Work Text:
You’re at Dirk’s house again. It’s a small place, just far enough from the city that you can see the lights without hearing the traffic, and you’ve been coming out here a lot lately. Neither of you talk about it, as much as the two of you talk or don’t talk about anything. Your presence on his doorstep three - well, four, now, - times this week has a place between the lines of your conversation, but that’s where it ends. You both know most of the reasons why you’re here, and you both know that the other ones are better left unstated.
Dirk lets you in with a nod. He’s in his work clothes, a black wifebeater and gray sweatpants, and his hair is impeccably styled even though you know for a fact he wasn’t planning on seeing anyone today.
“Your hair looks nice,” you tell him. It’s not a charged statement, although you suppose it could be. That’s dangerous territory for the foyer, though, and Dirk waits until you’re following him into his garage-turned-workshop to reply.
“Thanks,” he says. “Sorry, I’m not going to be awfully hospitable or anything for a minute, I’m almost done with this paneling.”
“Don’t worry about it,” you say genuinely as you sit down on the stool you’ve come to think of as yours. It offers you a perfect view of Dirk as he works at his main table, and unlike the other two, it hasn’t had loose bolts or tools dropped onto it in weeks. It’d be the light he leaves on, if this were a Motel Six, and what a story that would be. “What are you working on?”
Dirk picks up a screwdriver and starts tinkering with some of the metal on the table. You’ve never been able to quite parse what it is that he’s doing, but the sound of metal on metal is familiar and more than a little comforting, at this point. “Just testing some upgrades I might help Jade make to her main gardening bot,” he says.
You arch a perfectly filled in eyebrow. You normally don’t put makeup on before you come over here, but you were more than a little afraid of what might happen had you showed up without your face on, so to speak. “It’s unlike you to feel the need to test things out so far in advance,” you say.
“It is. Jade just isn’t sure if she actually wants the upgrade, since she’s been pretty firm about keepin’ some element of gardening ‘human.’”
“Hm. That’s interesting, actually. Although I suppose it makes sense.”
Dirk shrugs. The movement is small, but you know how to pick up on it by now. “You’d know better than me.”
You don’t respond to that. Conversation isn’t often a necessity for the two of you, which would probably surprise most of the people who know you. You just… don’t have to posture around him. He knows you and your intelligence, just as you know him and his, and you tend to save the competitive theatrics solely for audiences. Here, in this quiet space, you both can just exist.
You stay quiet for a while longer. Dirk keeps tinkering with an assortment of tools and scrap metal. You watch his hands work and think about a lot of things until he looks up at you again. “Would it be obnoxiously paternal to ask you to hand me that wrench?” he asks.
You follow your best estimation of his gaze to the wrench hanging on the wall behind your shoulder and pick it up. It’s heavier in your hand than you expected, which feels like the sort of thing that should have significance but likely doesn’t. “Maybe,” you say, watching your step as you walk between the piles of wiring and god knows what else scattered across the floor. His fingers brush yours when he takes the wrench. “But I suppose there are worse things to be.”
Dirk looks up at you for a moment. At this angle, helped by the heels you impulsively decided to grab on your way out of the house, you can see the shape of his eyes through his shades. “Yeah, I guess,” he says. He places the wrench down on the table without looking away from you. “While I’m at it, is there anything else obnoxiously paternal I can do for you?”
You wish that was a euphemism, or at least, one less level of plausible deniability away from being a euphemism, so you would feel safe in calling him on it. It shouldn’t be a euphemism. You try not to think about it too hard, although at this point, attempting to do that in any situation regarding your family is more than a lost cause. Beating a dead horse, if you will, and you most certainly will not add any sort of preposition to the end of that clause. “What are you trying to offer?” you ask.
It’s Dirk’s turn to arch an eyebrow now. You wonder, in terms of paradoxical sludge, who got that from whom. According to John, Dirk’s technically your father, but add that to the list of things you only think about when you can’t help it anymore. (Which would be better renamed to the list of things you think about on the daily.) “Why are you here, Rose?”
“I didn’t want to be at home,” you say. You’ve been working on honesty, the two of you. You like to think you’ve been doing your part, just as he likes to think he’s been doing his. An unfortunate fact of the matter is that he actually is doing his part, and often better than you. You suppose that just makes it a challenge. “Of course, I love Kanaya dearly, but she also understands that she is not a substitute for family in this sense. Sludge is thicker than water and all that.”
Dirk keeps looking at you. You’d start to feel uncomfortable under his gaze if you hadn’t been staring back at him this entire time. “Do you want to invite Dave and Roxy over?” he asks.
It’s a loaded question, as they go. You don’t have to think about your answer. “Sure.”
While you wait for Dave and Roxy to arrive - because of course they agree as soon as they see Dirk’s message, the four of you know how these things go by now - you convince Dirk to take a break so that you can paint his nails.
His hands are rough in yours as you work. He’s not a large person, exactly, but he takes up space and your slender hands feel tiny in his. You try not to love that feeling too much.
“I don’t see the point, they’re just going to get messed up when I’m working tomorrow,” he mutters, but he doesn’t pull away.
“Then I’ll paint them again,” you say patiently. His hand twitches in yours, and a small mark of polish drags onto the side of his right ring finger. “Fuck, hang on.”
Dirk doesn’t apologize, but experience says he’s thinking about it. You use the nail of your index finger to scrape the polish away, leaving only a faint gray mark behind, before he can say anything. You’re not entirely sure whether his hand twitched or yours were shaking or some mixture of both, but you move on.
When you’re done, you lift his hand to your mouth and blow cool air across his nails. He obligingly shakes his hands out, methodic in his moments even now, and you’re struck with something like fondness as you close the nail polish and set it carefully on the table, an offering.
“Thanks,” Dirk says, then, “I hope you know I’m taking you up on that warranty guarantee, I’m not going to be the god that goes to the grocery store or whatever and ends up with chipped nails in the paparazzi photos.”
You let yourself smile. “Honestly, I think a public sighting of you would be enough to distract from any keratin-related mishaps.”
He places his hands back on the table, careful in the way people always are right after their nails have dried, and gives you a look. “Like you’re any different,” he says. “When was the last time you made a public appearance?”
“Certainly more recently than you,” you say, “although that only narrows it down by a decade or so.”
He doesn’t quite laugh, but you recognize the huff of air that means he’s amused. It feels like a victory. “Yeah, that’s fair,” he allows, but whatever he’s going to say next is interrupted by the sound of the door opening.
“Hey!” Roxy calls, pulling the word out into two syllables. She bounces into the dining room, which Dirk apparently decided was the best place for nail-painting, a moment later and wraps her arms around Dirk’s back, beaming at both of you. Her pink turtleneck sweater seems like something your mom would’ve worn, way back when, but her smile is still almost a surprise to say. “What are you two up to?”
“Rose painted my nails,” Dirk says, holding his hands up and wiggling his fingers.
Roxy takes his right hand in hers and lifts it to her face like she’s inspecting your work. “Ooh, very nice,” she says, “you’ll have to do mine next time I need them done, yeah?”
You smile and hope the way your cheeks are pink is hidden by the darkness of the dining room. The sun set sometime while you and Dirk were sitting here, and you were both too distracted to switch on the light, apparently.
Like she’s read your mind, Roxy clicks her tongue. “It’s so dark in here, though, oh my god. You two are going to go blind at this rate!”
“I’d be interested to see if that would actually be possible for me,” you say. “Although we might find out if you - ah. Do that.”
Roxy bounces over to the light switch and flips it on without a care for the need of your eyes to adjust. Dirk, of course, is protected by his shades, but you wince. “Thanks,” you say dryly.
Roxy steps over to your side of the table and wraps an arm around your shoulders, squeezing you tight. You do your best to let it happen.
“Do you know when Dave’s going to get here?” Dirk asks.
“Nope,” Roxy says, popping the p. She lets you go and drops down into one of the empty chairs at the table, propping her elbows up on the table and resting her chin in her hands. “I tried to get him to come with me, since flying’s a lot better with someone else and it means he’s less likely to miss the house, but he said he’d be fine.”
“It never fails to amuse me how he manages to be late when he can show up at literally any time,” you say.
“Late’s relative,” says a voice from behind you. You half-turn in your seat to find Dave lifting a hand in greeting from the doorway. He must’ve just come from some sort of meeting, because he’s in a suit, perfectly rumpled from flying, and he either forgot to shave this morning or needs to receive a facial hair intervention from the three of you. “I mean, Dirk didn’t give us a time or anything.”
“Exactly!” Roxy says. “Besides, you’re here now, so it doesn’t really matter.”
Dave gives her finger guns. “Exactly,” he agrees as he drops into the last empty chair. “So what’s on the agenda for tonight?”
Even though it’s Dirk’s house, everyone looks to you. You fold your hands and place them on the table. You love seeing everyone, you really, really do, but this part is always the worst, where you all pretend you’ll stay carefully separated by the position of your seats, that you’re just a normal family getting together for a normal night, that your history, ancient as it may get, still sits heavy between you, and that you’ll not all together for a reason. “Well, I don’t have an itinerary or anything, but if you wouldn’t mind, Dirk, I would love a drink.”
Dave snorts. “Dude, we should totally, like, all get into those anime maid outfits one day and plan a get together with everyone else somewhere super public, and I mean, we obviously won’t tell anyone beforehand, and it’ll just -”
“Cement our reputation as the worst gods to ever cohabitate with their creations?” Dirk asks. He stands from the table, though, and his mouth is tugging up at the corners. “I’m in.”
“Here, wait, let me help you get drinks,” Roxy says, standing up as well. She shoots you and Dave a conspiratorial wink. “I’m taking a stand against flat orange soda right here and right now.”
“I have other stuff,” Dirk protests, but he doesn’t stop Roxy from following him into the kitchen. Their light-hearted argument fades into background noise as they get farther away, and you only turn to Dave once you can no longer make out their words.
He’s on his phone, because god forbid he let himself acknowledge when a situation is awkward, but he places it facedown on the table once he notices your gaze. “That kinda night?” he asks.
You don’t want to nod, but you do. “That kinda night.”
Dave studies you for a moment, his fingers drumming on the table. “You okay?”
There’s a thump from the kitchen, followed by Roxy giggling. You cast a cursory glance, but you know them well enough to know you probably don’t have to be concerned. “I think so,” you say. “Just… it’s good to see you all.”
“Yeah,” Dave says. His fingers are itching towards his phone again, and you drop your gaze so that he can pick it up. The ground between the two of you is well-tread, a practiced route instead of any sort of game. It’s comforting in its own way.
It started on the meteor, whatever this is between the two of you. Well, technically, it started with late nights on Pesterchum, silent houses and the kind of ache in your chest that neither you nor Dave could sleep away, and then there were late nights on the meteor, and you were halfway through typing in Dave’s handle when you realized that he was just down the hall. And it was never anything that earned a label, but it was enough that Karkat and Kanaya learned to step softly around the kitchen when they heard voices murmuring late into the night.
And now here you are. You wait until Dave’s safely lost in his settings app before you say, “How’s Karkat?”
Dave shrugs. His fingers are flying across the screen very quickly for someone that - and you know this for a fact - is just on his settings app. “I mean, he’s Karkat, but he’s good. We’re good, just, like, the best of bros and I know my tone made that sound fake, but he is genuinely my best bro. I actually told him we should make a blood pact the other night, ‘specially since he’s kinda chill about that shit now, but he just yelled at me about infections for ten minutes. Uh. How’s Kanaya?”
“She’s good. We’re good,” you say, not mocking so much as relating. “Keeping busy, of course.”
Dave snorts. “Tell me about it. Like, yeah, I know that money’s fake for us and that I could do whatever, but I mean, it’s good to do stuff. Just. Not when I’m having, like, production meetings and we can’t get anything done because everyone’s afraid I’m gonna smite them or whatever. Seriously, have any of us ever smited anyone?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m pretty sure I was voted Most Likely to Smite Someone in a tabloid that ran superlatives on us once, now that I think about it.”
Dave actually laughs at that, placing his phone down again so that he can adjust his shades. “That’s fucking hilarious, oh my god, why didn’t you mention it? Shit, did I get, like, Most Likely to Only Accept Stupid and Esoteric Sacrifices or something?”
You snort. It’s an ugly sound, but you’re trying to remember not to care about that anymore. “No, I think yours was Worst Ass, actually.”
“Hey!” He sounds genuinely offended, which is probably funnier than it should be. You laugh anyway, letting yourself grin as he crosses his arms. “C’mon. Fuck, which tabloid was that? I might have to steal your smiting thunder, everyone knows that’s an honor that belongs to one Dirk Strider.”
“What belongs to me?” Dirk asks, with his trademark perfect timing. He and Roxy are holding two drinks each, what looks like juice for him and Dave and sparkling cider for you and Roxy. “Also, are we staying here or are we moving to the living room?”
It’s another loaded question. The dining room means relative safety and plausible deniability, whereas the living room is just… an eventuality.
“I vote the living room,” Dave says. It’s uncharacteristic of him to answer, but when you catch his eye, he just shrugs. “What? The couch is better than these chairs.”
“Living room it is!” Roxy announces. She leads the way across the hall and into the room, flipping the light switches up with her elbow before depositing the two cups she’s carrying onto the coffee table. She drops down onto the couch and motions for you to take the spot next to her. You do, and she leans over and kisses you on the cheek. Her lipstick feels tacky on your skin. It makes you flush from head to toe. “Alright, what are we playing?”
“Playing?” Dirk asks. He puts his drinks down onto the table as well, then reaches under it to pull out two cushions best described by a Japanese word you can’t bring to mind with Roxy’s arm slung around you. He kneels on one and pushes the other one towards Dave, who sits on it with his legs crossed.
“I mean, we do usually have game night,” you point out. “Since chess didn’t work out-”
“All I’m saying is that if y’all were more accepting of Chess 2, it would’ve gone much better,” Dave interrupts.
“Since chess didn’t work,” you repeat, “how about Monopoly?”
“Sure!” says Roxy.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Dirk says, but he reaches behind himself and grabs it off of the shelf under the TV anyway. “I call the iron.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Why the iron?”
“Iron-y,” he says, completely deadpan.
“Oh my god,” Roxy says. “You’re such a fucking dork.”
Dirk shrugs, but he has the tiny smirk on his face that means he’s proud of himself. “Which one do you want?” he asks her.
“Hmm… the car, I think,” she decides. “Rose?”
You opt for the refined hat, and then Dave stands up and walks over to the couch, whispering something in Roxy’s ear. You and Dirk exchange a look of mild concern.
“Oh, absolutely,” Roxy says. There’s a poof, and then she’s handing something small and silver to Dave. He cups it in his hands like it’s something precious, grinning as he walks back over to his seat and sits back down.
“Dave. What is that?” you ask.
“You’ll see,” he says, with the exact kind of tone that means it’s about to be absolutely stupid, then, “alright, who goes first? Also, I nominate myself for banker.”
“Absolutely not,” Dirk says. “I nominate Roxy.”
“Accepted,” Roxy says, before Dave can protest. She pulls the money toward herself and deals it out without even having to look in the rulebook. “Rose, why don’t you go first?”
You do, and from there the game is pretty much like every other one the four of you have played. Dave reveals that his piece is actually a tiny penis, which even you admit is entertaining, and you and Dirk waste absolutely no time in dominating the conversation with carefully-wrapped fake insults. He puts so much care into it, though, pushing his shades up onto the top of his head so that Dave can see his eyes and making sure that he emotes whenever he lets himself sound frustrated so that he doesn’t look like his alternate universe self. Even though it’s not directly for your benefit, it makes you feel safe. They all make you feel safe.
You don’t really know why you come here on the nights that you do. You’re sure it wouldn’t be hard to figure out if you had half the mind to try, but the fact of the matter is that you just don’t. You needed to be here tonight because the things you get from them aren’t what you get from Kanaya, and that’s as much as anyone needs to know. It’s … easier, in a way, for all of you to leave everything unspoken.
Like the way Roxy keeps her arm wrapped around your shoulders even when it means she’s dealing money at an awkward angle, or the way Dave knocks his foot against yours when they meet under the table, or the way Dirk lets your fingers brush his when he begrudgingly hands you the rent for yet another of your many, many properties. Like the way Dirk’s right hand is conspicuously absent from above the table at the same time that Dave’s left is hidden, or the way you don’t remark when Dave calls Roxy “Mom,” or the way, the way, the way.
About an hour later, Dirk is scowling at you and handing over the last of his cash. Roxy tapped out a while ago, just before Dave, who claimed that the game is rigged and then went to find snacks and has yet to return, leaving you as the winner.
“I told you Water Works wasn’t a good investment,” you say smugly.
Dirk lifts his hands up in faux-innocence. “Water Works is the eighth most visited property in the game, it’s not my fault that you literally have fuckin’ luck and foresight powers.”
“All the more reason to listen to my warnings,” you point out.
“You’re both very smart, we know,” Roxy interrupts. “Try not to get too crazy while I go make sure Dave didn’t get lost in the pantry, okay?”
She kisses the top of your head and gets up from the couch, leaving you and Dirk staring at each other across the table. Something in his gaze changes, almost imperceptibly, and Dirk Strider is not a soft man but he looks the part in this moment. “I guess so,” he finally says, then, “You feeling better?”
Your chest tightens up a bit, and you start sweeping the houses off of the board as an excuse to break eye contact. It’s not like him to ask so directly, and you can’t help the way you immediately reach for defensiveness. “Better than what?”
“Rose,” he says, and then his hand is on your arm. You stop trying to put the Chance cards into a stack and take a deep breath. “Let us care about you, alright?”
But that’s another thing you all don’t talk about, isn’t it? The way, the way, the way you’re all still learning to be cared about. It’s not that you’ve ever had to learn to care about them, no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself otherwise, and you know that’s been the same all around. None of you have any problem giving love; all of the trouble lies in accepting it.
You’re trying to work on it. You really are. It feels like diving out over a waterfall or setting off a bomb in every way but the fact that you’ll have to deal with the consequences no matter the end result, and that makes it that much harder. You place your hand over Dirk’s and look at your matching nails.
“I’m trying,” you admit, and Dirk squeezes your arm.
“I know,” he says, and you don’t know why that feels like the thing that breaks you, like you flew out here tonight just waiting to hear those words, and you swallow hard. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, like - make game night into therapy.”
You laugh a little, and you both ignore the way that the sound comes out a little choked up. “I mean, it’s not like there’s a huge difference there,” you say. “But no, this… this is good. They’re both… good.”
Dirk’s brow creases like he’s going to say something else. You abruptly realize how close your faces are, and then Roxy and Dave return. You lift your hand off of Dirk’s, pull away like you’ve been caught with your hand in your mother’s booze stash, but no one says anything about it. When you look over at her, Roxy just gives you a sad smile that feels like a secret or all of the words that none of you can say, then claps her hands together and says, “Alright, what are we putting on?”
There are a couple of words on the tip of your tongue. Half of them are jokes about Evanescence or twelve year old Dirk’s unfortunate venture into ska, half of them are things you can’t even let yourself think. You don’t think you could get any of them out if you tried, but one of the things you love about your family is that none of you let silence stick around for too long.
“I vote Lil Nas X,” Dirk offers.
Roxy groans. “Dirk, just because you factkin him doesn’t mean we have to listen to his music literally every time we hang out.”
“I don’t factkin anyone,” Dirk protests, “he just has good music. And I know you were singing along last time anyway.”
“Yeah, but I can’t listen to the same stuff all the time,” Roxy explains. “Dave, what’s your vote?”
Dave glances at Dirk. “I mean, I’m cool with Lil Nas, but I can also throw a playlist together real quick? So it’s not just my shit or anything.”
“Sounds perfect,” Roxy says. She gives him a one-armed hug, then walks over and drops down next to you on the couch. “Rose, you okay with that?”
You nod. You still don’t trust your voice or anything it might have to say, not when Dirk is still holding your arm. He squeezes it again, then lets go, standing up with a performative stretch before sitting down on your other side.
None of you are good at anything that could even loosely be described “cuddling.” Roxy is the best, if you had to pick, but something in your collective lack of experience with physical affection and the fact that vulnerability never comes easy for any of you makes it a low bar.
But you try. As Dave fiddles with Dirk’s speakers, you somehow end up sprawled across the couch with your head in Roxy’s lap and your feet in Dirk’s. Roxy’s running her fingers through your hair, your headband carefully placed on the coffee table, and Dirk has pulled your heels off and is rubbing your feet in a way that would make you take a mental note to ask him about a possible foot fetish if your brain was a little more functional. It’s just - easy’s not the word for it, but it’s more possible to let your guard down here than it is in almost any other place. So you try, and you find yourself slipping into something like sleepiness.
Dirk and Roxy are talking above you, but you can’t quite make out any of the words. It reminds you of when you were younger, creeping downstairs after a bad dream only to hear your Mom talking, either to herself or with someone on the phone, but this time, you don’t have to slip away. This time, Roxy’s hand is brushing across your forehead when she laughs, and the room isn’t silent like your house was because Dave seems to have figured out the speakers.
The first song on his playlist is something by Snoop Dogg, which isn’t surprising and therefore strangely comforting. Dirk seems to have moved on from massaging your feet to being fascinated by them, just running his hands up and down from your toes to your ankles. It feels, for lack of a better word, reverent. You keep your eyes closed.
“Aw, c’mon, do y’all really have to be taking up the entire couch?” Dave complains, but from the sound of it, he sits down on the floor without further complaint. You smile a little. It’s late enough in the night for you to admit that you find it cute when he gets tired and therefore petulant.
“We could make room,” Dirk offers, even though you probably couldn’t, at least not in a way that wouldn’t disturb you. You curl your toes around his hand in a vague attempt to show your displeasure, and he laughs. “We could, Rose.”
Dave laughs a little. You crack open your eyes to find that he’s leaning back against the couch, his face just inches from yours. His shades are hooked into the pocket of his suit jacket, and he looks fond in a way he normally doesn’t allow himself to. “It’s all good, I’m not looking forward to being the first victim of inter-god violence.”
“Good choice,” you murmur, letting your eyes fall shut again, and he laughs again.
“Hey, none of that on my watch,” Roxy says gently. She ruffles your hair for a moment before returning to slowly running her fingers through it. “Shit, I think I might fall asleep here.”
“Yeah,” Dirk agrees. He doesn’t sound sleepy or anything, but you know by now that he can put up that act right up until the moment he passes out. “I don’t think I need to say that y’all can spend the night, but y’all can spend the night.”
“Good, because I was going to anyway,” Roxy says through a yawn.
Snoop Dogg switches to Debussy, and you inhale, exhale. It’s not like you’ve ever been all that private about your music taste, but it still feels like a big deal that Dave knows you well enough to pick Reverie over Clair de Lune.
Whatever Dirk and Roxy were talking about earlier, the conversation seems to have been foregone. The living room is quiet save for your mingled breaths and the soft music, still save for their hands and the words that you know are on the tips of everyone’s tongues.
“You doing better?” Dave murmurs to you. His words are perfectly timed to fit under a swell of the music, and if Dirk and Roxy hear him anyway, they don’t comment.
You blink your eyes open again, inhale, exhale, and whisper, “Yeah.” And you are. You know well enough by now what nights like these fix, and the weird ache that was in your chest this morning is almost gone. You know that tomorrow will be strange again, that you’ll all be back to pretending like you all keep getting so close but never taking a step too far over the edge. Your hand falls from your side to dangle over the edge of the couch, brushing the carpet and Dave’s fingers. He tenses but doesn’t move his hand.
Yeah. You know this well enough by now to know that whatever “this” is, the act or art of being loved or something equally hard to say - you’ll all figure it out. You’ve earned an eternity to do so, after all.