Work Text:
It was a chill day in Houston, Texas, on the roof of an apartment building near to another almost identical apartment building - in almost all likelihood, owned by the same developers and manufactured in the same way, possibly even by the same construction team. They were like twin skyscrapers, every single steel beam replicated to the inch but transplanted about a mile to the right, as if teleported. Even the external area, the fencing surrounding it, the nearby parking structures, were almost identical, although the further you got out on each city block, the more distorted the view became, until it was illegible as a duplicate, developing personality and strata of its own.
The rooftop, of course, that Dirk was not supposed to have access to, but he had copies of the keys made anyway. Don't ask how, because he wouldn't tell you. He set out a little plastic table and a little fold-out plastic checkerboard with little plastic checker pieces and a little plastic windshield he taped to the sides of the table because otherwise the wind would blow all his checker pieces off the rooftop, and that just wouldn't do, now would it? There was another table nearby, and both tables had their legs duct taped to the concrete rooftop, just in case, and on that other table there were two mugs, each filled with a particularly drinkable volume of homemade half-lemonade half-iced tea.
The checkers game was in progress, as it often was during these once-every-couple-months shenanigans when Dave and Dirk visited each other and Dirk subjected his cousin to his strange little whims. His phone played Death Grips at a low enough volume to be considered pleasant background noise instead of screeching, grating post-rap, but the fact that Dirk apparently unironically liked Death Grips provided ample ammunition for Dave to dig at him all morning, and Dirk was very strongly considering switching to 100 Gecs instead, if only out of spite. Or perhaps some Kero Kero Bonito, if only so he could segueway into the youtube video of them performing "I've Seen Footage" in some sort of strange passive-aggressive get at Dave.
Perhaps there was a reason he and Rose got along so well.
Dirk was winning, of course, as he almost always did. Dave was barely paying attention to the game, but instead busying himself with one of the little microwave mini-corn dogs that Dirk had spent the time wrapping in cooked bacon and skewering on little toothpicks and leaving out on his nicest looking plate that he stole from his Bro, because of course he did all of those things. Dave daintily munched on each one, enjoying the refreshments, chewing, swallowing, and making seemingly random movements that left him perilously open for attack. One of Dirk's kings was thumped, one by one, across Dave's side of the battlefield. Click, click, click, click, click, striking down preposterous numbers of pieces, Dave's board state in peril.
"Come on, man, are you even going to try to win?" Dirk asked, grabbing one of the microwaved corn dog delights. His teeth were aching somewhat from the sugar content of his sweet tea and lemonade concoction, the Arnold Palmer classic, and they required a break. "This isn't fun for me if I just steamroll you. Where's your sense of sportsmanship? Your pride?"
"Oh, okay, sorry about that bro, hold on, one sec." Dave replied, while Dirk pinched the end of the toothpick with his teeth and slid the entire mini corndog off in a single swift motion before shutting his mouth and chewing. Dave grabbed his single King and proceeded to tick off a good 60% of whatever forces Dirk had with a single move with distressing casualness. Click, click, click, every interlocking plastic piece clacking against each other as he gently shuttled them into a quiet pile by the edge of the board. Dirk looked absolutely devastated, mouth agape with half-chewed mush inside of it, his brain almost audibly grinding to a halt. He had been so focused on steamrolling the uncaring Dave that he had set himself up for a perfect counterattack.
Dirk grunted and wiped all the pieces off with one arm. "I fold." He said, swallowing his food and dumping the checkers pieces back into their box. He reached down, grabbed underneath his seat, and slapped a box for "Connect Four" onto the table. "Next game."