Chapter Text
Light trails in from a half-curtained window, bouncing off the butter-coloured painted walls and filling the room with a soft yellow glow. Dirk Lalonde is laying across his bed, squinting against a sunbeam that rolls across his face as he flips over onto his stomach with a groan.
He lets his face smush against his blanket for a moment before looking back up around his room. His eyes trail across his bookshelves, full of old, pompous looking books, and his little knick-knacks he has strewn about atop old vintage crates. It’s all quite pleasing to look at. He rolls off of his bed and onto his oversized bean bag chair, landing smoothly.
Dirk’s a fairly twig-like man of average stature, which is a code-word for he is actually shorter than he’d like to admit. His curly mostly-blonde hair is grown out to his shoulders, leaving a good expanse of his brown roots showing. Poking out of his hair are two dark cat ears, accompanied appropriately by his long, thin tail.
There’s not much he has to do today. Laundry, help with the ironing, keep repairing that one typewriter... none of those seem very interesting right now. His spine pops a bit as he stands up, surprising him slightly as he makes his way out of his room and into the foriegn bubble of reality for the first time in about a month.
He enters the living room, standing there like an awkward pigeon as he’s immediately greeted with a stare-off from Dave, his brother of a good few years younger than him.
“Who are you?” Dave says almost mockingly.
“Really? I haven’t been in my room for that lo-” He’s cut off by Dave yelling, calling in their father.
Right on cue, in walks David Lalonde, a fairly popular horror author and father to a pair of assholes. He’s dressed up in some comfortable slacks and a deep purple sweater. “What’s-!” His face turns from concern to mild surprise as he sees Dirk, his own matching cat ears flicking as he slings the towel he was using to dry his hands over his shoulder, pulling him into a hug.
“How are you doing?”
“I’ve been doing fine- I didn’t know you came home? I thought you weren’t coming back from your trip until tomorrow.”
“I haven’t been home too long, don’t worry. I meant to come talk to you first of course, but- your lovely auntie Rosa made me put away all of my things first before she headed out.” He says with a bit of joking contempt as he pulls away from the hug.
Dirk smiles, “I get it, don’t worry. He sniffs slightly, catching some smell in the air. “Is someone cooking something?”
“Yeah- dinner for everyone who wants it.”
Dirk’s stomach growls in perfectly ironic timing, which David laughs slightly at. “Hungry?”
“Maybe.”
David turns to face the couch, which Dave had since gotten comfortable on while looking at his phone. “Are you hungry?”
“No, I’m Dave.”
David rolls his eyes at him. “Do you want to eat.”
“I’ll come in sometime soon.”
“Well, you’ll be free to join us at any time.”
Dirk follows David into the kitchen, smiling as he takes in the warm smell of chilli on the stove. He helps David set the table, putting out bowls for everyone.
“I hope this’ll be alright, I haven’t cooked for you all in a while.”
“Your chilli’s always great,” Dirk sets the last bowl down. “Should I go get everybody?”
“I can do it if you’d like to get started eating.”
“I can- it’ll take a minute and I might as well let everyone know I’m not dead.” He jokes, deadpanned.
David gives him a smile and pats his back as Dirk turns to leave. “Alright, thank you.”
Dirk makes his rounds through the hallways, knocking on bedroom doors and calling through them, announcing that dinner’s actually ready and not will-actually-really-be-ready-in-five-minutes-ready.
He comes back into the kitchen and sits down to his now-full bowl and takes a bite as David sits down next to him. “This is even better than last time holy shit,”
“Or is it because you haven’t had it in so long?”
Dirk hums and shrugs his shoulders.
“I think that might be the case.” David says, nodding to Dave as he comes in and sits down with a “thank you.”
“Or, you’ve improved since last time.”
“Hah- oh I doubt that. I had barely cooked for myself while I was out.”
Dave finishes eating faster than ever, getting up to clean his bowl and putting it away before sitting down again.
Loud and quick footsteps slap against the tile hallway as Ro comes stumbling into the kitchen.
“Hi butthead-” Dave says, looking up at her.
Ro gives an offended face back as she runs over to noogie him. “TAKE THAT BACK!”
“NOT THE HAIR-”
Dirk holds back a laugh as he watches the kids fight, amused. “Hello-”
Ro freezes. “TIMAEUS!” She lets go of the choke hold she had Dave in and runs over to nearly tackle Dirk off of his chair in a hug.”
Dirk laughs and hugs her back, making an over-exaggerated “Mwah” noise as he plants a kiss on his youngest pseudo-sibling’s cheek.
“Dirk! Dirk! Dirk! Did you hear!!! Momma’s started letting me help Dave with his work! So that means I get to boss him around.”
Dave glares over, rubbing at his throat. “No you don’t! You’re still like, ten.”
“I AM ELEVEN AS OF TWO MONTHS AGO!”
“You’re still short, though.”
Ro lets go of Dirk and launches herself back over at Dave with a play growl, trapping him and continuing to noogie him.
Dave growls back, pushing at her with little success. “Get ooooooooff-”
She laughs and pushes him away, skipping off to sit in her seat and dig into her food. David snorts as Ro sticks her tongue out at Dave and Dave does it back.
Dirk scraps his spoon along the bowl to get the last bits of his chilli. “That’s very cool that you get to do that. You’re growing up so quickly.”
Ro swings her spoon around, splatting some mush on the ground. “I KNOW! I’m gonna get so tall.”
“You are going to be so tall-” Dirk takes his bite off the spoon. “If you take after your mama you’re going to be towering over us in no time.”
“She’s scary,” Dave says.
“She’s not scary, she’s cool!” Ro quickly defends.
“Fine- cool AND scary. Remember that weird tall guy at the gas station- she scared him!”
Dirk furrows his eyebrows slightly as he thinks. “I don’t remember if I was here for that.”
Dave puts his phone down on the table and leans his chin on his hand. “Ro killed some kid and their something or other got mad.”
“Oh my gawwwddd- stop, I hate that clown.” Ro groans and stuffs her cheeks full before getting up to get seconds.
“You killed somebody?” How much did Dirk miss while he was just holing up in his room?
Ro gets an angry look on her face, almost like she and Dave have had this argument before. “I did not kill anybody!”
“Ah-”
“But I snuck outta the house and they screamed at me.”
“-oh.”
“But momma found out where they lived and went to chop his dick off!”
Dirk chokes on his food and slaps his hand against his chest a few times as Dave looks at her with a disgusted face. “Ro!”
“What, it’s just the facts!!”
Dave opens his mouth to bite back- but then his phone starts ringing. He groans and flips it over, and his face immediately brightens. He takes his phone and slides out of his chair, quickly leaving the room.
Ro follows and yells after him, teasing something about his “booyyyyfriieeeend” as Dave squacks back and slams a door.
Dirk and David share a similarly amused look as David gets up to start working on the dishes. Dirk decides that maybe he’ll stay out of his room for longer, and stays to help him.