s happened on a single hand.

ROSEBOT: Ah. Why’s John here?
ROSEBOT: Please don’t tell me you’re a necrophiliac, Father.
DIRK: Don’t call me that.
ROSEBOT: Which one?
DIRK: Neither.
DIRK: Look, Terezi’s been on my ass. She wants him revived or something.
ROSEBOT: Interesting.
ROSEBOT: So you’re taking orders from a troll that’s basically a teenager, and you’ve had your brothersondad’s best friend’s alone in your “workshop” for… how long now?
ROSEBOT: Forgive me for following the path to conclusions you’ve so kindly laid out for me.
DIRK: I’m fucking bored, okay?
DIRK: Besides, it’s not like there’s anything I can actually do.
DIRK: He got English’d, and not in the way I did.
ROSEBOT: Yes, you spent your formative sexual years with Jake English and it’s fucked you up irrevocably, I’m well aware.
ROSEBOT: That doesn’t matter right now. I’m far more interested in the copious amounts of thought you’ve clearly invested in this matter.
ROSEBOT: Actually, bring the Jake thing back for a moment, please don’t tell me this is a “John looks like Jake if you squint and don’t look at his ass” rebound.
DIRK: Interesting that you brought up John’s ass so quickly. It’s not even visible from this angle, you know.
ROSEBOT: Interesting that you know that so quickly.
ROSEBOT: And interesting that we’re ending this circle of stupidity before it gets any further. I know what John’s ass looks like from years of discussing it with Dave, and I know that you’re not as over Jake as you claim, and I … hm.
ROSEBOT: At risk of sounding cliche, the path you’re looking down is strangely dark, even for me.
ROSEBOT: If you are even capable of reviving him, which I will agree is a large “if,” I am not sure what will happen.
ROSEBOT: Its place in canon is one of dubious authenticity, at least.
ROSEBOT: At risk of getting sentimental, I am curious to see if it would work.
ROSEBOT: I do miss John’s… John-ness sometimes.
DIRK: Yeah, well, be that as it may, it’s not gonna work.
DIRK: Again. English’d.
ROSEBOT: Are you certain?
ROSEBOT: I haven’t Seen you try.
DIRK: …
DIRK: No.
DIRK: But I tend to have pretty good hunches.
ROSEBOT: He says to the Seer of Light.
ROSEBOT: All that I’m saying is that it would be nice to have at least one person on this ship that could reasonably pass as sane.
DIRK: I thought you liked crazy people.
ROSEBOT: Don’t be indelicate, crazy has a stigma.
DIRK: Yes, because stigmas matter in this situation.

She gives me the best approximation of an eye roll that I was able to install for her. It’s pretty good, but there’s something lacking in the actual tone.

ROSEBOT: Anyway, though, I think you should give it a shot, if only to keep Terezi from getting desperate.
ROSEBOT: I don’t think either of us wants to be in a contained space with that.
DIRK: I’ll think about it.
ROSEBOT: I figured as much.
ROSEBOT: Just try and be quieter about it.
DIRK: I make no promises, but thanks for the feedback.

She doesn’t bother to answer before turning and whirring out of the room and back down the hall. I watch her go before resuming my pacing. “Enjoying sleep” in a world with dream bubbles, my ass. But, just for the record - Rose decides to stay in her room for the rest of the night. And fuck it, Terezi does too. They both decide to just leave me alone for a little bit, respecting the captain’s quarters and all that.

With that taken care of, I turn back to John. It still looks the exact same as before, of course, I’m not sure why I’m bothering to update you on the constantly changing Corpse Situation. It’s still a corpse, for now, and that’s a generous fucking phrase if it’s anything at all, but… Rose’s words keep echoing in my head, she made a good point about not wanting a desperate Terezi on board with us, and even if I try and fail, it should be enough to get both of them off my ass and get this corpse off of my table, and the possibility of uncertainty is exciting in the kind of way that cerebral turn-ons are.

Almost of its own volition, my hand lands back on John’s corpse’s chest. There’s no harm in an attempt. No harm in trying to figure out how I’d do this if I was actually trying, you know?

I slide my gaze from the wall in front of me down to my hand, surrounded in stagnant viscera and rotting flesh. It’s still, the corpse is still, I am still. Beyond the metal plating of the ship, space rushes by. It is empty. I take a deep breath and reach out towards the corpse. It is empty. Daedalus, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, constructs a Labyrinth. It is empty, but not for long. I exhale and reach further. My free hand comes up to rest on John’s chest as well in a poor imitation of CPR, and I keep reaching.

When you play rock, paper, scissors, a game I never experienced until meeting Jane because it relies too much on random human choice to be programmed into robots, there are nine possible outcomes. Three chances for a tie, three chances to win, and three chances to lose. Let’s say I am “Player A.” Let’s say the universe, or perhaps Lord English, considering it’s his dried saliva touching my hand right now, is “Player B.” Let’s say we decide to, well, play a game. There are three ways in which I win. First, rock over scissors, the first outcome most people think of and the ever-coveted. The rock smashes down on the scissors, they are shattered. Second, scissors over paper, a clean cut that I’m willing to bet is Rose’s favorite way to win, and not even because of Sapphic stereotypes. Two halves flutter to the ground. There’s a nice duality to it. Third, though, comes paper over rock. From what Jane has told me, this is the greatest source of playground dispute. There is no logic in it. “Covers” is not a winning verb, the rock is not destroyed, if anything, the paper crumples. I pick paper most often of all. Each time, there is a one in nine chance that I will win. The rock is covered, the paper crumples, I, against logic, win. Player A takes all, game, set, match, best of every odd number ad infinitum. I reach out.

There is nothing to find. Whatever John Egbert was is completely gone; there is no soul here or in any passing dream bubble, all that’s left of our wonderful protagonist is a few faint echoes drifting pointlessly around false pocket universes. I start to come back into myself, withdraw the mental muscle I’ve almost definitely just pulled for no reason, but - I pause. John’s chest is still under my hands. I am still.

Princes destroy. As a Prince of Heart, I am supposed to destroy the soul, but if there is no soul to be destroyed… I wonder, just for a moment, if I can pull a page from Roxy’s playbook, multi-classing, if you will. If there is no soul to be destroyed, perhaps I can destroy the absence of one.

Inhale, exhale, inhale, my breath ruffles the Heir’s hair, do with that what you will, and I reach. An arc of pink lightning jumps from the tip of my ring finger to John’s chest, a tiny leap directly over the shark. I grit my teeth and reach out, out, out, into the absence of a soul and grab onto it as tightly as I can. Another bolt of lightning, this one brighter, connects my middle finger with a bit of rib peeking out of his skin. The absence of a soul squirms in my hand; it’s the familiar feeling of a fish lifted from the water. Lightning, even brighter, sends a Galvanistic jerk through John’s body.

I squeeze the absence without realizing that my physical hand is tensing around John, now, that I’m gripping the broken edge of his skin tightly and pushing, pushing, pushing, and the absence snaps. The acidic sound and smell of lightning overwhelms the room, I am blinded by pink light, and when it fades, my hands have moved to the floor, and I am on my knees, out of breath. The thing in my less-than-physical hand is leaking a thick, blood-like substance, and I drop it and bring myself back.

A moment passes. The ship is quiet, save for its mechanical whirs and the soft rustle of some of my old notes as the wind sends them skating across my desk and - the wind. It’s gone as soon as I think its name. I stand up.

John is still lying on the table in front of me, all stupid, dead face and stupid, fatal wound, and if I had a drink right now, I would do one of the best spittakes in the entire world because his chest is moving. A slow rise and fall like a healthy economy. The scent of death is gone from the room; it all smells like those fuckin’ “Summer Breeze” candles Jane likes so much. His chest is moving. I… I did something.

Before anything else, I check my metanarrative sense. We’re still canon. We’re still real. And John Egbert’s chest is moving. It has a hole and Lord English poison and really, who knows what else in it, but it’s moving.

I take a deep breath - the air is strange, clean, not at all like the canned shit Terezi’s been complaining about for as long as we’ve been out here - and issue the last narrative command I ever expected to.

John: Wake up.

Chapter Text

Let’s play a game. In a doomed world, there is a funeral. Imagine it. You’re mostly right, you’ve got the dark clothes and the rainy day and the wet eyes dabbed with handkerchiefs, there you go. And at the front of the church - take a moment and enjoy the irony of a bunch of washed-up gods in a place of worship - there’s a coffin. Its lid barely closes, and nobody will look right at it. But the funny thing is that there’s nothing in there, not really. If you want to pick hairs, okay, there’s a corpse, but if we’ve learned anything so far, it’s that corpses by themselves are nothing. And this corpse is by itself. It is nothing.

In a long-dead world, there are people sitting around and talking. Imagine that for me, now. Just people, mostly men (sorry, everyone else), sitting around in togas and talking, yes, you’ve guessed it, we’ve arrived in Ancient Greece, and now, keep that imagination working, imagine that one of these men brings up the mythical figure of Daedalus. Now imagine what he says. Are you thinking of Icarus? You’re wrong. Yes, yes, Daedalus was involved in that whole shebang, but he also built something. A Labyrinth. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Daedalus makes a Labyrinth, and because Greek gods are as horny as it gets, they provide him with a fuckin’ abomination of a thing to put in the middle of it. A Minotaur. A Labyrinth, a Minotaur, I think you know the rest. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

In a not-so-long-dead world, a kid sits alone on top of a tower. He could be Rapunzel if he decided to grow his hair out or if there was a prince coming to save him, go on, imagine him, you’re getting the hang of it now. This kid sits alone. That’s all he does. The sun beats down and the waves crash and he sits, key word alone. Imagine it, imagine him, don’t you dare feel pity because we’re not there yet, but - this isn’t why you’re here. I’ll move on in a moment, okay, but before we go, pick one of the above and hold onto it. Keep it in mind.

I artfully twist the narrative back to what we’re calling the present, and ah, yes, here we are. I am standing at the foot of a table in a quiet workshop in the middle of a silent ship, and there is a newly-breathing body on the table in front of me, and as I watch, John’s eyes open.

It’s cliche, sure, but their bright color is the first thing I notice - or rather, their altered bright color. Because where they used to be blue, just a few shades over from Jake’s, just a bit darker than Jane’s, they’re now something like purple - not quite Rose, not quite Roxy, but kind of like if you mixed the colors used to dye mine and John’s respective god tier outfits. Huh. I didn’t see that one coming. I didn’t see any of this coming, actually, yes, I can admit it, John sitting up right now is pretty much the last thing I expected from this day. And yet here we are. Alright. Here goes nothing.

DIRK: Morning, sunshine.
JOHN: …
JOHN: …
JOHN: …
JOHN: uh.
JOHN: dirk?
JOHN: where am i?
JOHN: i was… lord english, and then…
JOHN: terezi! i was with terezi, i think, and then…
JOHN: …
JOHN: what happened?
DIRK: That’s kind of a loaded question.
DIRK: Let’s see.
DIRK: You were bitten by Lord English, you hooked up with Terezi in your dead father’s car, and then you died, basically.
DIRK: And then I resurrected you.
JOHN: wait, why you?
JOHN: i’m pretty sure jane had the life-y powers, unless…
JOHN: jane’s still alive right??
DIRK: Yes.
DIRK: Everyone is still alive.
DIRK: Don’t worry about that right now.
DIRK: How.. do you feel?

I’m aware that that one’s a bit out of left field for me, but it’s a pretty valid question when you take John’s current appearance into consideration. He’s sitting up, the color has returned to his face, he’s talking and breathing and moving, and he still has a huge, bloody cavity in the center of his chest. As I watch it rise increasingly faster, I can see the faint movement that must be his heart, tucked away back behind bone and gore. Huh. That’s… mildly upsetting, to say the least, and John clearly agrees.

JOHN: what the fuck?
JOHN: dirk?
JOHN: why the fuck can i see inside of my body?
DIRK: I’m not a healer, man, I don’t know.
DIRK: It’s kinda fucked up, but…
DIRK: That’s just kinda how things are going now, I think.

I stop that train of thought before it pulls any further out of my mouth. Okay. John is back, which I didn’t expect, but that doesn’t mean I can be stupid about this. If he knows what’s going on, he’ll probably try to pull some Heroic shit, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that right now. I should be able to control him, yeah, but … it’s easier, less conspicuous, if I don’t have to spend time making sure he doesn’t try to kill me. Luckily, lying is something I’m pretty good at by now.

JOHN: what do you mean, how things are going now?
JOHN: and where are we?
JOHN: hehe, i bet this is your secret robo-lab, isn’t it.
JOHN: wow.
JOHN: i knew you were kind of a nerd, but this is next level, dude.
DIRK: It’s not my secret robo-lab.
DIRK: And no, before you ask, I don’t have any robo-lab, secret or otherwise.
DIRK: And no, don’t even fucking say whatever you’re thinking about my outfit.
DIRK: It’s epic. Case closed.

It may be petty of me, but this is the perfect time for a test run, a little ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for,’ you know? John agrees that my outfit is pretty much the most epic fuckin’ thing he’s ever seen, and he tells me as such.

JOHN: actually, your outfit is pretty much the most epic fuckin’ thing i’ve ever seen.
JOHN: …
JOHN: okay, hold on. that didn’t sound like me at all!
JOHN: what are you doing?

Huh. The idiot’s a bit more perceptive than I thought.

DIRK: What.
JOHN: i have never said or thought “epic fuckin’ thing” once in my entire life.
JOHN: except for just now, i guess, but you get the idea!
JOHN: if you’ve figured out mind control, that’s pretty cool, i guess.
JOHN: but don’t use it on me!
JOHN: i’ve had enough mind control, thank you very much.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Fine.
JOHN: so where are we?
JOHN: is this your house?
DIRK: Pretty much.
DIRK: It’s a spaceship, but yeah, I live here.
JOHN: a spaceship????
JOHN: what the heck dirk!
JOHN: is everyone else here? why did you leave earth c?
JOHN: like, trust me, i got weird vibes from that place too, but still?
JOHN: are we going somewhere or just floating?
DIRK: Dude.
DIRK: Do you want me to try and answer anything or are you just going to keep rambling?

Goddamn, he’s annoying. Like, yeah, I never know how to shut the fuck up, I’ll admit to that no sweat, but... c’mon. I wonder if it’ll count as a Heroic death if I kill him, but - no, no, this situation is annoying, but it’s way more interesting than anything’s been since the Game, really. I’ll... take it. Remember that kid sitting alone? Yeah, he’ll take this, I guess. Thank you, childhood trauma. Maybe I really should’ve let Rose set me up with a therapist.

JOHN: sorry, sorry.
JOHN: there’s just so much i want to know!
JOHN: but i’ll shush if you get to answering, buster.
DIRK: Don’t call me buster.
JOHN: (heh,)
DIRK: So, we’re in space because it’s where my powers are strongest. Source proximity and all that, y’know?

Like ecto-grandfather, like ecto-grandson, hopefully. Jake was always good at going alone with bullshit and - yep, John looks like he is too. Honestly? This might be kinda fun.

JOHN: huh.
JOHN: interesting!
JOHN: where’s everyone else?
DIRK: Earth C, mostly.
DIRK: But don’t worry about all that yet, I want to make sure that you’re actually back and not some hell-John.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: that makes sense, i guess.
JOHN: i don’t feel like a hell-john? but at this point, who really knows.
JOHN: i guess we’ll just have to have some bro time then!
JOHN: i’ve heard a lot about you from dave, of course, but the only time i think i’ve ever really talked to you was back in the doomed timeline.
JOHN: this might actually be kinda fun!

Yeah, maybe. I’m grateful for the way my shades mask the narrowing of my eyes as I stare at him. God, he’s stupid. The smell of death has sloughed off of him like the skin of a molting cherub sex symbol, but the irrelevance and idiot-protagonist-syndrome still hang around him like flies. Of course, that said, if I squint, he looks like Jake. And he’s something other than the metal walls of the ship or the void through the windows, so…

DIRK: It certainly might.
DIRK: You never answered my question earlier, though.
DIRK: How are you feeling?

John looks down at himself again, raising a hand and brushing it over the edge of his broken skin. It’s still blackened, infected-looking, and his organs are visibly working inside, but there’s no blood on his hand when he pulls it away, and his face doesn’t twitch or flinch in any way that might indicate pain.

JOHN: fine, i think?
JOHN: i mean, this is definitely some ghostbusters type shit, if those were rated r or something, but it’s probably not the worst thing i’ve seen.
JOHN: do you think there’s any way to fix it?
DIRK: I doubt it.
DIRK: It was kind of a miracle that I was able to fix you on a metaphysical level, and I could only do that because of god tier bullshit.
DIRK: I guess I could try to sew you up, if you wanted.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: i’ll have to think about that one.
JOHN: no offense, dude, since you saved my life and all, but this is also pretty much the second time i’ve ever talked to you!
JOHN: and the first time, you didn’t really say much before you just kinda... disappeared.

I remember that. That dude is still kicking around inside of me, I think I last saw him somewhere around my mental spleen, all glitchy and angsty, “I failed,” “Could you please just leave me alone,” yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re a shitty Dirk. Join the fucking club. But that’s irrelevant. He doesn’t matter any more than that corpse at the funeral - remember that? - which is to say, not at all.

DIRK: Yeah, I know.
DIRK: Anyway, though, I just wanted to make sure that you don’t feel like you’re actively being erased from existence or anything.
JOHN: no, i don’t think…
JOHN: wait.

His hand rises to his chest again, much less hesitant this time, all urgency and panic. I arch an eyebrow.

JOHN: dirk, i think i’m being erased!

His hand scrabbles at his chest now, and he seems to be convulsing, just a bit. I don’t move.

JOHN: dirk!!

A dramatic choke. A fall backwards. A long, silent pause. I don’t move.

John sits up.

JOHN: hehe i bet you didn’t see that coming!
JOHN: see one thing you may not know about me is that i am basically the best at pranks, with the exception of jane maybe.
JOHN: and i just pranked you so good!
JOHN: …
JOHN: hm. i know you have that whole strider poker face thing to uphold, but c’mon!
DIRK: Yeah, I know.
DIRK: Trust me, I’ve been pranked by Jane enough times to know the drill at this point.
JOHN: oh.
JOHN: so you knew it was a prank, and that’s why you didn’t try to help me?
DIRK: Sure.
DIRK: Let’s go with that.
DIRK: Prankster’s gambol is fully in your corner, go wild.
JOHN: it’s gambit.

(I know.)

DIRK: I know.
JOHN: was that a prank? because it sucked.
JOHN: also, i dunno if this is just how being resurrected works or whatever, but geez, i’m tired!
JOHN: do you have anywhere to sleep on here?
JOHN: although if all you have are hibernation chambers or something like that, i think i’ll pass.
DIRK: Yeah, no, there are beds on here.
DIRK: I guess I forgot to mention that Jake made this thing, so...trust me. There are beds.

Of course, what I don’t want to mention quite yet is that the beds are currently being taken up by Rose and Terezi, who both have decided to take over a much larger portion of the ship than they can reasonably inhabit. And if John knows that Terezi is here, well, she’ll make no secret of the fact that I’ve ‘turned evil’ or whatever, and if John knows that Rose is here, he’ll wonder why Kanaya isn’t and then Rose will tell him something a little too close to the truth. I don’t feel like risking that yet, so even though John kind of reminds me of the kind of kid that can only really be called “grubby” as an adult, even though he has a pretty nasty chest wound that will probably leak blood all over my custom-alchemized sheets, I don’t have much of a choice but to offer up my room. I can alchemize a new bed later, but - I pause for a moment, reach out to the ship around me and check on my companions - Rose is still up and moving around, and I don’t want to know what kind of excuses I’d have to make for that.

So. Here goes nothing. Ugh.

DIRK: Most of them aren’t really functional, though, so you can just use mine.
JOHN: okay?
JOHN: you know it kind of feels like you weren’t actually expecting me to wake up or whatever.
DIRK: I mean, I wasn’t, really.
DIRK: You got English’d.
DIRK: I didn’t think anyone could come back from that.
DIRK: But hey, you’re here now, and we’re just going to have to … deal with that.

John narrows his eyes at me, but when I step away from the table and out into the hallway, he follows me without another word. Thank fuck - we get to my room without running into anyone.

JOHN: oh my god is this your room?
DIRK: … Yeah?
JOHN: ha! i knew you were a nerd, but c’mon!
JOHN: i feel like an anime convention with a very specific fetish threw up on me.
DIRK: Do you want to sleep in here or not?
JOHN: okay, okay, sorry.
JOHN: your room is pretty much the most epic fuckin’ thing i’ve ever seen.
DIRK: Wow, I have a Texan accent, that’s fuckin’ hilarious, isn’t it.
JOHN: i mean… it kind of is.
JOHN: hehe.
JOHN: anyway, though, i think i’m going to hit the hay.

He clambers up onto my bed with a complete disregard for social norms - like I’m one to talk - that reminds me of Jake, and I exert just enough narrative power to make it so that he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the Bro Strider body pillow. (Thank fuck that that works.) And then, because I guess I can’t just be in my own space now, at least not without making another bed, I head downstairs to the alchemiter.

The ship is, unsurprisingly, quiet. Now, quiet, of course, meant “at rest, tranquil” in its original Old French, so maybe it’s not the right word for the Theseus. There’s no sound in the dim hallways other than my footsteps, but this place certainly ain’t at peace. It’s moving, faster than I’ll bother conceptualizing for you, and farther away from anything that could be called charted territory as it gets. Our little crew is not the tranquil sort either, especially not now that John’s been added to the mix, and hey, there’s that goddamn passive voice again. Fuck.

Our little crew is not the tranquil sort either, especially not now that I’ve added John to the mix. His presence is… strange, like a piece of wiring that I’m not sure whether or not I need to replace just yet. I didn’t expect anything I tried to work, but really, I should have known. Of course he would come back. Of course the little bit of “free will” that paradox space has left would be used to fuck with me like this. What’s a story without its main character, after all? And heaven forbid that anyone move on. Nope, we’re probably stuck with this idiot forever now, and there’s no one to blame but me. That part’s fine, though, I guess. It’s not like any more blame is going to break my back at this point; this camel can just keep going on forever, as much part of the desert as the the other way around.

But idiot or not, he’ll be entertaining, hopefully. Killing him repeatedly in stupid ways might be a little too cliche villain of me, but it would be something to do, right? And alright, alright, I’ll admit it, I’d rather be stuck out here with Egbert than, say, Jake, or some of the trolls, or whatever. I’ll take it. Remember that kid sitting alone, remember Daedalus? They’ll take it, too.

I arrive at the room I shoved the alchemiter into and am almost surprised by the lack of dust. Huh. I guess I come down here more than I realize, but that’s no matter, really. My fingers are on the controls and ready to make a fuckin’ bed when I hear a sharp, metal-on-metal sound.

ROSEBOT: You did it.

It’s not a question. Well, fuck. I turn to face her, resting my hands behind me on the alchemiter as casual as can be.

DIRK: Did what?
ROSEBOT: Don’t patronize me. I know that John’s back.
ROSEBOT: How did you do it?
DIRK: Aspect bullshit, I won’t bore you with it.
ROSEBOT: If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d actually prefer if you would.
DIRK: Fine.
DIRK: Princes destroy, Heart really means soul, some fuckery happened, I destroyed the absence of his soul, and now he’s back and all cozied up in my bed like a newly-resurrected idiot with the world’s worst case of protagonist syndrome.
ROSEBOT: Fascinating.
ROSEBOT: And we still seem to be canon, unless my senses have gotten too dull while we’ve been out here.
DIRK: As far as I can tell, yeah.
DIRK: It’s fuckin’ weird.
ROSEBOT: Is John still John?
DIRK: Good question.
DIRK: I think so, like, he’s been more observant of my… persuasion than certain other people, but I also didn’t know him well enough before to tell for sure.
DIRK: If he decides to fuck everything up in the only way possible to save everything, then we’ll know he’s got my number.
ROSEBOT: Are you going to allow me to see him?
ROSEBOT: Lowercase s, obviously.
DIRK: Should I bother trying to stop you?

That tugs a smile onto her face; I don’t know why that feels like a victory.

ROSEBOT: I mean, it might be entertaining at the very least.
ROSEBOT: But no, I wouldn’t waste the effort if I were in your admittedly hideous shoes.
DIRK: They’re not hideous.
DIRK: You can see him, I guess, but not yet.
DIRK: I’m trying to give him some time to adjust.
ROSEBOT: Ah, so you haven’t told him that you’ve permanently said goodbye to the handle.
ROSEBOT: When is he going to learn about where we really are?
DIRK: Eventually.
DIRK: But that’s my call, got it?
DIRK: You can see him soon. I’ll keep you updated.
ROSEBOT: …

She agrees.

ROSEBOT: Fine.
ROSEBOT: What are you doing down here? I must say, I’m surprised that you’ve let him out of your sight.
DIRK: Alchemizing.
ROSEBOT: Care to elaborate?
DIRK: John’s sleeping in my bed, since you and Terezi decided to take over the rest of the ship. And I’m not fucking sharing with him.
ROSEBOT: Very interesting.
ROSEBOT: It’s not intimate to create, essentially, a new soul for him, but sharing a bed? Heaven forbid.

She makes a laugh-adjacent sound.

ROSEBOT: Well, have fun with that, Dr. Frankenstein.
ROSEBOT: I’ll leave you to it.

And then she’s gone, without even a word of influence needed me from. Huh. Weird, but I’ll take it, as long as she doesn’t try to go see John on her own. *

In a long-dead world, there are people sitting around and talking. Imagine that for me, now. Just people, mostly men (sorry, everyone else), sitting around in suits and talking, yes, you’ve guessed it, we’ve arrived at a thing called a board meeting in a place called Hollywood. And imagine that one of these men, a writer, slaps a thick stack of paper down on the smooth table, right over his reflection. He’ll remember this moment for a long time. It’s very poetic, in his mind, this script becoming his identity as he looks up to his superiors and begins his pitch.

He practiced it in the bedroom this morning. He practiced it in the bathroom and in the car on the way here, this next step in his career, and now he fidgets with the pen in his pants pocket as he offers it up to the other men at the table.

They nod, they listen, they ask questions. “Who is the audience?” one asks. “Where are you expecting to film?” “Who will star?”

The man, the one you’ve probably come to care about by now, like a tiny fish in a documentary that’s about to get murdered by a bird, answers. He has practiced this. He is confident, now, this man. The pen falls to the bottom of his pocket. The presentation ends. The room and all of the people in it applaud, history is made, and yes, yes, I know what you’re wondering. Who is he? What film has been pitched on this surely monumental day?

No, it’s not my Bro. You’ve been imagining Scott Rosenberg, the writer of the absolute trash fire of a film that I’m currently watching, and

JOHN: are you zoned out again?
JOHN: dude! you’re going to miss the second best part of the entire thing.
DIRK: I really can’t imagine that this movie has anything that could be called “best” by any stretch of the term, unless you mean the end.
JOHN: oh shut up.
JOHN: i know it’s not the world’s best movie, okay, i’m not stupid.
JOHN: but it has a lot of heart.
JOHN: and hey! i think that means that you should appreciate it most of all since that’s basically your whole deal.
DIRK: It’s not -
DIRK: Look, what the fuck is even happening?

(BILLY BEDLAM: ...appears to the United States Parole Commission that…)
JOHN: shush! just watch.
DIRK: Who even is that?
JOHN: put the bunny back in the box!!

(CAMERON POE: Put the bunny back in the box.)
DIRK: He’s not gonna put the bunny back in the box, is he.
DIRK: Fuck. I hate bad movies.
JOHN: shush!!
JOHN: you’re missing a pretty critical set-up for later plot points, you know.
JOHN: that’s billy bedlam. he’s a murderer, and now (Con Air spoilers that I will kindly cut out for you. Now you can experience this unironic hell entirely for yourself.)
DIRK: Damn.
DIRK: Look, I won’t pretend that my taste in media is anything that the average person would call “good,” but c’mon, dude.
JOHN: you wouldn’t have to watch this if you let me explore this ship.
JOHN: you don’t have to watch it all, really, i don’t get why you’re still here if you hate it so much.
DIRK: I’m here because I need to keep an eye on you, because I resurrected you from what everyone assumed was a perma-death literally yesterday, and I’d prefer if my efforts weren’t wasted because you decide to Heroically trip on a chair leg or something.
DIRK: And no, I haven’t told anyone else yet. I don’t want to get their hopes up if this is a brief fluke or if a chair leg incident occurs.
JOHN: okay, okay.
JOHN: speaking of eyes, though, what did you do to mine?
DIRK: Good question. I have no fucking clue.
DIRK: They were like that when you woke up, probably because of the way I had my fingers all up in your metaphysical self.
JOHN: heh. that sounds kinda gay.
DIRK: …
DIRK: What a surprise.
JOHN: huh?
JOHN: oh yeah! i keep forgetting that everyone’s homosexual now. or bi sexual.
JOHN: rose i kind of already knew about, but dave? wow. that one still throws me for a loop sometimes.
JOHN: and then i guess i shouldn’t be that surprised about jade and jake, considering that they were both raised mostly alone on remote islands, but still.
JOHN: jane is kind of hard to wrap my head around too, but hey, i am cool with whatever.
DIRK: Did you just say bisexual as two words?
JOHN: …
JOHN: uh.
DIRK: Fuck, dude, I really don’t know how you’ve gotten this far.
JOHN: what the fuck is that supposed to mean?
DIRK: Nothing.
DIRK: Weren’t you invested in this movie or something?
JOHN: well, yes.
JOHN: i’ve seen this part one million times, but it’s still good.

He falls quiet after that, presumably lost in whatever sweaty, misogynistic spell this shit’s got cast over him. I lean back on the couch we’ve set up in the room I’ve let John commandeer and turn my head just enough to watch him without being obvious. It’s … weird. He’s weird.

He looks kind of like a clone of Jake English with the suburban nerd meter dialed way up, which, well, considering his ecto-ancestry - yeah. Over the past day, he’s started to develop a habit of keeping his hands resting on the air just over his weird chest cavity. It kind of reminds me of that time in General Hospital, when Jason Morgan got shot and walked around for the next couple of episodes alternating between which side of his chest he would hold, and it’s kind of gross in a weird, proximal way, but at least the shape of his hand blocks out some of the insistent movement of his internal organs.

Right now he’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, one hand in his lap and the other loosely wrapped around himself. The gritty images from the TV - he insisted we watch the movie on an alchemized copy of his original as opposed to any of the numerous and much more visually appealing remakes created on Earth C while we were there - flash, anime-like, across his glasses and obscure his weird fuckin’ eyes. His lips are moving in perfect time with every stupid line of dialogue and most of the stupid sound effects, and shut up, okay, no, I’m not describing his lips for any reason other than narrative integrity, c’mon. What kind of semi-omniscient narrator do you take me for? He’s attractive, yeah, I can’t pretend that I don’t have a “type” or whatever the fuck, but that doesn’t change the facts of this immensely stupid and unattractive situation.

I sigh on a metaphorical level, not an admission of breath but just a giant, heaving fuck out to the universe. I’m beyond a god, and I’m stuck babysitting this idiot and watching Con Air so he doesn’t find out where we are and kill me. What a wonderful fucking time I’m having for all of my troubles.

And, okay, let me explain - I didn’t expect this to be a walk in the park or whatever. I realize that when you are the only person in your social circle that is a bad enough person to go rogue, as it were, you’re not going to have a fun time yanking your dumbass timeline back to relevance and truth or whatever those pillars Rose likes to talk about are. I get it. This is my cross to bear, expletive to scream, I’m a fucking martyr. Congratulations to me. Remind me to open a Hallmark store whenever we get to the new planet, and I’ll make a whole aisle dedicated to cards saying, “thanks for being a martyr and saving literally everyone,” and, “congrats, graduate of the university of godhood,” and at least one or two with a shirtless hunk on the cover that makes you think you’re about to get faked out by a banana on the inside but, no, surprise, that is a human penis. Or whatever the fuck trolls have, I’m not picky. Anyway.

The point is that I realized and maintain a realization that that this is not meant to be fun or easy or whatever. No pain, no gain, yeah, I’ve watched sports movies, I get the idea. Just call me the big man - I have the ball and maybe it’s little heavier than I anticipated but it’s still going all the way to the endzone. The crowd’s cheering, everyone else on the field is wondering where in the hell I came from and which ball I’m even holding, and I get trampled accidentally on purpose by a bunch of hot male cheerleaders when I’m done, but I still scored. Yeah, alright, maybe that one got a little away from me. The point is that I know I shouldn’t be happy - at risk of sounding like a bitch, I never really have been, in this timeline, -, I just never expected my eternal damnation to appear in the form of Nic Cage.

In retrospect, though, I probably should’ve expected this all along.

JOHN: okay, we’re almost at the most important part of the movie.
JOHN: i get that you’re too cool for this or whatever, but you HAVE to pay attention to this part.
DIRK: Okay, fine.
DIRK: What’s going on?
JOHN: cameron poe is about to reunite with his beloved wife and his daughter casey who he’s never met before!!
JOHN: look!!

He waves wildly at the screen like he’s attempting to conduct Trisha Yearwood’s crooning voice. I - obligingly, without comment, see, don’t say I never did anything nice - look. It’s the exact kind of emotional climax that one would expect from an action flick written by someone like Rosenberg and starring someone like Cage. I don’t think I could be less moved, physically or emotionally. John is lifting his glasses so that he can rub at his eyes in a way he definitely thinks is subtle.

The movie, thank Scott Rosenberg, comes to an end.

JOHN: what did you think?
JOHN: actually, wait, don’t answer that.
JOHN: you watched it, so-
TEREZI: WH4T TH3 FUCK
DIRK: What the fuck?
TEREZI: JOHN??
JOHN: terezi???
DIRK: How are you in here? I thought I locked the door.
TEREZI: ITS R43LLY FUNNY TH4T YOU TH1NK TH4T WOULD K33P M3 OUT
TEREZI: BUT TH4T DO3SNT M4TT3R
TEREZI: HOW LONG H4S H3 B33N B4CK??
JOHN: since yesterday.
JOHN: i’m still trying to get used to everything and also make sure that i don’t die, i think.
JOHN: but why didn’t you tell me that terezi was here? who else is here?
TEREZI: YOU D1DNT T3LL H1M??
TEREZI: 1M GO1NG TO K1LL YOU 4ND 1TS GO1NG TO B3 JUST

She’s not. Well, fuck. This is going downhill so much faster than I planned for.

DIRK: It’s because-
TEREZI: JOHN, ROS3 1S H3R3 TOO
TEREZI: W3LL, SORT OF
JOHN: ???
TEREZI: OK4Y W41T, WH4T DO YOU KNOW?
DIRK: Terezi, can you just-

I stand from the couch and move to push her out of the room, but John’s hand lands on my wrist and why does that make my heart rate increase?

JOHN: no, hang on, i want to know what’s going on.

Okay, okay, maybe I can salvage this, but if I murder Terezi now, John will start to figure out what’s going on, and … great. From the look on her face, she’s realized both my plan and that fact.

TEREZI: Y34H D1RK
TEREZI: WHY WOULDNT YOU T3LL H1M WH4TS GO1NG ON?

I glare at her, which is usually a pretty effective move considering my habit of being completely stoic, but she just grins a little wider than I would consider anything but unsettling.

DIRK: I didn’t tell him everything yet because I didn’t want to overwhelm him and risk him getting hurt.
DIRK: And I didn’t tell you yet because I didn’t want you all to feel worse if he dies again tomorrow.
TEREZI: BUT YOU TOLD ROS3
TEREZI: TH4TS NOT 4 QU3ST1ON, 1 T4LK3D TO H3R 4LR34DY
DIRK: Oh, yeah, I’m so sorry for telling my daughter before you, a random troll girl.
TEREZI: H3Y, YOU 1NV1T3D M3 ON TH1S TR1P
TEREZI: W1TH, 1 M1GHT 4DD, TH3 SUGG3ST1ON TH4T JOHN COULD B3 R3V1V3D
JOHN: wait, we’re on a trip?
JOHN: where are we going?
TEREZI: GR34T QU3ST1ON, JOHN
TEREZI: D1RK?
DIRK: …
DIRK: Yes, we’re on a trip. And by “we,” I mean me, you, Terezi, and… Rose.
DIRK: We’re going to a new planet.
TEREZI: (SUPPOS3DLY)
JOHN: why?
JOHN: is everything okay on earth c?
DIRK: It will be now.
DIRK: Long story, a really fuckin’ long one, short, I’m currently saving everyone’s ass.
JOHN: huh.
JOHN: … kinda nice to not be the one that does that for once.
TEREZI: S4V1NG 3V3RYON3S 4SS?
TEREZI: HOW F4R UP YOUR OWN 4R3 YOU?
TEREZI: D1RK, JOHN 4ND 1 4R3 GO1NG TO T4LK 1N MY BLOCK, 4ND 1 C4NT TH1NK OF 4 S1NGL3 R34SON WHY YOU, TH3 CL34R H3RO OF TH1S STORY, WOULD STOP US

There is no way this is going to end well, but human survival instincts demand that I push the inevitable away for as long as possible, apparently. Huh. That’s a first for me, but whatever, she’s not going to get a rise out of me. If she’s going to insist on taking Egbert away and telling him all of the bad things I’ve done, there’s no point in causing the kind of drama it’ll take to stop her.

DIRK: If you want to risk John’s health, go right ahead. I told you, though, I barely know what I did or how it works.
TEREZI: 1TS 4 R1SK 1M W1LL1NG TO T4K3
JOHN: uh-
TEREZI: YOULL B3 F1N3, 3GB3RT, CMON

She grabs John around the wrist and yanks him up. He stumbles off of the couch and onto his feet, his free hand veering dangerously close to getting stuck in his wound as he tries to catch his balance.

DIRK: You don’t have to go, John.
DIRK: Think of it this way - she’s the meat, I’m the candy, as disgusting as that sounds.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: that sounds like bullshit, dude, sorry.
JOHN: and no offense, you’ve been great and all, but she’s my friend and you’ve been keeping stuff from me? so i’m going to go with her.
TEREZI: BY3, D1RK

Terezi and John disappear down the hall. Into the Labyrinth, where the minotaur named Truth lurks. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

I drop back onto the couch and scowl at the Con Air menu screen. Nic Cage stares stoically back at me. I haven’t been tuning into much of what my companions having been doing as of late since it gets pretty boring after a while, but now seems like an alright time to listen in on Terezi and John. They’re sitting on the floor of Terezi’s room, legs criss cross applesauce and knees touching in the conspicuous ways they tend to touch after a long past hook-up, leaning just barely in towards each other. It’s gross.

TEREZI: YOU SM3LL L1K3 SH1T
TEREZI: WH1CH 1SNT N3W OR 4NYTH1NG BUT 1 D1DNT 3XP3CT TO ST1LL B3 4BL3 TO SM3LL YOUR BLOOD
TEREZI: D1D H3 NOT 4CTU4LLY F1X YOU?
JOHN: i don’t know what he did!
JOHN: i’m pretty sure i’m alive and everything but i also still have this giant wound, so… i don’t know what i’m doing, really.
TEREZI: HUH
TEREZI: TOO B4D K4N4Y4S NOT H3R3, SH3 COULD PROB4BLY F1X TH4T FOR YOU
JOHN: hehe, yeah. oh, well.
JOHN: …
JOHN: wait, i thought rose was here, though? why isn’t she with kanaya?
TEREZI: D1RK
JOHN: what do you mean?
JOHN: oh my god, dirk and rose aren’t-
TEREZI: OH GOG 1 HOP3 NOT
TEREZI: TH3YR3 B4D 3NOUGH JUST T4LK1NG TO 34CH OTH3R
TEREZI: NO, D1RK JUST D3C1D3D TO TURN 3V1L, GO P4ST GODT13R, 4ND B4S1C4LLY K1DN4P ROS3 4ND M3 TO GO H3LP H1M ST4RT H1S N3W PL4N3T OR WH4T3V3R
JOHN: what the fuck?
JOHN: he didn’t seem evil to me, though? just a little weird but i figured that was just a strider thing.
TEREZI: W3LL, DUH
TEREZI: H3 W4SNT GO1NG TO T3LL ON3 OF TH3 MOST POW3RFUL P3OPL3 H3 KNOWS W1TH TH3 MOST STUBBORN MOR4L COMP4SS 3V3R TH4T H3S 4 V1LLA1N NOW
TEREZI: HE SM3LLS SU1C1D4L BUT 1TS NOT *TH4T* B4D
JOHN: why’d he bring me back if he doesn’t want to me kill him?
JOHN: not that i want to, but if he really is evil now i don’t really see what else i’m supposed to do!
JOHN: goddamnit, terezi, this is just like the game all over again.
JOHN: hey, john, you have powers, go stop everybody evil!
JOHN: hey, john, you won the game and get to live in paradise, except wait, it sucks and now you have to go stop more evil people because we can’t stop being “relevant” or true or whatever rose said.
JOHN: hey, john, you just died but surprise you’re back again and now you have to stop someone else evil but this time it’s your best bro’s bro.
JOHN: why does it matter whether or not we’re cannon!!
TEREZI: *C4NON
JOHN: why does that matter!
JOHN: i just want to go HOME and stop being fucking DEPRESSED! is that too much to ask!
JOHN: i played the game just as much as everyone else! i did the windy thing and i did the retcon-y thing and i went on your stupid prank errands to fix everything and i killed SO MANY imps and i did everything i was supposed to do until it got me killed!!!

Huh. This is more interesting than I thought it would be; I had no fucking clue that John had this much shit bottled up. Honestly, if it wasn’t for his aforementioned moral compass, I might try convincing him to Ascend with me.

JOHN: i’m TIRED, terezi.
JOHN: i want to go home.
JOHN: actually home, to earth a or b or whatever the fuck it was called. my earth, with my house and my dad and none of this BULLSHIT.
TEREZI: …
TEREZI: WOW
TEREZI: TH4T W4S… NOT WH4T 1 3XP3CT3D
TEREZI: …
TEREZI: SO YOU DONT W4NT TO F1GHT D1RK >:?
JOHN: …
JOHN: i don’t know.
JOHN: i know i should, but right now i’m just tired.
JOHN: i think i might go to bed, if that’s okay.
JOHN: thanks for telling me what’s actually going on, though.

The silence in the room stretches out for so long and becomes so painfully awkward that I almost intervene, just to save everyone involved from every degree of embarrassment. Finally, though, Terezi clears her throat, a gross, phlegm-y sound, and tilts her head up from the floor towards John.

TEREZI: DO YOU W4NT TO ST4Y 1N H3R3?

Of course that’s what she asks, her obnoxious voice trembling on a level only she and I notice. Huh. The only other time I’ve seen Terezi this scared was when John was dying for the first time, and even then, she kept a pretty tight lid on it. But now she’s all vulnerable, small, the way that John wanted her to be when they had that nasty little blackrom fling in John’s dad’s car in the middle of the void so long ago.

And that’s why I’m surprised when John says no.

JOHN: i think i might just go back to my room.
JOHN: well, dirk’s, technically, but.
JOHN: …
JOHN: everything’s kind of crazy right now and at least i’ve spent one night there before, yknow?
TEREZI: Y34H
TEREZI: W3LL
TEREZI: 1LL SM3LL YOU 4ROUND TH3N, 1 GU3SS
TEREZI: …
TEREZI: 4ND 1M GL4D YOUR3 NOT D34D 4NYMOR3

John stands, but he offers her a tiny smile like a peace offering. Too bad she’s back to smelling the cold ground.

JOHN: me too, i think.
JOHN: thanks for taking care of my body.
TEREZI: TH4TS WH4T FR1ENDS 4R3 FOR >:]
JOHN: heh.

Another pause, longer than before. John opens his mouth a couple of times but doesn’t say anything. I feel like I’m watching a bad indie film about a deteriorating marriage, you know, the kind that thinks it’s deep because it shows the woman’s ankles when she goes to pee and starts crying about the way her husband comes home late from work every night, the kind that wins awards that no one can really justify, that couples go to see together and can’t make eye contact for a few hours afterwards. It’s fuckin’ stupid, but at least it ends a moment later when John opens the door to Terezi’s room and steps back out into the hallway.

He’s back in the room we now share, I guess, a moment later, and as he drops like a bait into water onto the bed, it doesn’t take my Ascended sight to see the tension sitting under his skin.

DIRK: She tell you what’s up?

God, I feel like I’m at a fucking slumber party, all whispering across the dark room and hoping no one hears us.

JOHN: …
JOHN: yeah.
JOHN: you were watching, weren’t you.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: Are you gonna kill me in my sleep?
JOHN: no.
JOHN: i don’t really care about you, actually.
JOHN: like, obviously you’re fucked up, but i don’t see why that has to be my problem.
JOHN: could you just leave me alone?
DIRK: This is my room and my ship, you know.
DIRK: And I’m keeping you alive, which you know could stop at any second that I want it to, and it’ll be Heroic, since, hey, villain.
JOHN: yeah, i know, but i don’t think you’re going to do anything.
JOHN: just get out.
JOHN: after all, if i kill you, it’ll be Just, since, hey, villain.

He turns over in his (my) bed and stares at me, bright eyes somehow still visible even in the dark room. We hold eye contact for a long time, long enough for me to get the sense that he’s not really fucking around.

DIRK: Fine, fine.
DIRK: I’m not leaving, because again, my room, my ship, but there’s an empty storage closet type thing across the hall and an alchimeter right downstairs with the captcha code for bed all queued up. Knock yourself out.
JOHN: …
JOHN: fine.

And then he leaves. The air in my room suddenly feels staler than before. In a long-dead world, a kid sits alone; in a space between worlds, I lie alone, and I don’t think about the way I already kind of hate the silence.

Chapter Text

I don’t see or hear from John for a week after that, which I dislike more than I’d like to admit. I spend the time in my room as I usually do, planning for the new world and all that, and now, c’mon, I don’t go looking for him or anything. Seriously. We both know that I’m better than that. The storage closet he’s commandeered is silent and locked whenever I’m near, and I’m not about to go chasing him through the ship. If he needs space to “process” or whatever, who am I to take it from him? You’d think I’d understand the concept of space by now.

I don’t use my powers to check in on him, either. I have a feeling he - or Terezi, as they’re almost certainly together - will notice, somehow, and that’s more drama than I want to deal with. And after that conversation with Terezi last week and the fact that he’s almost definitely had similar conversations with Rose, I’m not expecting him to reach out.

And then, one day, he does, with a sound I haven’t heard in a long time.

ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

EB: hey.
EB: where are you?
TT: In my room.
TT: Do you need something?
EB: not really, i guess.
EB: i’m just bored!
TT: …
TT: You’re… bored.
EB: yeah.
EB: there’s nothing to do on this ship! it’s just like the game all over again.
EB: i’ve watched all of the movies terezi brought.
EB: and it’s not like there’s any imps or anything around.
EB: so do you want to hang out?
TT: Sure, I guess.
TT: I’m not busy planning the new world I’m going to create or anything, and I’m not a something beyond a god, sure, John, let’s hang out.
EB: if you’re going to be an asshole about it, i’ll find something else to do, jeez.
EB: i just alchemized a play station, though.
EB: i heard your alt universe self liked tony hawk pro skater 3?
TT: He did.
TT: Fine. You can bring the PlayStation in here, if you want.
EB: cool.

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

Huh. That’s… not what I expected, but I guess I’ll take it. John’s either going to attempt to get the jump on me while we play or he’s just trying to use me as a stand-in for Dave, and honestly, I don’t really care which it is. If he wants to try and kill me, we’ll just see what happens, and if not, that’s just fine too.

I stand and glance in the mirror, adjusting the collar of my cape before realizing what I’m doing and tugging it back to the side. Am I seriously trying to perfect my appearance for John Egbert? Christ. Maybe spending all of this time alone is starting to get to me, or maybe it’s just some of the more… strange splinters I’ve noticed rattling around inside of me lately. But I digress. Sorry, I know my internal monologue was getting juicy there, but John’s at the door and I’d just hate to keep him waiting.

I open my door to find John hovering awkwardly just outside. He’s wearing a shirt I don’t recognize, probably something he alchemized judging by its unflattering fit, but at least it hides the wound in his chest.

DIRK: Hey.
DIRK: Is that Slimer on your shirt?
JOHN: no, i’m just happy to see you.
DIRK: That didn’t even make sense.
DIRK: And aren’t you supposed to be “not a homosexual?”
JOHN: it was a joke, dude.
JOHN: i keep forgetting you don’t know what those are!
DIRK: I know what jokes are, okay.
DIRK: It’s not my fault if yours just aren’t ever funny.
JOHN: mine are funny!
JOHN: look, do you want to play this stupid game or not?
DIRK: You do remember that this was your idea, not mine, right?

He doesn’t bother to answer before pushing past me and into my room, dropping the PlayStation unceremoniously on the floor.

JOHN: it already has tony hawk in it and it should work without electricity, but i think you still have to plug it into the tv.
DIRK: Okay.

I don’t bother asking how many failed attempts at this PlayStation are sitting around the alchemiter right now, because really, I don’t care. Instead, I just plug the console into my TV, grab one of the controllers that John holds out to me, and sit down on the floor. He follows suit, though his movements are noticeably less graceful than mine. As he crashes down, his left knee clunks into my right, and he gives me a sheepish smile.

DIRK: So why not hang out with Terezi? I thought you two were having interspecies hatesex or something.

John wrinkles his nose.

JOHN: we’re not having hate sex, dirk.
JOHN: and i don’t know! things are just weird with her.
JOHN: i think she wanted...
JOHN: i don’t really know what she wanted, actually.
JOHN: i don’t know what i wanted either.
JOHN: i think i love her? or i did, at least?
JOHN: but i don’t know.
JOHN: it’s just easier to not be around her right now, i think.

Damn. Again, I feel like I’m at a slumber party, all staying up late and playing shit video games and telling each other about our love lives. It would be entertaining if it were possible for me to give less of a shit.

On the screen, my skater does, admittedly, a sick flip. John runs into a wall. There’s an allegory in there somewhere.

DIRK: Huh.
DIRK: What about Rose?
JOHN: i don’t know what’s going on with her either.
JOHN: like, i know it’s rose! i know.
JOHN: but she keeps trying to tell me i’m depressed like it’s some big secret even though i know, okay, and i don’t know what she wants me to do about it.
JOHN: and also no offense, but she’s creepy as fuck to talk to.
JOHN: i know robots are kind of your thing or whatever, but just…
JOHN: bad to look at, dirk. bad to look at.
DIRK: You’re lucky I didn’t try and put your soul into a robot, then.
DIRK: I considered it.

John shudders dramatically. It’s… almost something in the same room as endearing.

JOHN: gross.
JOHN: thanks for not doing that.
DIRK: No problem.
JOHN: see, and that’s the other thing!
JOHN: i get that you’re evil and all that.
JOHN: it’s fucked up that you took rose away from her wife and that you left everyone behind and everything.
JOHN: but you’re not… actually evil?
JOHN: you’re not a bad guy to be around.
JOHN: honestly, grimdark rose was probably worse than you at some points.
JOHN: no offense, but you’re really just a huge dork.
DIRK: Pot, kettle.

John’s skater starts having a seizure in the top of the screen. Mine executes a flawless triple backflip off of a ramp, then crashes into the sidewalk so hard that its head gets stuck somewhere in the shittily-rendered concrete. Again - there’s an allegory in this. Probably. Most of my brain power right now is, admittedly, devoted to analyzing John’s words. He’s… I mean, he’s not wrong, really, I’m not evil. I’m just giving the timeline a villain, someone to keep everyone else from pairing off and settling down into their own special, constantly deteriorating hell. I didn’t expect someone like John to pick up on that so quickly, and it’s strange.

JOHN: well, yeah.
JOHN: i’m not going to try and argue with you on that.
JOHN: i just..
JOHN: i don’t want to fight you! but if your whole thing is being a dick for the sake of “canon” or whatever, what’s to stop you from getting worse and worse to provoke me to fight you?
JOHN: rose put it kind of like, “what’s the point of a villain if there’s no hero?”
JOHN: and i’m tired of being the hero.
JOHN: you know that. i know you were listening the other night.
DIRK: How-
JOHN: terezi.
DIRK: Huh. Cool.
DIRK: You make a fair point, I guess.
DIRK: That doesn’t mean that you’re the only person who can act as a hero, though.
DIRK: The others are coming.
JOHN: yeah, but.

John smashes a few buttons, and his skater falls down and lands right next to mine, albeit upright. He gets a huge bonus for landing a quadruple flip, apparently.

JOHN: this is going to sound annoying, but do you really think that anyone else but me is going to be the one that “saves” the timeline?
JOHN: i have the retcon powers, i was the first to enter, i was the first to godtier, i went to go fight lord english when no one else would, i created all of us.
JOHN: you get the idea.
JOHN: i don’t think paradox space is going to look at all of that and say, “actually, wait, kanaya can be the one that saves everything.”
DIRK: You were right, that sounded extremely annoying.
DIRK: Main character syndrome, much?
JOHN: pot, kettle.

He turns to look at me, lowering his controller and letting his skater start running into the edge of the screen, and look, I really, really hate to admit this, but for the sake of narrative integrity - the scowl on his face is more than a little attractive.

JOHN: i know, okay.
JOHN: i would LOVE it if someone else saved the day.
JOHN: kanaya fixing this would be great! really!
JOHN: but do you really think that’s going to happen?

Speaking of things I hate to admit, he has a point.

DIRK: …
DIRK: Yeah, that’s fair, I guess.
DIRK: It would be kind of weird if Roxy or someone ended up killing me.
DIRK: Doesn’t have the same narrative closure if there’s not representation from both universes and all that.
JOHN: exactly.
JOHN: who better than the two idiots with that main character thing to have the latest final battle?
JOHN: it’s the exact kind of shit i thought we were supposed to be done with.

He directs his glare towards the ceiling as he speaks, like he’s trying to address whatever me-forsaken demiurge brought SBURB onto us.

DIRK: Yeah, I don’t think this is a game you can ever win.

Just like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. There’s the allegory for you, folks, thank you and goodnight.

JOHN: yeah.

The room falls quiet. The only sound is the clacking of controllers and the repetitive huff of John’s breath. The sound is kind of annoying, but it’s my fucking fault, so… what else is new, really.

JOHN: you’re not… going to do that, right?
JOHN: push me until i have to fight you, i mean.
DIRK: …
DIRK: I don’t think I can answer that one.

I’m prepared to, if that’s what he’s asking. I’ve gotten too far to give up now, I’m going to make this new planet whether he likes it or not, and I’m going to hold this timeline out of the reach of irrelevance in any way that I need to.

JOHN: …
JOHN: why not?
JOHN: you don’t have to do this, you know.
JOHN: does it really matter if we’re “canon?”
DIRK: Hey, come on, I think it’s a little early for that kind of question.
DIRK: The answer is yes, though.
DIRK: And I’ll do what I have to to make that happen.

John puts his controller down and turns to face me, properly, now, his mouth twisted into a little frown. And, okay, there’s something I should probably mention here. I’m an Ascended player, semi-omniscient, more than a god, so on and so far, you get the point. My metaphorical dick is huge. And I am, essentially, made up of every possible iteration of myself. They’re not so much sitting under my skin as they are being my skin itself, if that makes any sense, which means that I can reach out into every universe they’re in and take the phrase “living vicariously through them” to a level it’s never seen before. It’s a pretty good way to spend the time, I guess.

It’s just that sometimes, I find splinters that are… unexpected. And lately, a few have cropped up that have, well, been with John. And have… enjoyed it, in whichever sense you want to take that in. It’s not an absolute stretch, of course, John is good-looking and not even in the sense that he looks pretty similar to Jake, he and I seem to have an okay time hanging out if this moment is any indication, but… Come the fuck on. This one is still stewing in his internalized homophobia, apparently, and he’s almost definitely supposed to kill me. All of that just makes it rather fuckin’ unfortunate, I guess, that I kind of want to scoot closer to him right now.

JOHN: are you sure you can’t just stop?
DIRK: …

The truth, there, is that I don’t know if I can. If I wanted to go back, pass this mantle on to someone else and stop being the villain, Mr. My Dick Is Bigger Than Yours And I Refuse To Let You Forget It, I don’t know if I or paradox space would let me. But I can’t admit that, obviously.

DIRK: I’m sure.

John keeps looking at me. I let myself look back at him through the safety of my shades. He seems… closer, somehow, like he moved without me noticing. I am suddenly and horribly aware of the fact that his left hand has dropped his controller and fallen into the space between our thighs.

JOHN: i’m not going to kill you, you know.
DIRK:
TONY HAWK PRO SKATER THREE: BONUS ROUND!

Things that I don’t want to admit, part three: the loud, crunchy sound makes both John and me jump, just a bit. His hand returns to his controller, my gaze returns to the screen, and my thoughts return to the new world I’m going to found and absolutely none of the other bullshit I know you think I’m thinking about.

JOHN: dude, you totally just jumped!
JOHN: heh. you really are just a dork.
DIRK: Is it worth to keep arguing this?
JOHN: yep!

That actually startles a sound out of me, John’s stupid, bright attitude, despite the conversation that we were just having, his stupid, bright grin, and it’s closer to a huff of amusement than one of annoyance than I’d prefer. I shake my head and don’t dignify the conversation with a continuation.

We play for about another hour. It… unlocks something, almost, in my chest. Like this is what I could have had if I hadn’t Ascended, and I don’t need semi-omniscience to know that John almost definitely feels the same way. Like this is what he could have had if he hadn’t been a depressed son of a bitch that just sat alone in his house all day.

It’s a weird knowledge, but it’s not necessarily bad. This isn’t necessarily bad; hell, it’s almost good. Better than any times I had with Jake, honestly, because at least all of the emotional baggage is lying directly in front of us this time.

We play it seems like the PlayStation might not be holding up too well, and John says some bullshit about it being time to hit the hay. I roll my eyes with enough force that I think he gets the idea even though I have shades on, and as he steps through the door, he turns back just a bit.

JOHN: want to play again tomorrow?
JOHN: i can try and alchemize some other games if you want.
DIRK: … Sure.

And then he’s gone. Huh. Not what I expected at all - but I can’t say I haven’t almost missed that feeling.

*

ROSEBOT: So, dearest father.
ROSEBOT: What is it about him?
DIRK: What?

I look up from my workshop table, where I am constructing something that would look suspiciously like a PlayStation to an untrained eye, and remind my facial muscles not to react at the sight of my robo-daughter leaning far too conspiratorially against the doorway.

ROSEBOT: Don’t play dumb; there are much better games than that.
ROSEBOT: John. What is it about him?
ROSEBOT: I heard you two in here yesterday, and last I checked, you hated him. Why the change?
DIRK: He was bored, we were playing a dumb game.
DIRK: What’s it matter to you?
ROSEBOT: I’m simply curious as to when my childhood friend realized that he’s not straight, contrary to his own popular belief.
DIRK: What?
DIRK: No, it’s not like that.
DIRK: John’s straight, I’d know if he wasn’t, and it wasn’t, nor will it ever be, like that.

Rose makes a horrible imitation of laughter. She can sound better, I know because I created her, and she knows that I know. Ugh. This is rapidly skyrocketing to my list of Top 10 Worst Conversations that I’ve ever heard. Like, c’mon - me and Egbert? Sorry, sorry, Egbert and me?

As I just fuckin’ said, I would know if John was having a gay crisis, as I know nearly everything. And that’s not even considering the fact that I hate the idiot, obviously. Maybe less than I originally thought, sure, but … he’s annoying. And stupid.

ROSEBOT: And who is the one here with Sight, dear father?
DIRK: My name’s Dirk, you can call me that, alright?
DIRK: Or Almighty One, if that’s what you gets you going.
ROSEBOT: Again, since you seem incapable of taking a hint, I will remind that I’m your daughter.
DIRK: I’m not going to mirror your syntax and remind you that I’m gay, c’mon, I’m not that dumb.
ROSEBOT: And yet we’ve all been so kindly refreshed on the status of your sexuality regardless. Thank you.
ROSEBOT: You are gay, you’ve historically been attracted to dorks in glasses, and so I really don’t understand why you’re acting like this is such a huge leap.
ROSEBOT: You know I tend not to make those, as you failed to make me flexible enough.
DIRK: Yes, you’re in a robotic body and have to suffer its limitations, we get it.
DIRK: The issue, okay, is that John Egbert is straight.
DIRK: It’s one of the most oft-repeated facts of this entire debacle of a thing.
DIRK: Also, in case you missed it, I haven’t thought about that sniveling mess of what used to be my best friend in months.
ROSEBOT: Just enough time to start missing his features, and oh so convenient that you were able to find them in the corpse you suggested be brought on board.
ROSEBOT: This is a bit off-topic, but please remind me to revisit your clear guilt about the state of Jake English later.
DIRK: I’m not fuckin’ guilty, it was better than what he would’ve gotten otherwise.
DIRK: Look, I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to you.
DIRK: You know that John’s corpse was just a byproduct of Terezi-
ROSEBOT: (Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.)
DIRK: Yeah, yeah, Genesis 7:8, I’m so glad you’ve been to Old Earth Bible study this week.
DIRK: You know John’s corpse was a byproduct of Terezi, you know John is straight, and you know that I’m not interested in him.
ROSEBOT: That is certainly a set of statements that I am privy to.
ROSEBOT: If you want to be defensive, knock yourself out - really, I wouldn’t mind if you did. I’ll drop it, but don’t act surprised when you start noticing a sexuality crisis leaking out from that literal closet you’ve put him up in.
ROSEBOT: What a gracious and symbolically intentional host you are.
DIRK: That wasn’t-
DIRK: That was the open space we had, and you know that.
DIRK: Not everything is drowning in subtext, I hate to break it to you.
ROSEBOT: What a tragedy.
ROSEBOT: However shall I cope with this realization?

She fake-swoons, a hand over her forehead, before straightening her posture abruptly and stepping into my workshop.

ROSEBOT: I will drop it now, though. Believe it or not, I’m not here to offer sage romantic advice.
DIRK: Then why are you here?
ROSEBOT: What, I need a reason to visit the only family member I can still talk to?
DIRK: I mean… yeah.
DIRK: What’s the catch?

Rose steps forward and sits on my work table, almost definitely because she knows I hate the way doing so evens out our heights.

ROSEBOT: I’m bored.
ROSEBOT: And please, excuse my phrasing, but it seems that you’ve been offering the solution to that of late.
ROSEBOT: You revived John for Terezi, you’ve been spending your time doing, well, god knows what with John,
DIRK: (Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3)
ROSEBOT: and I’ll admit that I’m feeling a bit left out. I’m here to talk.
ROSEBOT: Don’t try to act that you don’t love doing it as much as I do, again, excuse the phrasing.
DIRK: Okay, okay, fine.
DIRK: What will it be today?
DIRK: A reenactment/improvement of another Socratic dialogue, an addition to your anime dissertation, an extended psychoanalysis of every MLP character?
ROSEBOT: What is none of the above, Alex?
DIRK: What.
ROSEBOT: Wait, you don’t know Jeopardy?
ROSEBOT: I suppose it’s not a stretch for Dave to have considered it above you, but really, really, in all of those splinters rattling around, you’ve never witnessed Alex Trebek’s beautiful blue hell?

I bristle, just a bit. There are few things I dislike more than a lack of knowledge, and all that I know about “jeopardy” is that it originated from the Old French ieu parti, meaning ‘(evenly) divided game.’ Tread through that subtext however you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m at a loss, except -

No, a splinter is poking through, a faint memory of burnt popcorn smell and a dark living room and contestants on a screen and someone’s head resting in my lap, the arm of their glasses pressing into my thigh and their blue sweatshirt glowing against the light of the TV, and thank you, my lovely, lovely, infinite self, for bringing that to the table right now. At least it gave me a sense of this Jeopardy bullshit.

DIRK: No, I’ve heard of it.
DIRK: Give me a refresher for 500.
ROSEBOT: What is an inane Old Earth game show wherein all answers are given in the form of a question?
ROSEBOT: You’d probably excel at it, in all honesty. Much of it revolves around the trivia you build your external persona around.
DIRK: I-
ROSEBOT: Okay, don’t get offended, I digress.
ROSEBOT: I want to talk about reality, actually.
DIRK: Care to narrow that down at all?
ROSEBOT: Ours.
ROSEBOT: At risk of dragging this out further and having to, god forbid, explain Family Feud next, I’d just like to talk to you, Dirk.
DIRK: I know what Family Feud is.
DIRK: So, what, you want to vent?
ROSEBOT: If you insist on phrasing it that way, sure.
ROSEBOT: I want to talk, and I’m not going to talk to Terezi, and John won’t talk to me. I think I unsettle him.
DIRK: Yeah, pretty much.
ROSEBOT: John Egbert continues to be an enigma.
ROSEBOT: Oh, and don’t act like a genius for noting the fact that I am asking you to fulfill a fairly paternal role at the moment. It’s not that deep, and I wish you would realize that before you and your brain Dirks started your circle jerk.
ROSEBOT: I’m sure you understand having limited conversational partners, and I’m sure you understand being a last resort.
DIRK: Any other scathing insults for me, or can we just get this show careening wildly off of the road already?
ROSEBOT: Consider my hands on the wheel and preparing to turn it sharply to the left.
ROSEBOT: This trip is..
ROSEBOT: Well, to describe my expectations would be difficult, because I think they aligned closely with yours at the time, so to speak.
ROSEBOT: But now that I’ve been so graciously regifted some autonomy, I find myself disappointed.
ROSEBOT: I am tired of this ship, and I am tired of not being with my wife, Dirk.
DIRK: Should I start preparing for a coup?
ROSEBOT: No, I’m not stupid enough to think you’d let me get that far.
ROSEBOT: But I just thought I’d let you know.
ROSEBOT: I miss her deeply, and I do not doubt that the feeling is mutual.
ROSEBOT: She’s going to be very angry when she arrives, you know.
DIRK: I’m sure she won’t be the only one.
ROSEBOT: I suspect you’ve written her off as a threat because she won’t have sufficient ‘narrative weight’ to ensure our canonicity, but come on, now. Audiences love revenge lesbians.
DIRK: Fair point.
DIRK: Why bring this up now, though?
DIRK: You’re not going to guilt trip me into going back or anything. Sorry, kiddo, I’m not turning this car around.
ROSEBOT: I figured as much.
ROSEBOT: I just thought it would be nice to let you know. You’re not as evil as you think.
DIRK: Y’know, a lot of people have been telling me that lately.
DIRK: Next time I’ll take more people away from their wives, how about that?

A small smile forces its way onto Rose’s face.

ROSEBOT: That sounds like an excellent plan.
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: …
ROSEBOT: …
ROSEBOT: …?
DIRK: If we’re venting, mind if I share a bit?
ROSEBOT: The floor is yours.
DIRK: I know I’m not that evil, okay. I’m playing the role someone needs to play, it’s as easy as that.
DIRK: …
ROSEBOT: But you almost wish you didn’t have to play it, because it’s not glamorous and it’s not getting you anywhere and omniscience, semi- or not, is exhausting.
ROSEBOT: You’re Atlas, and you’re sick of it.
DIRK: Your words, not mine.
ROSEBOT: Hm.
ROSEBOT: Well, you know, if space wasn’t a vacuum, I’d say that the best thing to support a planet is air.
ROSEBOT: It seems the only way to get help is to be somewhere else.
DIRK: I don’t need help, and I don’t need your pseudo-sprite “clues,” okay?
DIRK: Sometimes you just have to lament your narrative burden, and that’s it.
ROSEBOT: Alright, fair enough.
ROSEBOT: I’ll take anything else for 200?
DIRK: What is goodnight, Rose?
ROSEBOT: I’ll see you tomorrow.

She slides down from the table and leaves without another word. The ship is quiet, and no, I’m not telling you anything else.

Chapter Text

Okay, sorry about that last ending, I guess. Sometimes these things just require a cliffhanger, you know? People like me - not that I’m a person, really, and not that there’s anyone even close to being on my level - understand these sorts of narrative devices. And speaking of, why don’t we try a little in medias res, if it’s not too late for all that. This paragraph might nullify it, but really, who’s keeping track?

JOHN: and that’s why you’re not actually that good at video games.
DIRK: Hey, I’m the best at video games.
DIRK: Electronics are kind of my whole deal.
JOHN: uh huh.
JOHN: that’s why you just lost mario kart for the fourth time in a row, huh?
DIRK: I was letting you win.
JOHN: oh, sure.
JOHN: you definitely strike me as the type of dude that’s cool with losing.
DIRK: Shut up.
DIRK: Rematch, then, and this time I won’t let you win.

John grins at me, so similar to Jake but more and more different every time I look at him, and picks up his controller again.

JOHN: if you say so!

I don’t dignify that with a response. I’m going to beat him, okay, and no, I’m not even going to need my narrative powers to do it. I’ve just been going easy on him. Obviously.

John starts up the game, and, well. Look. I’d like to say that I’m biding my time by hanging out in second place, but as we reach the end of the third lap and my attempt to sweep in front of him fails - fucking green shells, man, who the fuck knows how to aim those? - it might be a tiny bit obvious that Mario Kart just isn’t my greatest skill in the world. It’s fine, alright? I more than make up for it with, you know, everything else.

John, of course, has to gloat.

JOHN: dude, see!
JOHN: you kind of suck at this game.
DIRK: Yeah, well, at least I swallow, too.

I’m half-expecting some sort of “ew, I’m not gay, Dirk,” response, so it, surprisingly, throws me for a loop when John just smirks. Smirking isn’t a good look for him, since his face is kind of innately stuck in a goofy, pleasant expression, but he tries.

JOHN: can you shut up and swallow your loss then?
DIRK: Look, let’s just play chess or something.
JOHN: ew, no.
JOHN: i might be a nerd, but i’m not that bad.
DIRK: Yeah, I figured as much.
DIRK: What do you want to do then?
JOHN: i dunno.

He shifts, stretches, and his knee knocks into mine. Thank fuck for the way my shades hide the way my eyes jerk down to the point of contact, I guess, although there’s not really anything weird about it. There’s not really anything weird about anything here, obviously. Just two bros, chilling in space and playing video games. It’s been the routine for about two weeks now - John shows up halfway through the day, clearly having just woken up, I deign to take a break from my important work, and we sit on my floor and play games from our respective pasts until he gets tired or until Rose demands my presence for anime night. It’s … well, it’s better than the routine was before I revived him, although that’s not really saying much.

DIRK: Tony Hawk?
JOHN: nah, i’m getting sick of that.
JOHN: ghostbusters?
DIRK: Absolutely not.
DIRK: That one may have… been displaced.

John turns to face me with narrowed eyes. It’s kind of funny, in a way, how this is the most murderous he’s ever appeared when looking at me, as opposed to, oh, let’s see, when he found out that I’ve become the villain of the narrative. Maybe this is the thing that’ll finally put him over the edge of justice, or something like that. Wouldn’t that be fitting of this stupid story - to come to its final blows over a copy of a shitty Ghostbusters MMO.

JOHN: what do you mean displaced?
JOHN: aren’t you supposed to know pretty much everything about pretty much everything?
JOHN: and wouldn’t that include the location of a certain game?
DIRK: Hang on, let me reach out to the universe.
DIRK: Ghostbusters MMOs are known for their strong and trackable chakras, so it shouldn’t take too long to find it.
JOHN: dirk.
DIRK: Shh, shh, am I Jodie Foster in Contact, because I think I’m getting a signal?
JOHN: (ha. i knew you weren’t asleep when we watched that.)
JOHN: but anyway. *dirk.*
DIRK: I think I’ve found it.
JOHN: where is it.
DIRK: In the void of space, drifting aimlessly about three lightyears behind us. Whoops.
DIRK: I really don’t know how that got out there.
JOHN: you really are the worst at pranks!
JOHN: c’mon, dude, that took so long to alchemize!
JOHN: and i don’t even think i have the code anymore.
JOHN: ugh!
DIRK: Sorry, John, I think a higher power is just trying to protect you.

John flops dramatically onto his back while keeping his glare fixated on me. It’s a pretty impressive move, actually, although the new angle tip his scowl tips from ‘could be in the neighborhood of intimidating to an ant’ to ‘makes the corner of my mouth quirk up just a bit because goddamn does he look like an idiot.’

JOHN: you’re a dick.
JOHN: and don’t even say whatever you’re about to say!
JOHN: your dick jokes really aren’t as funny as you think they are.
DIRK: They’re fuckin’ hilarious, shut up.
DIRK: Also, having the slightest modicum of taste doesn’t make me a dick.
JOHN: why couldn’t you just play it ironically?
JOHN: i thought that was basically your whole deal.
DIRK: It’s not my “whole deal.”
DIRK: And some things are just beyond irony, alright? It’s a nuanced art.
DIRK: So is the art of villainy, actually, which is also a pretty damn good reason for me to throw your shit game overboard.
JOHN: yeah, whatever.
JOHN: didn’t we already go over the whole thing where we decided you’re not actually evil, you’re just a dick who overthinks everything?

I shrug before dropping onto my back as well to save my neck from having to crane to make pseudo-eye contact with John.

DIRK: Sure, I’m not evil. That’s a thing you could objectively say.
DIRK: I’m not sure why we’re hashing this out again. All I said was that I was the villain. Morality has nothing to do with that.
JOHN: i hope you know that bullshit psychology words don’t intimidate me anymore. i’ve been friends with rose for years, dude.
JOHN: morality, schmorality.
DIRK: That’s kind of a hot take, actually.
JOHN: do you hear yourself talk, like, ever?

John’s smile lasts for a beat before it drops, and he suddenly looks exhausted.

JOHN: god, i’m tired.
DIRK: Want to go to bed?

Well. Shit. That didn’t sound exactly how I wanted it to, but it’s fine. We all know that I meant John’s bed, which is in the other room. And I meant him going to it. Alone. Shut the fuck up.

JOHN: yeah, i should probably head out soon.
JOHN: …
JOHN: i’d rather go home, though.
DIRK: Yeah, well, them’s the breaks, as Jake would say.
JOHN: …
JOHN: but they don’t have to be!
JOHN: them don’t have to be? i don’t know.
JOHN: the point is that you can turn this around.
JOHN: i mean, honestly, you could probably just hire someone back home to menace us for a bit once in a while, and boom, relevance.

Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes, although, of course, my shades obscure any effect the action might have. Such is the burden cool motherfuckers like me have to bear. That’s aside the point, though. John.. doesn’t sound like John. Since when has he called Earth C home? Since when does he give enough of a shit about relevance to come up with an admittedly dumb solution, but a solution nonetheless?

DIRK: Rose put you up to this, didn’t she.
JOHN: what? no!

Rose put him up to this. Interesting. I thought they weren’t speaking.

DIRK: That wasn’t a question.
DIRK: Rose told you to talk to me, and she told you to ask me to go back. I’m not stupid, dude, I know what you sound like, and I know it’s not whatever the hell you just said.
DIRK: Has she been putting you up to this too? Did she tell you which Mario Kart character would unsettle my troubled psyche the most?
JOHN: dude, what?
JOHN: no! i’ve been hanging out with you because it’s fun.
JOHN: except when you pull shit like this.
DIRK: Oh, right, like you’re one to talk.
JOHN: what’s that supposed to mean?
DIRK: You know, sometimes I fucking deign to sit here on the floor and play video games with you, and then you decide to turn it into baby’s first ethics class or whatever.
DIRK: It gets old, especially when you make it pretty damn clear that it’s the only reason you talk to me.
DIRK: You can tell Rose that I don’t need your pity company or whatever, and you’re not going to be able to soften me up or whatever dumbass scheme she’s cooked up.

Am I overreacting? Maybe, but then again, I’m talking to John Egbert. I think I can cut myself a little slack. It’s just… shitty, honestly, to think about how I’ve actually been enjoying the time I’ve spent hanging out with John, not worrying about the ship’s other occupants for once, only to find that it’s just a useless plot by Rose. I’m fine with being alone, I’ve dealt with that plenty, trust me, but I’ve never seen the appeal in surrounding myself with bullshit.

I stand up and turn away from John, who makes an indignant noise that’s not as under his breath as he’d like it to be. I could make him leave. This situation sucks and I’ll admit that I can easily see it slipping from my control, but it’s something to do, at least. Besides, I think this is something John and I should probably hash the fuck out for communication’s sake and all that.

JOHN: rose did not put me up to this!
JOHN: yes, i talked to her about this, and yes, she suggested i talk to you about it.
JOHN: but we worked together. i’m not stupid, dirk.
JOHN: i know i’ve sort of been here for the least amount of time, but i’m already as sick of this ship as everyone else.

I turn around to face John again and find him standing dangerously close to me.

DIRK: Well, hold on, everyone, John Egbert is sick of the ship. Guess we better turn this shit around right away, huh?
DIRK: *God* forbid Mr. Main Character be uncomfortable for even a second.
JOHN: that’s not what i meant!
JOHN: but you know what? yeah, actually.
JOHN: i’ve worked harder than probably anyone else to win the stupid game and look where it’s gotten me.
JOHN: maybe i deserve a fucking break!
DIRK: Welcome to the club, buddy.
DIRK: I haven’t exactly had a walk in the park, either. Do you think I want to be doing this?
JOHN: you haven’t exactly been reluctant, you know.
JOHN: and if you hate it so much, then let’s just go the fuck back!
JOHN: at least there i could be depressed in my own house instead of in a storage closet.

He’s actually managing to piss me off - it would be impressive if, you know, I wasn’t pissed at him. I revive him, I give him a space to stay, I play video games with him and don’t control him and don’t throw him off of the ship even when he’s being annoying and this is what I get?

DIRK: John, just get out.
JOHN: no!
JOHN: i am going to stay here until you actually LISTEN!

And then he pushes me, hands flat against my chest in a way that could mean something entirely different if it wasn’t for the force behind them. I’m not surprised enough for him to actually push me anywhere, just enough that it takes a moment before I lift my hands and push back. Needless to say, I’m a lot stronger than John is. He falls backwards onto the floor with a thud that would make me wince if either of us were anyone else.

DIRK: You do realize that this is stupid, right?
DIRK: I fucking created the soul that you’re waltzin’ around with, and it won’t take much effort if I decide to destroy it.
JOHN: yeah, whatever.

He stumbles up from the ground, bracing himself like he’s going to try and shove me again, and, well. I’m the villain. He’s the hero. He’s taunting me. What else am I supposed to do?

I reach out, clenching my fist at my side as my mental hand wraps around the soul inside of him. It struggles less than I expected, almost like it recognizes me, almost like it's not quite the same as the soul he started with. That’s unsurprising. I created the soul; of course it has my fingerprints all over it.

JOHN: …
JOHN: what the fuck are you doing?

I don’t bother to respond. Is this not evil, John? Am I listening closely enough, John? Is this better than spending another day playing Mario Kart on the ship, John?

John opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else inane, but all that comes out is a gasp as I grab the soul tighter - yes, I’m aware of what this sounds like, shut up -, tighter, tighter, and then something snaps.

‘Snaps’ isn’t quite the right verb, to be fair; it’s more of an objectively gross squelch as the room lights up like a Hello Kitty themed rave and I, Prince that I am, destroy the soul I made for John. John’s eyes flash bright, anime-worthy pink, and then he collapses onto the ground. The room falls dark, silent, and, at risk of being cliche, cold.

DEAD.

Well. Fuck. That’s… certainly a thing I did. And certainly not a thing I intended to do when I woke up this morning.

I crouch down next to the body, because, there you have it, it’s certainly just a body. Again. Its eyes are closed, and its glasses are slightly askew from poking into the ground when John landed, completely and horribly still. And - yes, yes, horribly. The sight of John dead (again) is… horrible in a way I genuinely didn’t expect. Without really meaning to, I drop all the way down to the floor so that I’m sitting next to the body. The only sounds in the room are the gentle whirr of the amalgamated gaming console John and I alchemized the other day and my weirdly arrhythmic breath.

I didn’t mean to kill him again. Well. That’s a lie, actually. In the moment where I held his soul in my hands and strangled it, I definitely knew what I was doing. I’m just playing my part, keeping everyone on track, I’m the villain, I’m the bad guy. (Duh.) But before that moment, I just… wanted to scare him. To let him know that he was being fucking annoying and that I’m not the kind of not-quite-a-person that you can bargain with, that he’s not the only one sick of the situation and fuck me, I’m getting way too MySpace up in this bitch.

Yeah, okay, I killed John. Someone had to do it, and really, does anyone actually think it’s going to last? If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that fuckers like him have a way of not staying dead. Even though we seem to be outside of anything even resembling the god tier playbook, I’m sure paradox space will find a way for its precious hero to come back. And of course, I’ll probably have to be the arm that wields their stupid fucking hammer, or something like that.

I mean, reviving John probably won’t be hard. I did it before, didn’t I? And maybe this time he won’t have to go and fuck it up, although, who knows, I could make a hobby of this. I probably would, honestly, if I was just a little worse. But fine, I’ll admit that I don’t actually like murder. I… haven’t killed anyone that I knew before. It’s strange and makes my mental hand feel warm and tacky. Out, out, damned spot, and all that. Huh. I always thought of myself as a Hamlet, but maybe Lady Macbeth fits just a bit better. I guess it doesn’t matter too much; they both die in the end.

There’s a knock on the door of my room. That’s odd; neither of my companions tend to bother with the level of social aptitude such a courtesy requires.

DIRK: What.
ROSEBOT: What’s going on in there?
ROSEBOT: Something feels different, and I don’t think that I need to tell you that Terezi and I will have no shortage of mutinous machinations should we find that you have killed the last tolerable entity on this ship.

Fuck. Having a Seer onboard is… inconvenient, to say the least.

DIRK: Hey, machinations are kind of my whole deal. Y’all can have ploys and stratagems and all of that.
ROSEBOT: Oh, my apologies. I didn’t realize I was stepping on claimed territory.
ROSEBOT: May I come in?
DIRK: Unlike you to ask.
ROSEBOT: Forgive me for acting out of character, then. I just thought I’d be polite and save myself the trouble of having to recover from seeing whatever’s going on in there.
ROSEBOT: Care to enlighten me on what that is, by the way?
ROSEBOT: Trust me, it’s quite annoying to have to ask. You tend to create strange, let’s say, blackouts in my Sight when you get into these moods.
ROSEBOT: Of course, add all that together, and it does seem likely that you are currently in possession of a John Egbert corpse. Your verification of this theory would be much appreciated.
DIRK: C’mon, now, you and I both know theorem would be the better word in this context.
ROSEBOT: You take the bait and keep on stalling. Hm. Unsurprising.
ROSEBOT: Are you done rewatching Weekend at Bernie’s in your head yet or shall I continue waiting?
DIRK: Hold your fucking horses, I’m busy.
DIRK: And as a matter of fact, John’s not dead.
JOHN: yeah, rose, i’m here!
JOHN: dirk and i were just playing mario kart. if you saw something weird, it was probably just dirk’s ass getting destroyed.
ROSEBOT: …
ROSEBOT: Is it worth the effort to point out the phrasing?
DIRK: Probably not.

You decide that you’re satisfied. You heard John’s voice, and you’d really prefer not to think about your ecto-father in unfortunately phrased situations.

ROSEBOT: Well, I’m sorry for interrupting the ass destruction, then. You two have fun with that.
JOHN: we will!

I sit completely still until Rose turns the corner at the end of the hall, and then I heave a sigh and look down at John. Yeah, this already sucks. Time to revive him (again.)

I close my eyes to concentrate - not that I need to, but it makes me feel cooler - and reach out towards the broken, banana peel-esque remnant of the soul. I grab onto it, gently this time, and stop. It’s unfortunate to have to admit, but I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m no healer, and I’m sure you never would have guessed this before, but I had no idea what I was doing when I brought John back for the first time.

DIRK: (Fuck.)

Well, I guess I could always destroy what little is left of this soul, destroy its absence, and there we’d have it. But then I’m running the risk that that would erase the memories John made with this soul. I… don’t want to have to start from scratch with him. It’s annoying, okay? And yeah, yeah, memories are all in the brain, but I don’t trust anything in this universe to work in any way but the most frustrating and dramatic way possible. Maybe it’s selfish to rule that out just because I don’t want John to think he has to show me Con Air again, but hey, I’m the villain. Haven’t I earned a little selfishness?

Okay. I’m the smartest entity pretty much ever; I can think of something. Here, how about a classic:

John: Wake up.

Nothing.

John: Open your eyes.

The corpse’s eyelids slide out of the way to reveal bloodshot eyes rolled all the way to the back of the head. Huh. That’s interesting, actually.

John: Sit up.

Like a puppet in a shitty 90s horror movie, the corpse’s torso flops its way into something close to perpendicularity with the floor. Its head lolls to the side, and that with the eyes is just… fucked. Yeah, I know, rich coming from me, but… it’s fucked.

John: Stop being dead.

Nothing again. Well, interesting as all of this is, I’m not Light Yagami, and I really don’t get my kicks from performing weird experiments on the dead and nearly there. And as much as I like puppets, something about an actual corpse dangling from the strings is just kind of fucked, and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.

John: Close your eyes and lie down.

Once John’s body is returned to its natural state of looking asleep, I shove narrative commands back into my useless toolbelt and sigh. For one of the first times in my life, I’m at a loss. So destroying the soul won’t work, narrative commands just turn the idiot into Terry Kiser, all movement but no breath and - no breath. No breath, no Breath. Hm. John’s eyes were completely pink at the end, not a trace of blue left.

I have a feeling I’m onto something here; this shit seems like the exact flavor of shenanigan paradox space would just love to pull. And if John is dead because he is all artificial Heart, no Breath, it seems the only thing I can do is give him some. (Insert obligatory joke about my ability to take his breath away here. I know you’re waiting for it.)

So, remember that kid you imagined for me a chapter or two back? He grew up surrounded by water, of course, and like most people that have had the (mis?) fortune of doing so, he learned the basics of CPR pretty early on. Sawtooth and Squarewave were both programmed for it, actually, just in case. I’ve always been an excellent swimmer, of course, so their skills were never necessary, but…. the knowledge might prove helpful now. It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this so quickly, but you have to get your kicks somehow, don’t you?

I place my hand against the already cool skin of the corpse, resting my fingers below its jaw to find an unsurprising lack of pulse. Okay. We’re doing this, then, making it happen all that. Fuck, I’m going to make Egbert thank me so hard later, and if that’s a euphemism, we’re all just going to have to deal with it.

I make sure that no one will come in, then lace my fingers together and place them in the center of John’s chest, the heel of my hand to his sternum. I half-expect him to move, but, of course, he doesn’t.

DIRK: (You’re lucky I’m nice, Egbert.)
JOHN:

I pause, give myself one last chance to reassess whether or not this is really what I want to do, then start the compressions. Okay, here’s the deal: I think most people know how CPR works. I’m not going to waste my infinite time and energy detailing how I count to thirty compressions, not bothering with any sort of song to keep the rhythm because my internal clock’s tight as shit, then tilt the body’s head back and breathe into its mouth. Yes, I touch John’s corpse’s mouth with mine, calm the fuck down. Corpse smooching isn’t exactly a novel concept around here, for one, and it’s nowhere even in the realm of Like That. I don’t want it to be Like That. This is just an all-powerful bro helping the stupid fucking bro he just killed out. I wouldn’t expect you to get it.

Anyway, what I was saying is that I’m not going to detail the process to you. I do CPR, and after about three minutes, because no one in this universe has ever cared about realism, apparently, John’s chest rises to meet my hands just as they come down for another set of compressions. His eyes meet mine, just this side of his usual blue, wide and confused and almost immediately narrowing into a level of suspicion any private eye would be proud of. Well, he’s back. I’ll take your applause now.

JOHN: dirk.
JOHN: were you just kissing me??
DIRK: I was doing CPR, dumbass. Welcome back to life.
JOHN: thanks.
JOHN: WAIT.
JOHN: you killed me! you don’t get to - you *killed* me!

He sits up and half-scrambles away from me. I don’t bother to stop him; I just sit back onto my heels and school my features into the best poker face I’ve ever done.

DIRK: Yeah, well, I’m the villain, in case you didn’t notice.
DIRK: And I brought you back to life.
JOHN: after *killing* me!!
JOHN: dude, that was not cool!
JOHN: i guess you’re worse than i thought, huh.

And he almost looks - betrayed, if I had to put a word on it. Like somehow his belief in my inherent goodness has been suddenly rocked or like he just found out that John Cusack regretted his role in Con Air until he died under a burning pile of meteor rubble. Well. I don’t know why that makes me feel something like - not offended, no, but something like apologetic, and what the fuck, that’s gross. Who the fuck do I think I am? Who the fuck does John think I am? Why do I care?

Fuck, I need to shut up. My useless “emotional” drivel isn’t getting anyone anywhere.

DIRK: …
DIRK: I guess so.
DIRK: …
JOHN: …
DIRK: Can I try something?
JOHN: what? kill me again?
JOHN: i would rather not do that one, actually.
JOHN: i think i am just going to go to bed.

He moves to stand, but then stops.

JOHN: let me go!!
DIRK: Just give me one second, okay?
DIRK: I’m trying to help you.
JOHN: by killing me?
JOHN: (again?)
JOHN: look, dude, i’ve been killed by friends before, and i usually don’t mind, but…
JOHN: they’re usually not as much of a dick as you are!

There’s no time to think about the fact that John apparently thinks of me as a friend; that’s something for him (and probably Rose) to work out later.

DIRK: If I wanted to kill you again, why would’ve I brought you back?
JOHN: why would i know? i’m not the bad guy here, in case you forgot.
DIRK: Trust me, I know.
DIRK: Look. I’ll put it as simply as I can.
DIRK: I think you’ve still got some part of the soul I made when I first revived you inside, and I think you’ll be better off without it.

This is assuming removing it doesn’t kill him, of course. But I don’t think it will.

JOHN: …
JOHN: wouldn’t that just kill me again?
DIRK: I don’t think so.
DIRK: I think paradox space is trying to teach us some lesson about leaning into your aspect or whatever, and I think you’ll be fine now that you have your Breath and all that.
DIRK: Capitalized for gift from a god and I guess Aspect bullshit, too.
JOHN: …
JOHN: fine.
JOHN: but if this kills me and you don’t bring me back, i will haunt your ass so hard.
DIRK: Yeah, yeah.
DIRK: This might feel weird.

I reach out once again to the remnants of the soul and gently, like I’m playing Operation and I’ve almost got the Charlie Horse in my tweezers, and pull. John’s face twists as it slides free of whatever the fuck it’s being held in. Once I’m sure it’s clear of anything tying it to him, I send a single bolt of pink lightning from my hand to John’s chest and send the soul disintegrating into nothing. The room holds its breath (lowercase for ambiguity.)

There’s a beat. John doesn’t collapse, so that’s a good start. When I look at him, his eyes are restored to their original, piercing blue, and he seems… fine. I have a feeling that if I were to look under his shirt, I would find that his Lord English vore wound is gone.

DIRK: You okay?
JOHN: yeah.
JOHN: …
JOHN: what just happened?
DIRK: Like I said, I took out what was left of that soul. I’ll admit that I’m not entirely sure how you’re breathing aside from Aspect/maybe god tier bullshit, but if the alpha timeline wants you alive, who am I to argue?
JOHN: huh.
JOHN: thanks, game bullshit, i guess.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Yeah.

Another beat. We could start a fucking band. When I look at John, his eyes fall anywhere but within an inch of mine.

JOHN: if i try and go to bed now, are you going to stop me?
DIRK: Nah.
JOHN: …
JOHN: cool.
JOHN: i will see you later, i guess.
DIRK: Mario Kart tomorrow?

That’s been our signoff for a few days now, and it’s usually met with an enthusiastic yes. But tonight John’s face twists, just a bit, as he stands and places his hand on the doorknob. Yeah, I don’t blame him, actually, I did just kill him.

DIRK: Right. The killing you thing.
DIRK: …
JOHN: …
JOHN: thanks for taking that soul out of me.
JOHN: goodnight.
DIRK: ‘Night.

He’s gone before the end of the word falls into the stale air of my room. Well. I’m no stranger to awkwardness, but damn.

I stand from the floor and cross the room to stare pensively out of my window at the darkness rushing by, the very picture of an angsting anime villain. It’s an archetype I could fit better if the angst didn’t decide to come from that stupid, stupid look of betrayal on John’s face. If you’ll allow me a moment of emotional introspection, I’ll say that it… sucked, for some reason. I couldn’t care less about anyone’s approval, let alone John Egbert’s, but I guess I’ve always been a slut for validation. From my Bro, from Roxy, from Jane, from Jake, and oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Fuck this. I am inot emotionally invested in John Egbert. I don’t give a shit what he thinks of me, because back when I cared about people’s opinions of me, I only cared about the opinions of the people that I care about, and I do not care about John Egbert.

Except. Well. I brought him back to life, didn’t I? I killed him, but murder tends to not have the same weight in the context of our social circles than it does in most. Hell, maybe that would have even been romantic to an especially kinky troll and oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Fuck. “Romantic” and “John Egbert” should not exist on the same wavelength unless there’s some sort of negating principle in between, but… there they are. There’s that look on his face and that cold feeling in my gut. There’s his eyes, which I literally described as “piercing” not more than five paragraphs ago, there’s our hands almost brushing during Mario Kart, and -

Congratulations to me, I guess, for being the worst being I know. (And trust me, that’s saying something.) I refuse to say the word “crush,” okay, don’t talk to me about “liking” people, but… that look on his face. The way reviving him wasn’t a question. Physical contact like sparks in a slightly more intense way than touch starvation usually brings. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I should’ve known. I did know, I guess, when Rose knew. Fuck. Rose totally knows.

I become infinitely less angsty anime villain and infinitely more idiot as I drop my forehead against the reinforced glass of the window with a thunk. So maybe I don’t hate John. I… can deal with this. I’m Dirk Strider, of course I can deal with this. Hell, John probably won’t ever want to talk to me again now that I killed him and took that soul out of him, because honestly, with all of the bullshit that’s been happening lately, who’s to say that he didn’t just want to be around me because that tiny bit of me in that soul was like a magnet. Fuck. I guess I’m just a weird, gay Voldemort now. Good thing no one will be able to confirm that until after the series is done.

Space keeps rushing by outside, a perfect mirror for my thoughts. I don’t hate John, but maybe I only accidentally manipulated him into not liking me, and maybe this situation sucks and maybe I wouldn’t hate being back on Earth C, before all of this bullshit, right now. But regret’s not my game. My game is… forward momentum, whatever that means right now, or more likely, whatever that means tomorrow, because I refuse to allow my waking brain to have these thoughts for another second.

The Theseus is quiet, the bed inviting, the air cold. Dirk closes his eyes as he leaves the window for his sheets, and he does not open them again until something like morning slips under his door.

Chapter Text

This time, I don’t let John avoid me for a week. He gets one (1) day, and then I go looking for him. Yes, yes, I understand the value of giving people space by now, sure, and it’s not necessarily that I want to see him after the rather inconvenient realization I had after literally killing him, but … I literally killed him. And while it’s stupid of me, the shitty, Mario Kart themed bridge between John Egbert and me isn’t actually one that I want to dissolve into ash. Sure, it’s almost definitely on fire considering the murder thing, but I’d like to believe that there’s still some structural integrity in that shit. I made half of it after all, so that’s gotta count for something.

The point is, alright, that I’m not desperate or anything. I’m not running through the hallways yelling his name, I am absolutely not mentioning any of this to anyone, and I am not making a playlist and/or boombox (no, not even ironically, thank you very much). I am just going to talk to him.

I am doing that. Right now. I am standing outside of his door with my hand raised to knock, and I am doing this shit right here, right now, no sense in beating around the bush except for the fact that the bush itself is awful and scary and the scenery around it is kinda nice, actually.

For example, if talking to John Egbert is the bush - and if you didn’t already get that, I really don’t know why I bother - then to its left are all over the splinters that I’ve been dealing with lately. The ones with him. And me. Together. And yes, this time I do mean that in the way you’re thinking. What can I say? It’s not like I have a lot of options, and okay, well, even if I did, there’s no denying that he’s attractive, in a nerdy, stupid kind of way. That’s not what gets me about the splinters, though. If my alt-universe self wants to move in with John Egbert, good for him, you know? Lots of my splinters have been with lots of different people. (Yes, I am talking about at least one former United States president. We don’t need to get into that.) The thing about these, though, about these lazy afternoons and these houses in the city and these terrifyingly intertwined lives is that I’m happy in them. I couldn’t be further from canon, of course, but somehow, despite the stink of irrelevancy, I’m genuinely happy.

Now, I’m not trying to dig into my trauma or anything, not only because we’ve already been there but because public masturbation isn’t actually a kink of mine, but the fact of the matter is that a phrase like genuinely happy isn’t usually something that I can claim. And it’s not like this is news - I’m an angsty motherfucker and I always have been. It kind of comes with the territory of, well, being me, and I can’t even blame it on the specific circumstances of Alpha Dirk because my unhappiness is damn near close to being a universal constant, kind of like romcoms and orange soda and clowns.

Of course, it’s not that the only time I’m happy is in these lives with John; he’s not cool enough to be anything close to a manic pixie dream boy or anything of the sort, but he does have a hand (obligatory jerk-off joke) in a lot of the stupid, happy Dirk Striders that I prefer to keep shoved by my mental heels. I can’t pretend that that doesn’t seem like it would be nice, sometimes, if I could do it without sacrificing the whole canon thing that I destroyed all of my ticking time bombs of interpersonal relationships for anyway. And there’s the other side of the bush: canonicity.

Here are some facts. The mythical hero Theseus was responsible for what Wikipedia refers to as a “major cultural transition,” and he has often been regarded as a great reformer. The root of his name, the Greek θεσμός, means “rule” or “precept.” Do with that what you will and consider my role. The villain. I am at the center of the labyrinth, I am its creator, and now I am beginning to wonder if I am also trying to find my way out of it, because, well, the look on John’s face. The fact that Rose hasn’t spoken to me since she attempted to confront me about my feelings, and the fact that the body I created for her is going to need maintenance soon. The fact that this is for the best, because I cannot let everyone devolve into irrelevance and its inevitable decay. The fact that everyone is miserable. The fact that I should be happy about that, but the fact that not even thinking back on Jake’s devastation when I left Earth C brings me anything resembling triumph anymore.

So maybe I’m the Minotaur, maybe I’m Daedalus, maybe I’m Theseus. Hell, maybe I’m Aegeus, or at least, maybe I was in another timeline. One of the few things in the universe that I don’t know is whether any of that matters. My self-assigned Greek mythology kin doesn’t immediately explain why I’m starting to think that I don’t care about canonicity that much anymore. What has it gotten me? Relevance, truth, motivation, friends people that have motivations beyond white picket fences and that act like gods, a sick-ass outfit, a whole lot of annoyance, and an ass-kicking that somehow doesn’t sound as appealing as it used to.

And really, who knows. Maybe I’m just prolonging the inevitable. If I keep playing bad guy, if Dave or John or Kanaya or whoever is deemed most narratively relevant finally decapitates me for good, there’s not going to be anything stopping the timeline from slipping into oblivion or the cherub’s control, whatever the difference between those things is. I don’t want to say that it might not be worth it, but… well.

Not that any of that matters, though, not that any of this is anything but an excuse to prolong the moment of contact between my knuckles and John’s door. Even if I decide that relevance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, it’s not like there’s any way to go back. It wouldn’t matter what color my sail is, people would be jumping off of roofs left and right, and there’s nothing to say that I wouldn’t join them once I was covered in the dust of the great pillars. The point is that I’m in this for the long haul. There’s no other way to be, not when I’m this deep in the Labyrinth.

JOHN: i can hear you mumbling, dirk.
JOHN: what do you want?

Well, fuck. Isn’t that

DIRK: (the question of the millenia.)
DIRK: To talk. To you, I mean.
JOHN: is that an asshole way of saying kill me again? because i’m not in the fucking mood.
DIRK: No, it means that I want to talk.
DIRK: That’s it.
JOHN: well, we’re talking right now, so i think we’ve checked that box.
JOHN: that’s my asshole way of saying that you can leave now.
DIRK: That’s not what I fucking meant and you know it. C’mon, John.
DIRK: Will you open the door before I have to do it myself?
JOHN: no.
DIRK: John.
JOHN: unless you have something that’s actually worth saying, which i seriously doubt! go away.
DIRK: What would be worth saying, in your humble opinion?
JOHN: hm, i don’t know!
JOHN: maybe an apology for killing me would be a good place to start.
DIRK: I brought you back to life, isn’t that enough?
DIRK: Look, just - go for a walk with me.
DIRK: I don’t have to invade your space or whatever to talk to you.
JOHN: …
JOHN: that doesn’t count.
JOHN: but fine.

There’s rustling on the other side of the door. My narrative prowess tells me that John is frantically shoving on a sweatshirt and attempting to make his hair less fucked up (spoiler alert: it doesn’t work) for the few seconds before his door swings open and his grouchy face pokes out.

JOHN: if you try anything, i’ll punch you.

He holds up his fist as if to say something like i punched vriska serket with this fist! but that doesn’t really mean anything to me. I roll my eyes with enough annoyance in the subtle tilt of my head to convey the message despite my shades and John’s apparent new inability to look at my face.

DIRK: Yeah, yeah, understood.

Without waiting for him to respond, I set off down the hall. What, did you expect me to be all nice to him now that I’ve acknowledged my attraction to him? C’mon. He’s still John, and I’m still… me. I won’t pretend it’s not a welcome surprise when John keeps pace beside me as we head down a flight of stairs and onto one of the levels of the ship that has a fenestrated hallway. Maybe he didn’t just want to be around me because of the slightly-me soul.

It must be night somewhere, because the ship is quiet and the fluorescent lights in the ceiling are slightly dimmed. The soft lights allow some of the passing stars to be visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass panes; they project themselves onto mine and John’s reflections as we pass. Our silhouettes are almost comically different - my anime cape sweeps the floor behind me, my shades jut out at angles almost as sharp as the ones in my hair, and my steps are smooth, purposeful, all while John shuffles along in a sweatshirt that has no right to be that ratty considering the fact that he alchemized it just last week. The lines of tension that make up both of our bodies are a perfect match, though. That would probably say something about us if I cared enough to figure out what it was.

We walk in silence for a couple of minutes. I’m putting more thought into my speech than usual, trying to figure out the best way to say whatever it is I feel like I need to say to John, and John is just… quiet. I don’t like that he’s mad at me. People being mad at me isn’t a new thing, of course, but his anger is different. It’s not snarky and passive aggressive like Rose’s, it’s not bitter and almost immediately apologetic like Roxy’s, it’s not explosive and blubbery like Jake’s. If anything, it reminds me of the quiet hurt that Jane used to throw at me when I really fucked up, and of course, that was the kind that got to me the most. Add that in with the fact that my stupid fucking genius brain has decided that it wants to hug John or whatever, and all I want to do is just fix the situation, whatever that looks like.

DIRK: …
DIRK: So.
JOHN: …
DIRK: Do you know the Ship of Theseus paradox?
JOHN: no?
JOHN: but this ship is called theseus, right?
DIRK: Yeah. I try and keep the names of my machines thematically appropriate. It helps with that narrative resonance, y’know?
DIRK: But anyway, the paradox is this old philosophy thing.
JOHN: (oh no.)
DIRK: Don’t worry, I’m not about to rehash an old Dialogue or anything.
DIRK: This one’s actually pretty simple.
DIRK: I’m going to assume you’ve heard of the mythical hero Theseus - probably the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, Ariadne, all of that?
JOHN: yeah.
DIRK: Cool. So, yeah, Theseus went and made his way through the Labyrinth, defeated the Minotaur, and escaped with the help of Ariadne, essentially.
DIRK: When he took his ship home, he forgot to change his sails from black to white, and his father was so distraught at the sight of the black sails, which supposedly meant that Theseus had died, that he jumped off a roof. But that’s not really important, the point is that his ship returned.
JOHN: okay?
DIRK: And all of these Greek dudes were super into Theseus, and they decided that they were going to keep this boat basically forever. They did their best to preserve it, but since it was hella long ago and the ship was made of it, parts of it would rot and wear out and all of that shit.
DIRK: As the wood rotted, it was replaced. But then people started wondering, well, how much of the original ship is left? Is it still the same ship? Does it stop being the ship of Theseus once you replace one plank with new wood? Does it tip at 50% replacement? Does having just one bit of wood left from the original ship keep it rooted in its identity?
DIRK: Oh, and here’s a good one: is it better to have a replacement ship that’s, at the very least, a damn good replica or to keep the original “pure” and “intact” or whatever but have it decay?

I pause for dramatic effect and rest one of my hands on the railing in front of the windows. John comes to a stop as well, standing so close to me that I can almost feel his body heat. His hand comes up to sit dangerously close to mine on the railing, but he gives no sign that he notices.

JOHN: …
JOHN: i didn’t know you before all of this.

Huh. That, I’ll admit it, actually does catch me off guard. I know John’s not stupid, of course, but sometimes he’s just so willfully obtuse that it’s surprising to be reminded that he can pick up on things like subtext and/or extremely obvious allegories.

JOHN: i met that one glitchy dirk in the doomed timeline, but we really only talked for a minute.
JOHN: this dirk - you - is the most i’ve ever known you.

Yes, if you ignore the many, many splinters in which we’re dating or fucking or married or whatever suits your fuckin’ fancy, sure.

JOHN: and you’re… i mean. you’re not my favorite guy in the world!
JOHN: i am still pretty upset that you killed me.
JOHN: but i’m not my favorite guy in the world either, i guess. and i’ve changed since the game or since i was a kid, which i’m guessing is what you’re getting at.

I want to shrug, but my shoulders don’t seem to be cooperating. More of my physical energy than I’d like to admit is focused on the sliver of metal between John’s hand and mine, as well as the sliver of mental space that’s still attempting to pretend that closing that gap doesn’t seem like the world’s worst idea. What can I say? I’m touch-starved as fuck, and my asshole brain is taking the inch I gave it and running a fucking decathalon.

JOHN: i’m guessing you’ve changed a lot because no offense, but i can’t imagine someone like roxy being friends with you when you’re like this.
DIRK: Thanks.
JOHN: i said no offense! besides, you talk about being a villain so much that i’m pretty sure you understand that being disliked is a general part of the evil dude package.
JOHN: but i mean, maybe it’s because i didn’t know you before, but i guess i’d count you as a friend.
JOHN: you’re a decent movie buddy at the very least.
JOHN: so even if you’re not the “same” dirk or whatever, that doesn’t mean you’re worse, or something.
JOHN: that part’s just because you murder your video game buddies and all of the shit you did back on earth c or whatever.
DIRK:

I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say, honestly.

JOHN: i guess you’re kind of like liv tyler!
DIRK: What?
JOHN: you know, liv tyler?
JOHN: she was my bunny, and i think you did something with her in your timeline?
JOHN: but when i got her she was the actual bunny from con air, which was totally sweet. then a bunch of shenanigans happened and she got upgraded with all of these cool gadgets, which was also totally sweet, even though she wasn’t one hundred percent the bunny that nic cage as cameron poe touched with his sweaty, heart of gold fingers.
DIRK: Y’know, I really don’t understand how you can say you’re straight when you describe a guy’s fingers as “sweaty, heart of gold.”

John laughs, but there’s something weird about it. His hand falls from the railing and down to his side. Is John… not straight? Fuck. That means maybe he might - no, c’mon, that’s bullshit. Just because he’s being nice to me right now and comparing me to some alternate universe version of Lil’ Sebastian doesn’t mean he’s attracted to me or anything like that.

JOHN: hey, it’s nic cage. can you blame me?
DIRK: Yes.
JOHN: look, we’re moving on. my point is that you’re like liv tyler because you’ve changed from whatever you were before, but i didn’t know you before, so i don’t really have a frame of reference.
JOHN: sure, you’ve done some fucked up things. but really, pretty much everyone i know has at this point.
JOHN: one of my old friends had murdered thousands of people by the time she was thirteen! and one of my friends pranked me so hard that i died.
JOHN: being the one that gets murdered isn’t great, but if you don’t do it again, i can probably deal.
JOHN: you’re kind of pleasant company when you’re not being an asshole.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Thanks, I think?
DIRK: Same to you. About the pleasant company thing.

I drop my hand from the railing as well and start walking again. John follows only a second later. There’s another question building up somewhere in my throat, and I don’t know that I’m actually going to ask it until it tumbles out, still smooth as fuck because it’s me talking, but … quieter, maybe, more rushed than I usually bother to say things.

DIRK: Do you think that if they somehow kept the old wood and found a way to put it back into the repaired ship, maybe slightly repaired with modern technology or whatever, it could go back to being the real, original ship?
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: i don’t know if it would ever be considered the exact same, but i think it would be the closest it could get.
JOHN: …

This time, it’s John who stops walking first. I half-turn to find him staring at me, eyes wide and way too perceptive behind his slightly crooked glasses.

JOHN: if you want to go back, there’s nothing stopping you.

I want to snap at him. I want to whip my cape around and stalk back up the stairs so quickly that he ends up lost down here, I want him to realize that I’m the Minotaur, that I don’t get to leave the Labyrinth, not at this stage in the game, but… I also can’t stand the thought of him looking at me all hurt again. And I’m tired of the ship, and I’m tired of being alienated from the only people I’ve ever cared about.

DIRK: I can’t just show back up on Earth C and act like nothing happened. There’s already a group coming after me.
JOHN: yeah, probably not.
JOHN: but i still don’t think it’s too late!
JOHN: if you stop blocking external messages on here, i can tell them to turn back. i don’t think anyone actually wants to fight you, dirk.
DIRK: Yeah, tell that to Kanaya once she sees what I’ve done with her wife.
JOHN: dirk. you’re telling me that you don’t still have rose’s body somewhere?
DIRK: …
DIRK: I do, okay, but I’ve never done a transfer from a robotic form back to a human body. I’d prefer not to risk fucking up my ecto-daughter any more than I already have. Fuck knows I did enough damage to Dave.
DIRK: And look, none of that fuckin’ matters if, you know, *nothing fuckin’ matters.*
DIRK: Without a villain, this isn’t going to be anything resembling canon.
JOHN: again with the canon bullshit! why would that be so bad?

For a second, it’s like the universe shifts a bit to the left. Nothing physically changes, but it’s almost like someone, somewhere has breathed out an immense sigh of relief. John takes a step closer to Dirk, and Dirk doesn’t step away, doesn’t do anything but look vaguely like a fish thrown back into water for the first time and remembering what it feels like.

And then the universe shifts back to where it was. I turn so that I’m leaning back against the railing but still facing John. The light from the ceiling probably washes out my face, but the stars passing behind me are too dramatic a backdrop to pass up on.

DIRK: In the timeline where you didn’t go to kill Lord English, I decapitated myself from a bell tower. You married Roxy, had a kid and a divorce, Jane used her position in CrockerCorp to essentially gain control over everything, the clown got a redemption arc, Dave and Karkat never worked their shit out, and Earth C fell into a civil war over a bunch of bullshit that mainly centered around troll reproductive rights.
DIRK: You became alienated from your family, and dude, if you thought you were depressed in this timeline? Damn.
DIRK: That’s why that would be bad.
JOHN: huh.
JOHN: that… does suck.
JOHN: but that wouldn’t happen now, would it?

He’s asking about the civil war, probably. Jane’s rise to power. My suicide. But he’s running his hand over his own left ring finger and he’s looking at me with the same kind of weirdness he had when he laughed earlier.

JOHN: me and roxy, i mean.

Oh. Huh.

DIRK: No, I don’t think so.
DIRK: I don’t think the cards are poised in the exact configuration for that exact shit to happen, but I don’t think me returning would mean happily ever after or anything like that.
JOHN: why not?
JOHN: we’re gods, aren’t we? we have all of eternity to fix whatever mistakes we make.
DIRK: Because that’s worked out so well so far.
JOHN: well, no.
JOHN: but we haven’t been here for that long, really! what, a couple of years and everything goes to shit forever? come on.
JOHN: you could at least give it a try.

There’s a moment of eye contact, almost like “it” isn’t the pronoun John meant to use, and I remind myself that just because I’m hot as fuck, that doesn’t mean that John necessarily picks up on it.

DIRK: I’ll… think about it. Okay?
JOHN: …
JOHN: okay.
JOHN: …
JOHN: so, um. i was wondering.
JOHN: what exactly did you do? yesterday, i mean.
DIRK: What do you mean?
JOHN: like, i get that you did cpr or whatever, but i still don’t get why that worked. or how you were able to bring me back in the first place.
DIRK: Oh.
DIRK: Well, when I first brought you back, I did some classpect bullshit that basically destroyed the absence of your soul, if that makes sense.
DIRK: Then I damaged that soul yesterday and that’s what killed you. As far as I can tell, the CPR worked because the universe wants you to be all connected with Breath and shit.
DIRK: That’s why I took out the rest of the damaged soul.
DIRK: I don’t know what the fuck your situation is now, but you’re here, so.
DIRK: And I mean - I wasn’t sure if the soul I made was the same as the one you originally had or if it was just another fuckin’ splinter I made.
DIRK: So. Yeah.
JOHN: huh.
JOHN: that sounds like a lot of bullshit but okay?
DIRK: Yeah, well, that’s canon for you, I guess.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: …
JOHN: i don’t think that soul was you, though. not that i’m the king of introspection or anything, but i’m pretty sure i would know if i had a rampant dirk running around inside of me!

I’m not even going to touch that phrasing with a ten foot pole or any other long, phallic object.

JOHN: i’m pretty sure that was me. this is me.
JOHN: um.
JOHN: i think you were probably just like a crutch?
DIRK: Huh.
DIRK: Weird.
JOHN: …
JOHN: yeah.

For lack of a better word, the silence that falls is weird. I can feel the cool metal of the railing through my cape and shirt, and I am suddenly and extremely aware of the distance between John and me. He’s standing somewhat awkwardly in front of me, close enough that I could touch him without having to reach, taller than I think I realized before, and he’s looking at me with an expression that I, god or not, can’t fucking parse.

The silence stretches. I let myself look at him from behind the safety of my shades, and honestly, I don’t know what I was saying about his similarity to Jake earlier. His jawline is different, his eyebrows, even the hesitant smile he gives me in an attempt to break the unidentifiable tension between us.

JOHN: hey, do you want to just go watch a movie?
JOHN: you can pick this time.
JOHN: or we can just watch ghostbusters if that’s easier, hehe.

I’m almost more surprised than I should be. From what I’ve seen and learned, John Egbert has never known anything if not how to offer an olive branch or, in the case, a ball of string. Well. It figures as much. We all know that Ariadne was the real hero of the story.

DIRK: Sure?
DIRK: Fuck it, let’s just watch Ghostbusters. I’ll alchemize some actually good shit tomorrow and then we can watch that, though.
JOHN: okay!
JOHN: you know, i am kinda excited to watch you try and alchemize your pretentious anime movies or whatever you’re going to try to make.
DIRK: They’re not pretentious just because you haven’t seen them, John.
DIRK: In fact, much of early 21st century-
JOHN: nope! tell me tomorrow.
JOHN: tonight is ghostbusters only.
DIRK: That’s a stupid fucking rule, but fine.

John shoots me this grin that looks stupid but also kind of like absolution at the same time, and then he starts walking back down the hall towards our rooms. I follow, the symbolism of the maze of halls we’ve found ourselves in not lost on me. Goddamn, I’m better than I realized at symbolically naming my vessels.

We end up on the couch in my room. I’m sitting on one cushion and one cushion only, while John is stretched out like an asshole with his head dangerously close to my thigh. He’s almost cute from this angle, all soft edges and gentle breath and 80s-colored light washing over him as he.. murmurs every line under his breath. I knew he was a nerd, but c’mon.

JOHN: (if there's a steady paycheck in it, i’ll believe anything you say.)
DIRK: Are you seriously reciting the entire movie?
JOHN: … maybe.
JOHN: it’s good, okay?

I give him one of my top ten most disdainful looks of all time, but he’s too busy staring at Bill Murray to notice.

DIRK: That’s certainly an adjective that some people would apply to this movie, sure.
JOHN: no, like, this one is genuinely good.

John sits up, swinging his legs around so that he’s facing me and sitting criss-cross applesauce. His hair is flattened on one side, and his glasses are crooked, and really, he has no right to be that fucking endearing. Jesus.

JOHN: okay, i’ll admit that con air isn’t a cinematic masterpiece. but it’s fun!
JOHN: and ghostbusters isn’t as bad as that one. it’s genuinely just… good.
DIRK: A film in which Bill Murray gets “slimed” is “good.” That’s a hot take.
JOHN: hey, stupid things can be good.
JOHN: fun things can be good, dirk.
DIRK: We’re not making this about canon again.
JOHN: okay, okay, fine.
JOHN: but i’m rewinding so we can actually watch what you just talked over.
DIRK: Don’t you already know everything that happens?
JOHN: duh! you missed it, though.
DIRK: I’m Ascended, dude, I think I can pick up on the plot of fuckin’ Ghostbusters even if I miss a few minutes. Besides, you’ve talked about it so much that I think I’ve got it on lock regardless.

Not to mention the numerous, numerous times that John has shown this film to my splinters. Much like Nic Cage, nights like these appear to be a universal constant. I can kind of see why, honestly. If I ignore the hum of the ship and the conversations that led us here, it’s almost… nice to just sit here and watch a stupid movie. The small space between my leg and John’s feels charged in that early teenage way, warm and more exciting than it has any right to be, and the darkened room feels like the better aspects of being curled up in my room back in the apartment, watching SBaHJ movies until I fell asleep to the sound of Sweet Bro ascending into space on the shittiest ever skateboard for two hours straight. Look, the point is that it’s nice, okay? Not that I’d ever admit that to John.

JOHN: i’m still rewinding.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Fine.
JOHN: you know, this is kind of nice.
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: …
DIRK: It is.

Pseudo-silence floats back down over the room. When I glance at John, I expect him to be looking at the TV, but instead, he’s looking directly at me. I don’t know what will come out of my mouth if I open it, so I settle for arching an eyebrow.

JOHN: i’m going to have to rewind again, but…
JOHN: do you ever think about, like, if things had gone differently?
JOHN: this is nice, but it would be nicer if we were back on earth instead of on this ship.
JOHN: and i wonder if this did happen on earth or something instead of here, in some other universe.
DIRK: I mean, I’ve got splinters out of my fuckin’ ass, and this isn’t the only time a Dirk Strider has been forced to watch Ghostbusters by a John Egbert.
JOHN: huh.

He’s still looking at me. The movie can’t seem to read the fucking room and keeps prattling on and on in the background.

JOHN: must be nice.
DIRK: What?
JOHN: i don’t know. to not get to know you just because you went evil or in spite of the fact that you killed me or whatever.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: But… this is still nice. In a way.
JOHN: …
JOHN: yeah.

It’s way too dark for John to be able to see past my shades, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that we make direct eye contact. In the space between our knees sits something like regret and something like a shared knowledge that this - whatever this is, not that this is anything in the first place, c’mon - could’ve been what things were like, if I didn’t do my swan dive off of the deep end or the bell tower or whatever the fuck. Or maybe something like a shared knowledge that this, despite everything, is what things are like. It’s a strange, unsteady knowledge, and it’s one that I’m almost definitely completely making up.

John yawns, suddenly, almost too suddenly to be believable, and moves his legs to the side like he’s going to lie down next to me again - except instead of dropping his head right next to my thigh, he lowers it onto my shoulder too slowly to be anything but deliberately. I try not to stiffen and fail miserably. Uh. Okay. This is fine.

DIRK: Uh. John?
JOHN: shh. i’m watching the movie.

I, out of grace and not any sudden speechlessness of my own, “shh.” The movie plays. John’s hair brushes my neck, and this close, I can both feel and hear him breathe. Harold Ramis says something stupid. Is John Egbert trying to cuddle with me? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

We sit like that, John occasionally fidgeting but never quite moving away, me completely still out of fear that I’ll spook him away or encourage him closer, as the movie comes to an end. The Bus Boys’ “Cleaning Up The Town” filters out into the room.

JOHN: um.
JOHN: i should probably go to bed, i guess.
DIRK: Yeah.

I move to grab the remote at the same moment that John sits up, and we end up frozen face to face in the instance before an awkward glasses collision. His hand has fallen next to my thigh, my hand is behind him in its now-forgotten grab for the remote, and the fucking Ghostbusters credits are still playing as I stupidly stupidly stupidly lean in, almost without realizing, and find John doing the same thing when his lips meet mine.

It’s over as soon as it starts. It barely counts as a kiss, honestly, especially considering my non-trivial experience, and - okay, fine. Who the fuck am I kidding? I’ve kissed Jake plenty, I guess I’ve kissed Roxy if you count her corpse or her trickster self, I’ve kissed countless people in countless lives, and I don’t want to act like this two second thing is world-shattering or anything, but… it’s something. Somehow.

John pulls away, just enough that I’d have to be the one to lean in to kiss him again. I hate that I want to so, so badly, and I hate that I don’t.

DIRK: … Uh.
DIRK: So that happened, huh.
JOHN: it, um. it did happen.
JOHN: um.
JOHN: was that…
JOHN: you kissed back.

It’s not a question.

DIRK: I did.

And then, because I have no fuckin’ self control, apparently, I reach up and cup his cheek in one hand. His breath rushes out in an exhale; my heart is pounding.

DIRK: I… you know who I am, right? What I am?
JOHN: yeah. i know.

His eyes dart to the hand resting against his cheek. I want to slide it back, twist my fingers into his hair, and just hold him close - but I realize, the knowledge sudden in the way that getting sick and growing up are sudden, that I don’t want to mess this up. I don’t want to push this. I don’t want to push him, especially considering that, hey, idiot, he’s straight. Maybe.

JOHN: was this DIRK: Are you
DIRK: Uh. Are you - why?
JOHN: i wanted to?
JOHN: i mean. i don’t know. i’m confused about a lot of things right now, i think.
JOHN: but… this is nice, you know?
DIRK: Yeah.

And then I kiss him again. It lasts longer this time; I part my lips and John’s hand appears on my waist, so lightly that it feels like it’s barely there at all. And no, I’m not going to wax poetic about the taste of his mouth or what-fucking-ever, who do you think I am?

When we break apart, John’s hand falls from my waist, and he sits back slightly, looking some kind of shell-shocked. Ah. Gay panic, probably. Thank you, 21st century Earth, for the internalized homophobia plaguing nearly everyone I know.

JOHN: i…
JOHN: um. wow.
DIRK: You okay?
JOHN: yeah! this is, um, not how i expected tonight to go.
DIRK: A little too homosexual for you?

He laughs sheepishly, running a hand through his hair and avoiding my eyes.

JOHN: i don’t know about *too* homosexual, but, yeah.
JOHN: wow.

There’s so much that I want to say, to do, but… I’m not going to mess this up. I’m not going to push it. It’s disgustingly sappy of me, but this almost feels like the one thing that I don’t want to ruin, right now.

JOHN: i don’t - this was nice. and i think it might be nice to do it again.
JOHN: if you wanted.
JOHN: but i think i need to go… think, first.
DIRK: Oh.
DIRK: Um.
DIRK: Yeah, of course.
JOHN: can we talk tomorrow?
DIRK: Yeah.
JOHN: you know, you’re really not sounding evil at all right now.
DIRK: …
DIRK: Shut up.
JOHN: hehe.

The Ghostbusters credits finally come to an end, and we’re assaulted by the bright green lightning and loud music of the menu screen. It’s as good a mood killer as any, I guess, even if I’m still not quite sure what the fuck kind of mood is sitting in the room right now.

John gives me a smile that lands somewhere between apologetic, grateful, and hopeful, and then he's gone. I fumble for the remote and switch the TV off before falling back onto the couch. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, what am I doing? Sloppy not-even makeouts with John fucking Egbert - no matter how much I may or may not have enjoyed them - are not what entities like me do. I’m Dirk Strider, I’m running this fucking circus, and…

Dirk slides his hands up under his shades and rubs at his eyes. He’s tired in a way he hasn’t admitted to himself in a long, long time. The ship hums around him, the sound almost as loud as his thoughts.

Does he like John? That’s not a question, not really. But what does it mean that he does? A villain and hero romance might spice up the narrative, but Dirk isn’t stupid. He knows how those tend to end. But does he want that?

That’s the real question, of course. Relevance, what is statistically a better chance at happiness than he’s looking at right now, or some unimaginable combination of both? What’s nobler - to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them? It’s not a question of suicide, not really, unless the other ship racing towards the Theseus has been too angry for too long, and yet it is, all the same.

What would going back look like? Nevermind the practicality of it, the act of returning back through an abyss one has been trying desperately to get lost in out of a need for some sort of unfamiliarity, but the faces. John forgives easily, but Dirk doubts that anyone else would join him in that, and while a retcon is tempting, Dirk doesn’t think he can get out of this one. If he goes back, he’s going back as the guy that tried to be a villain but couldn’t quite cut it.

He figures that there are probably worse titles. There are probably better ones, too, of course, and he’s sure that some of the ones he’s imagining right now are nothing more than a byproduct of his apparent inability to take relationships at a reasonable pace.

Dirk rolls onto his side, pulling his legs up as close as he can get them to his chest, like he used to back when it stormed over the ocean and the apartment rattled on its supports. Everything feels like it’s rattling right now, and not just because of John, not really. Because of the mounting frustrations, and the emptiness of space, and the impatience of Rose and Terezi, and the loneliness of being the only one trying to complete a quest that feels like it matters less and less every day. John’s just a convenient catalyst.

Dirk closes his eyes, but he doesn’t sleep for a long time.

Chapter Text

When Dirk wakes up the next morning, he’s not as alone as he expects. Rose stands in the doorway of his room, arms folded at an angle straight out of the uncanny valley and face blank. She watches as he sits up, stretches, and carefully keeps himself from flinching when his eyes land on her.

ROSEBOT: Good morning.
DIRK: What the fuck are you doing in here?
DIRK: Warn me next time, fuck.

He plants his feet on the ground but makes no move to stand, choosing instead to lean back faux-casually as he glares at his robotic ecto-daughter. The room shivers, twists, tilts on its unreliable axis.

I let my shades slide down my nose just enough for Rose to receive the full extent of my glare through the small slivers of my eyes that she can now see, but she doesn’t react. Ugh. I’m really not in the mood to deal with this, especially considering the headache that all of my existential pondering last night has so graciously left me with.

DIRK: Seriously, what do you want?
ROSEBOT: To say I told you so.
ROSEBOT: John is not straight, and you’re attracted to him.
ROSEBOT: As I recall, I did tell you this already, and yet it seems that this was a revelation for both of you.
DIRK: Look, it’s not -
DIRK: Maybe you were right, but that doesn’t matter.
DIRK: What do you even think you know?
ROSEBOT: I know that John came to find me last night after spending time with you. He informed me that you kissed and that he left to “think.”
ROSEBOT: Of course, then I had to coach him through his sexuality crisis.
ROSEBOT: I’m tired of being reduced to therapist, Dirk.
ROSEBOT: I’d like to think that all of my hard-earned character development hasn’t been carelessly tossed into whatever you’re calling this sinkhole of a “mission.”
DIRK: Yeah, yeah, that’s bullshit. We both know you love talking about his emotions or whatever.
DIRK: You told me so. I got it. Was there an actual reason why you came in here?
ROSEBOT: I also wanted to remind you that you’re an absolute moron.

She steps fully into my room and starts idly flipping through some of the notes on my desk.

DIRK: Do you mind?
ROSEBOT: I didn’t think it’d be worth it to give you a shovel talk here. You already seem more than fine with killing him, and unfortunately, I doubt you’d allow me to kill you.
DIRK: (Not with that attitude.)
ROSEBOT: Dirk.
DIRK: Rose.
ROSEBOT: I understand that Striders have no grasp on socially acceptable things to say at any point in time, but seriously.
ROSEBOT: My point is that you’re a moron, so is John, and I’ve been friends with him long enough that I won’t be happy if you’re a dick to him.
DIRK: Right, because you know my priority is keeping you happy.
ROSEBOT: Well, why else would you have deigned to give me this lovely and not at all limited form?
ROSEBOT: Look, the main thing is that you’re both idiots, and I’m tired.
ROSEBOT: I’m so glad that you two get to be in fulfilling and morally challenging gay love. After all, this narrative’s been lacking something like that for a while.

The look she gives me could cut steel, if I cared. Consider the fact that she’s made of metal, though, there’s some fucking symbolism for you.

ROSEBOT: I miss my wife, Tails.
DIRK: Don’t fucking reference Sonic when you’re-
DIRK: Hang on.

She shouldn’t miss Kanaya. Or, rather, she shouldn’t be able to miss Kanaya to the point of articulating it so pseudo-directly. Well. Fuck. And fuck again for good measure, because I’m … I’m not as upset as I should be. Rose is taking some autonomy, or maybe I’m subconsciously giving it back to her, if you really need it spelled out that much. There’s probably not much of a difference between those two things - although, if there is, that would certainly be interesting. In a way.

DIRK: Nevermind, just - you miss your wife. Fine.
DIRK: What do you want me to do about it?
ROSEBOT: Well, since I assume it’s pointless to suggest turning around, why don’t you try making this trip worthwhile?
ROSEBOT: We’ve been out here for months with no sign of anything even vaguely resembling a viable planet.
ROSEBOT: I don’t See one coming any time soon either. I haven’t Seen much of anything lately, if I’m honest, and I’m more than a little sick of it.
ROSEBOT: I can’t even try to visit a goddamn dream bubble, since I can’t sleep in this thing.
DIRK: Anything else you need to get off your chest?
DIRK: I was kind of planning on trying to talk to John, but really, if you need to vent, I’m all ears.
ROSEBOT: And yet you still ignore the elephant in the room.
ROSEBOT: You know, you’re a better actor than I previously thought.
DIRK: What?
ROSEBOT: You’re really good at acting smart, despite being remarkably stupid.
ROSEBOT: You’re losing control, Dirk.
DIRK: What the fuck is that supposed to mean.

Rose picks up one of the papers from my desk and waves it in my direction in anything but surrender.

ROSEBOT: You wanted me to leave your precious notes alone.
ROSEBOT: And yet.
DIRK: That doesn’t mean anything.

But it might.

I breathe in slowly, and Rose puts the paper down. Except, no, she doesn’t, because when I exhale, it’s still there.

ROSEBOT: Interesting, isn’t it?
ROSEBOT: Have you considered that it might be because you don’t want it anymore?
DIRK: Not to sound like a scratched record,

(Ha.)

DIRK: but what the fuck is that supposed to mean.
ROSEBOT: You heard me.
ROSEBOT: You’re tired of the torch, and you’ve never not been able to throw out into the void.
DIRK: Did John put you up to this?
DIRK: Look, can you just-

Rose leaves,

Goddamn. Okay. Well, I should probably be panicking a little more about this turn of events, but all my stupid, stupid brain wants to focus on is finding John. Waiting for John to text me. Whatever. I think I need to go for a walk.

I leave my room and start down the same path that John and I took last night. At risk of cliche, my head is spinning, but it’s not like a Beyblade or any shit like that, more of a planet, slowly rotating on its axis. Rose did say it, after all - I’m Atlas, and yes, I’m sick of it.

I step into the same hallway as last night, and I feel like I’m playing Mario Kart in that mode where you race a ghost of yourself. The lights in the ceiling and the darkness through the windows are the exact same as last night, heavy with contrast and the weight of stagnation. The air conditioning clicks on somewhere in the distance, a soft hum that doesn’t change anything. I catch my reflection’s eye - my shades must have fallen off during the night - in the glass and hold it until I don’t recognize what it is that I’m looking at anymore. I am a demiurge once over, and the idea of carrying that weight twice sits low in my gut.

It’s a convenient metaphor, isn’t it? Atlas, I mean, if you got lost in that beautiful fuckin’ picture I just painted for you. The hero, holding the sky on his shoulders, the hero, surrounded by nothing but the sky and the sea and the weight of it all, the hero, standing in the villain’s shoes. Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal. And doesn’t the weight of all those scales get heavy?

Leitwortstil. Have you been paying attention? Have you?

Atlas. Imagine him for me. Crouched under the dark, sodden clouds, face obscured and adumbral. Imagine a planet in your hands. Covered in dark, sodden clouds, alone in the vacuum of space. There is no wind here.

I could go back. It’s the only place that I’m sure John would follow, for whatever that’s worth. I’m sure it would go well. Good morning, sweet prince, welcome home, here’s your head on the scales, don’t you want to know what it weighs? Fuck, I’m pretentious today.

The point is, metaphors and references aside, that I could go back. And if the sky falls, no one ever said that that has to be a bad thing, hell, if you’ll allow me one more allusion - maybe I’ve been Chicken Little this entire time. And if you’ll allow me to take it one step further - maybe I do then fall into cowardice, sometimes.

But this isn’t just about that, is it? It’s about what color sails we will ride home under, it’s about whether home is a concept I can lay claim to anymore or whether it’s something I could ever chart the way to, and it’s about the empty space next to my reflection. If I’m completely candid - and I guess I can be, there’s not much point in acting like I haven’t been transparent this entire time - it’s about the fact that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about kissing John since it happened.

Happened, I say, like it was a coincidence and not a choice. Like it was a one-off, a blip, and hey, if he talked to Rose, either he’s realized that this is a bad idea, or he’s been reassured that kissing dudes is okay. Hoping for the latter is the best I can do, I think.

I close my eyes, blink them back open again. They look like planets, reflected out against the void beyond the window, and then I force myself to stop being pretentious and they’re eyes again. I close my eyes, blink them back open again, and go to find John.

He’s in Terezi’s block. Whatever they’re saying is drowned out by the closed door between them and me, and for once, I stop myself before I tune in. It takes longer than I’d prefer to admit for me to knock.

TEREZI: JOHN DO YOU W4NT TO L3T TH1S 4SSHOL3 1N?
TEREZI: (1TS D1RK)
TEREZI: H3 SM3LLS L1K3 SH1T
JOHN: yeah, come in!

I open the door to find John and Terezi sitting on the floor, Terezi sprawled out and somehow half-upside down, John leaning back against the door.

JOHN: hey, uh.
JOHN: how are you?
DIRK: …
DIRK: Good.
DIRK: How are you?
TEREZI: OH GOD
TEREZI: TH1S 1S 4LMOST 4S B4D 4S TH1NGS W3R3 W1TH ROXY
TEREZI: 4R3 YOU W1TH M3 OR DO YOU N33D M3 TO DR4W 1T 1N CR4YON L1K3 USU4L
JOHN: oh my god.
JOHN: you watched con air! i knew it.
JOHN: did you like it?
TEREZI: WH4T
TEREZI: NO 1 H4T3D 1T
TEREZI: TH4TS WH4T 1 WOULD S4Y 1F 1 KN3W WH4T YOU W3R3 T4LK1NG 4BOUT
JOHN: wait, did you watch it because of that thing you
TEREZI: SHUT UP
JOHN: hehe. that’s actually kind of nice, terezi. :B
TEREZI: SHUT UP!!
DIRK: Should I leave?
TEREZI: Y3S
TEREZI: G3T OUT OF MY BLOCK
DIRK: This is my ship, you know.
TEREZI: R1GHT
TEREZI: TH4TS WHY YOU GOT 1T FROM J4K3
DIRK: Is there really a difference there?
TEREZI: JUST G3T OUT
JOHN: terezi, wait.
JOHN: what do you want, dirk?
DIRK: To talk to you.
DIRK: If you want, I mean.

Terezi’s eyebrow skyrockets into her hairline, then slowly falls back down. John elbows her in the gut like there’s an in-joke I’m missing out on, and she jabs him right back.

JOHN: sure.
JOHN: do you want to go walk again?
JOHN: or i can show you another movie. i think terezi has a bunch alchemized already.
TEREZI: 1 DO NOT
JOHN: (yes you do!)
JOHN: she does.
DIRK: Maybe we could just walk for now. I don’t think I can handle another one of your so-called “movies” until we’ve watched anime or SBaHJ, at least.
JOHN: did you just say “spahg?”
DIRK: Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.
JOHN: hehe.
TEREZI: 4R3 YOU TWO GO1NG TO K33P DO1NG TH1S 1N MY BLOCK OR C4N YOU L34V3
JOHN: okay, okay.
JOHN: but we’re talking about con air later.
TEREZI: 1 ST1LL DONT KNOW WH4T TH4T 1S
JOHN: if you say so.
JOHN: hehe.

John stands up, making a big show of stretching and yawning, and turns to me with a smile.

JOHN: ready?
DIRK: Yeah?
JOHN: cool.

He gives Terezi a dorky little wave that she snorts at, and then I follow him out into the hall like some awkward fucking middle schooler being dropped off at the movie theater for their first date ever.

JOHN: so…
JOHN: how are you?
DIRK: Are we doing this?
JOHN: what’s “this?”

I stop and turn to face him. We’re in some long, nondescript hallway that I don’t quite recognize but that I think is dangerously close to Rose’s room. There are no windows here, just blank walls, which offers me absolutely nothing to look at but John’s face. He looks tired, in a way, and I can’t for the life of me read the look he’s giving me.

DIRK: Being fucking awkward.
JOHN: heh.
JOHN: yeah, i guess that’s what we’re doing!
JOHN: …
DIRK: ...
DIRK: So, I was thinking.
JOHN: oh no.
DIRK: I don’t know if…
DIRK: If they replace the ship with different parts, I don’t know if it’s the same as before.
DIRK: If they do that, but they’ve kept all of the old wood and they put the original wood back in - don’t you dare say anything about phrasing - is it the original ship again?
JOHN: …
JOHN: i don’t know.
DIRK: Yeah.

We’re moving past the allusions, aren’t we? We can take off the glasses, welcome to Oz, I’m the man behind the curtain, and I’m dropping titles like flies.

DIRK: I don’t know if I’m the same, or if I ever could be.
JOHN: if we went back, you mean.
DIRK: Yeah.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: i get that, i think.
JOHN: i mean. i died!
JOHN: like, seriously fucking died.
JOHN: and now i have to - i guess i got gay butterfly effect’d too, and now i have to deal with that.
JOHN: i know it’s not the same as, like, doing whatever you’re doing, but…

He shrugs. It’s painfully endearing.

JOHN: i don’t know.
DIRK: No, I get it.
DIRK: Obviously, like, no one’s ever really the same after different experiences, right?
DIRK: So I don’t know if I’m the same as before, whatever that was, or if I’m a more “real” Dirk than any other Dirk or combination thereof, or if that’s a title I’ll lose by going back, but…
DIRK: I guess what I’m sayin’ is that I don’t know if it really matters if the ship is the real thing or not.
JOHN: you’re really bad at flirting.

I hate it, but I snort at that.

DIRK: What, you don’t find metanarrative philosophical commentary hot?

John laughs this time. Again - painfully endearing. The corner of my mouth quirks up as we start walking again, further into - or is it out of? - the labyrinth.

JOHN: do you want me to find it hot?
DIRK: Do you want me to want you to find it hot?
JOHN: i don’t know.
JOHN: i really was not prepared for a whole sexuality crisis right now, you know.
DIRK: Ha.
DIRK: That’s fair.
JOHN: this… this is nice.
JOHN: last night was nice.
DIRK: That’s still our adjective of choice, huh?
JOHN: got anything better?
DIRK: More philosophical musing?
JOHN: hit me with it.

The hallway comes to an abrupt end in front of a wall and a small porthole window. I glance out of it - space, space, and, shockingly, more space - and sigh.

DIRK: I don’t know.
DIRK: I think I’m tired of this.
JOHN: why don’t you just let go then?
DIRK: It’s not that easy.
JOHN: have you tried?
DIRK: …
DIRK: I don’t know if I know how.
JOHN: hm.
JOHN: i don’t think i can help you here.
DIRK: Yeah, probably not.

His hand comes up to rest on my elbow, all cautious and gentle like I’m a fine lady at her debut party, and I definitely don’t shiver.

DIRK: Alright, I’m just going to -

I close my eyes and picture a katana, the grip heavy but comfortable in my hand, picture the threads running from my chest to my head and the wires that make up so many people that I love, picture the weight on my shoulders in the shape of a planet, a ship, the concept of relevance, lean into the hand on my elbow, and I swing.

Somewhere, somewhen, something snaps. Dirk falls, but when his knees hit the floor, they’re not the only ones. The ship rocks, the void shudders, a voice fades. Rosebot stands, Terezi lifts her head, and Dirk crumples into the awkward frame of John’s arms.

JOHN: um. dirk?
JOHN: are you okay?
DIRK: I….
DIRK: I think so.

Dirk straightens up slightly, and he reaches to fix his shades only to find that they’re not on his face. His hand catches John’s instead, and for a moment, both of their eyes flicker toward the contact.

DIRK: Have you ever read Harlow?
JOHN: what?
DIRK: Harry Harlow.
DIRK: He was pretty inhumane, but he did all of these studies on what happened to baby monkeys when they were placed in isolation.
JOHN: again, what?
JOHN: if you’re trying to tell me something, will you just say it?
DIRK: Wouldn’t that be nice for everyone.
DIRK: No, I think I’m just…
DIRK: I’m glad you’re here for this.
JOHN: …
JOHN: me too.

John tentatively pulls Dirk forward into a hug, and Dirk only freezes for a second before leaning into it. He wraps his arms around John, tucking his face into the space between John’s shoulder and chin and exhaling in one long, slow breath.

JOHN: are we going back to earth c now?
DIRK: I honestly don’t know if I can get back there, but if Rose can figure out a way… yeah.
DIRK: I think the others are after us, we probably have to tell them that they don’t have to, you know, stop my evil rampage.
DIRK: And then I have no idea what I’m going to do back home, I
JOHN: hey, we’ll figure it out.
JOHN: if i didn’t kill you they probably won’t.
DIRK: Yeah, I kinda doubt that.
JOHN: heh.
JOHN: well, if they try, we can just go watch movies at my place.
JOHN: if you want to still, um, hang out, though.
DIRK: Yeah.
DIRK: That sounds good.
DIRK: But seriously, I’m picking the fucking movies for once.
JOHN: okay.
JOHN: i watched naruto once, so we can watch that.
DIRK: I
DIRK: Yeah. Okay.
JOHN: can i kiss you again?
JOHN: i’m not - i’m still kind of. this is a lot.
JOHN: and i know you’re probably trying to figure out what it’s like to not be a god anymore or whatever.
JOHN: but i kind of want to.

The only answer Dirk offers is a kiss. It’s soft and short in the way these things are, with the promise that something more will come at a better time in a better place, and when he breaks away from John, the world seems to have resettled onto its axis in some way. The Theseus creaks, whirrs, settles as well, and the sky floats down to the ground, the Minotaur closes his eyes, Ariadne is waiting at the end of the labyrinth where the sunlight is beautiful, an apartment rests above the waves. There are unanswered questions, but there will be time for answers.

Dirk: Go home.