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It’s warm.
That’s the first thing you notice about Earth C, when you’re finally given a moment to begin processing your surroundings.
The sun is a light caress against the exposed areas of your skin, so unlike the harshness of Houston; its unrelenting rays would beat down on you as you trained on the rooftop, swam in the ocean, and climbed the searing metal beams back up to your apartment; you can still feel the way your flesh felt like it would melt, oozing onto the scorching skeleton of the building.
A breeze blows gently; this, too, is new. When the wind blew in Houston, it blew with a vengeance. You can conjure the memory of yourself, sitting on the rooftop at the tender age of eight, knees tucked up against your body, watching the thrashing waters far below you. You were holding the boat you made in one small hand, examining it.
You made the vessel out of papier-mâché after seeing something similar online. You had navigated onto the archived arts-and-crafts webpage by mistake. Before you exed out of the page, the brightly colored vessel, held by a child and his father, caught your eye. Immaturely, you still craved the company of others like you. Even though crafting the boat didn’t conjure up a family for you to join, “like a real boy”, you still felt some semblance of belonging as you held it. The sides were still tacky with liquid glue, and the colors from the markers faint as you used the last bits of their juice on this endeavor, but it was something that proved your humanity. You made a paper boat, just like any number of Earthen children that preceded you.
The water below you was whipped into a violently frothing frenzy, the white peaks crashing against the support beams holding your apartment up. You felt some reluctance before dropping your boat in. Predictably, and without hesitation, it was swallowed by the waves, capsized and drowned within moments. Its maiden voyage had come to a swift, brutal end. Despite the finality of it all, you watched the water for a moment, daring to hope that your tribute would triumphantly resurface.
It did not.
Hope thoroughly obliterated, you finally stood, casting one more glance over your shoulder to the waves. Then you returned inside, to the mechanical and technical toys that were apparently more your speed. You weren’t upset; only stupid babies got upset when their plans didn’t pan out, or when their toy boats were eaten alive. You weren’t a stupid baby, so you didn’t care.
You feel like that papier-mâché boat in the following days on Earth C.
You had only a scant few moments of rightful hesitation before you were thrust into this brave new world; then you were devoured by it. The newness of everything grated against your frontal lobe; you had only had a brief amount of time in the game with your friends and Jake. Hardly enough time to be familiarized with them before you were expected to cohabitate with them. Then there was the even shorter, yet even more agonizing acquaintance with your idol: your brother.
After that it had been a whirlwind of violence, then darkness; then sharp, electric tingling as Jane revived you; then your reward: Earth C, undrowned, un-armageddon'd, as you had never seen it before.
Your neck still aches in the mornings.
You can hardly keep all the new faces straight: polished ivory and ebony carapaces, grey exoskeletons, and a range of brown human flesh. You can hardly find the desire to converse with any of them either, if you’re being honest. You just want to sit, alone, and become absorbed in one of your many projects. You watch your friends and family tearfully reunite with their friends and family, and then everyone gets to work. There’s no rest for the wicked or the weary, and there’s so much to be done.
You’re not a completely irredeemable douchebag, so you help out. Your mechanical skills come in handy. You work with Jade as she transforms the cans into large shelters, working to hammer out doors, windows, and chimneys. She’s tired but optimistic, buzzing with the energy to infuse love and life into a whole new world. Her smile is the same shape as Jake’s; her hair has the same thick waves as Jake’s; her posture, her hands on her hips as she tilts her head back and laughs at a job well done are all the same as Jake’s.
You don’t think about Jake. You firmly, resolutely, purposefully do not think about Jake.
The two of you had a reconciliation, sure. A tentative bridging of the gap between you. And of course by gap, you mean “yawning chasm of despair” and by bridging you mean “a fraying rope that barely connects both ends”. But he’s off doing… whatever it is he’s doing. You would assume he’s catching up with Jade, but Jade’s been working with you. You can only guess that he’s been with Roxy and Jane.
It’s fine.
You don’t care if he has a monopoly on the time of your mutual friends.
You’re still unclear where you stand with most of them, tentative reconciliations and platitudes of “we’ll catch up soon, I promise” aside. You ignore the urges that bubble up inside you, that make your hands itch to type out message after pleading message, to nervously, obsessively ask what their deal is. Do they need space? Or do they just hate your fucking guts?
You’ve never really needed company before; you existed for a decade and change with only Lil Cal’s smiling face. After that, what are a few days, weeks, or months in solitude?
You’ll simply make yourself useful elsewhere.
You’re able to sulk petulantly in peace-- and Jesus, doesn’t that just make you feel just like Jake, and not in a good way-- for about one day before Dave comes to find you.
“Hey man,” he calls out, looking around. You’re currently settled comfortably in a tree, and you look down at him silently. He sighs. “C’mon, dude… I know you’re lurkin’ around here somewhere. And lurkin’ ain’t cool, I’ll tell you that right now. Acting like a slippery snake, curled up in one of the fuckin’ trees, about to drop down like ‘Yo, can I tempt you with one of my sick apples, Adam?’ but I’ll say ‘Hey, aren’t you supposed to bother Eve first?’, and you’ll say—“
“I’m up here, dude,” you say, wanting that horrible metaphor to come to as swift an end as possible, your morbid curiosity taking a backseat for once. For all of his talk about “knowing you were lurking nearby”, he just about jumps out of his skin. He whips around and spots you easily now, following the sound of your voice.
“Dude,” he says, looking up at you, “why the hell are you hiding up in a tree?” Then he seems to catch himself, and backpedals. “Uh, not that you can’t do whatever you want, man, not trying to step on your funk or anything—“ You cut him off again.
“Just got comfortable, that’s all. No particular reason.”
“Oh,” he says, then nods, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his god tier jammies. “Cool.”
“Cool,” you echo, looking down at him. The silence drags on for a few beats before you continue. “Do you need something?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, nodding. “I was gonna go scout out ‘round nearby, see what shit looks like… and I thought you might wanna come. There’s supposed to be a sick-ass field nearby, and I wanna frolic. Regular Houston didn’t have anything like that, and I know you said post-apocalyptic Houston was a drowned wasteland, so I thought you might be interested in seein’ something like that.”
You turn this proposition over in your head a few times before nodding in acquiescence, scooting off of the tree branch and floating down to meet him. He looks at you, his face still impassive.
“You changed,” he notes. You freeze momentarily; are you that transparent?
“How do you mean?” you ask, watching him. If your discomfort is that obvious to Dave, whom you properly met less than a week ago, then you must be a glowing neon sign of awkward.
“…Your clothes,” he supplies, gesturing to you. You relax, and then immediately feel like an idiot. Obviously he meant your clothes.
“Oh, yeah. Those puffy shorts weren’t doing me any favors, bro,” you say, and the corner of his mouth twitches.
“Yeah, you looked like a frilly asshole,” he says, nodding understandingly.
“I was a frilly asshole,” you confirm. The two of you start walking. Well, you start walking; Dave is floating a few feet off the ground. You don’t join him, though. You think he likes hearing your footfalls. You deliberately step on leaves and branches as the two of you walk together. Your intuition was correct, and you’re gratified when he stops watching you out of the corner of his eye.
“So,” he finally ventures, “this is a lot, huh.”
You reflect on this. You might respond dryly to Roxy, directly to Jane, or probingly to Jake, but Dave isn’t anything like any of them. You’re still learning who he is, and how to not be the version of you that permanently damaged him.
“Yeah,” you finally say, honestly, “it is.” His head turns a fraction of an inch, as if he’s surprised by your candor. It makes horrible, unfortunate sense. From what you’ve gathered, pre-scratch you was an asshole of biblical proportions. Whether he was bitterly resentful of being an NPC or whether he was being puppeteered by a cherubic juju from another dimension is irrelevant.
Just another thing to add to the ever-growing, diligently updated “Dirk Strider’s Crimes Against Humanity List”.
“I’ve never met so many people in my life,” you continue. And that’s it. That’s the most your hindbrain will physically let you share right now. Force of habit from being an isolated hermit for sixteen years and an untreated personality disorder.
He looks at you sideways. “I figured,” he says, looking back at the path ahead of you. “It was weird as fuck landing on the meteor three years ago. I went from being the coolest lone wolf in Texas to being surrounded by nothing but idiotic fucking consorts, to suddenly being surrounded by what my Bro-- what you-- uh-- what my Bro always called my ‘faggoty internet friends’.” He uses air quotes, and your mouth tightens.
The more you learn about alt you, the more you hate him, and in turn, the more you hate yourself in an ouroboros-like circlejerk of self-loathing. Apparently the douchebag never worked through his internalized homophobia. Great.
“Yeah,” you contribute helpfully.
“I don’t think you’d say that though-- shit, I know y’all are two different people. Like SNL Will Ferrell and post-Elf Will Ferrell. I didn’t know he got his big break from Elf until recently. Like, he was the same guy, but different. One’s famous, and the other one is just a sad excuse for a comedian, I guess. Uh, I heard Will Ferrell is a huge douchebag though, so maybe not. I dunno, man-- oh, shit, what about Will Smith--!”
“Dave,” you say, cutting him off. He freezes, literally, mid-air. You stop walking and turn to him slowly, keeping your hands open and relaxed where he can see them. You can’t see his eyes through his thick Ben Stiller shades, but you know they’re tracking your movements.
“You don’t have to walk on eggshells around me, dude. You can stomp all over the fucking place. No eggshells on this floor. And even if there were, I wouldn’t care. Pulverize them. Smash them into tiny little pieces for all I give a shit.”
He takes a moment to collect himself before replying. “Nah, man, I got what you meant. Fuck those eggshells, I’m walking through them with reckless abandon. I’m like Karkat, stomping all over the goddamn place without a single thought for what I’m stepping on. Did you know the other day that he stepped on a can that someone left at the top of the stairs, and he fell all the way down? I think it was a trap Rez left, but she’s made herself pretty scarce lately-- someone’s gotta tell her that her prank was a massive success--”
You don’t interrupt this time, letting his rambling fade into the background. If he really wants to talk at length about harmless, convoluted eggshell metaphors, you’re not going to be the one to stop him.
You’d let him do just about anything he wanted; fuck, you already let him kill you. Can’t get much worse than that.
You scratch the scar at your throat.
His words trail off as he watches you, your fingers still touching the raised flesh.
“What?” you ask when he doesn’t say anything, just staring, stymied, at the paleish line around the circumference of your neck.
“Uh-- did dying hurt?” Then he twitches, mouth pulling into a grimace before he tries to abort the facial expression for something more casual. You can see the line of tension that enters his shoulders, and the way he grows taut from head to toe, like he’s expecting you to flashstep the two and a quarter feet over and knock his teeth out. He probably is; you’ve seen the way two of his back molars are missing.
“Shit, fuck. Uh, that was a rude as fuck question. Nevermind-- I know you said to ignore the eggshells, but I think I should try to avoid some of them. Ninja stepping around those eggshells like a badass sonofabitch, that’s what I’m doing-- fuck, not that mom-- Roxy-- is a bitch--”
“Dave.” You interrupt him for the second time this afternoon. The only thing worse than Dave continuously putting his foot in his mouth is his confusing mixed metaphors. He quiets down immediately.
“You can ask me about that, dude,” you say, doing your best to shift your default neutral tone into something a little milder. You think that sometimes you seem… intimidating. “It’s fine.”
“Okay… you got it,” he says uneasily; you know that if he were standing, he’d start shuffling his feet nervously. Suspended midair, he finally starts to float forward again. You walk with him, counting to thirty before you break the silence again.
“Well?”
He startles. “What?”
You sigh internally. “Didn’t you want to know what it was like dying like that? Getting my head forcibly removed from my body when you sliced it off, like a hot knife through butter?”
“Well shit bro, when you put it like that…” He angles for teasing, but his tone just comes out somewhat stilted. “What was it like?”
“Like nothing,” you say, because there aren’t any words to describe it. To describe watching the man-- no, the child-- that you spent your own childhood revering swinging his sword towards you, the Caledfwlch biting through skin and bone and tendons until your head was neatly severed from the rest of your crumpling body. The grim set of his mouth into a determined line.
You don’t know the way he gently cradled your head in his hands, slicked with your red blood, until Jane was able to fuse you back together.
You do know the way he’s gotten rid of his swords; he won’t hang them up, and you know he doesn’t keep them in his sylladex. His abject refusal to handle any weaponry after your last strife together; ironic that you’ve come full circle now.
He was finally able to put you down.
“Nothing? No offense, but what the hell does that mean?” he asks. “It definitely didn’t feel like nothing all the times I died. I mean, shit, I only have vestigial memories of that fuckery, but those stupid whispers of death are way too much for me. Too many goddamn dead Daves, I’ll tell you that much. If I never see another goddamn dead Dave, it’ll be too fucking soon.”
“I’ve had my head lopped off more than once, bro.”
“Well fuck,” he says. “Do you really stay conscious afterwards? Like a chicken running around with its head cut off? That has to have some basis in truth. There’s gotta be at least one chicken who’s done that.”
If he were anyone else, you’d dryly ask if he wanted to fuck around and find out. But with Dave, you’re trying to be good; trying to be empathetic.
“Nah, not at all,” you say, because you genuinely can’t remember. You might have been conscious; if you were, apparently your waking mind decided that those post-death memories were too traumatic for even you, and immediately stuffed them deep, deep down into your font of repression.
“Well fuck,” he says a second time, weirdly disappointed.
“What, dude, you wanted me to remember the horrifying ordeal of walking around in two pieces?”
“Like a Looney Tunes cartoon, yeah. I wanted your body walking around, looking for your head like a complete doofus. Then you kick it across the room, and your head’s like, ‘C’mon dude, no, you just kicked me clear across the room’.” He mimes a kick mid-air. A smile tugs at your mouth.
“I wasn’t headless long enough to reenact retro cartoons. I had more pressing matters,” you say, and he nods sagely.
“I guess that makes sense, yeah. Alright, fine, keep your head,” he says, rolling so he’s floating on his back now. He tilts his head back, the sunlight glinting off his shades.
You look ahead.
The two of you are coming into a clearing now. Thick, lush grass comes up to your knees, rippling gently in the breeze. It’s a nice change, standing in a sea of grass.
Dave lowers himself into the greenery, stretching his limbs out as he lays down. His scarred fingers curl into the thick blades of grass. His chest rises as he heaves out a sigh, and his hand stutters on the movement before he pushes his glasses up and into his twists. His dark roots are showing. His eyes are huge and red.
His mouth tilts up in an awkward smile.
“Sit your ass down, bro,” he says, his free hand gesturing to the expanse of greenery next to him. You consider this for a moment before sitting, crossing your legs as you look at him.
“What are you going to do?” he probes, studying you. Your words catch briefly; your mind keeps looping over the action of him pushing his glasses up. His safety blanket, as yours are for you.
He really wants this to work. He wants to be your brother.
Your fingers curl in the grass.
You know he’s asking about what you’re going to do here on Earth C, but all you can think about is what you’re going to do about this tenuous relationship between the two of you. You might be shit at maintaining relationships, but by now you’ve learned they require a level of vulnerability and mutual trust, as deeply uncomfortable as that is for you. Just another thing that separates you from the higher-functioning, more well-adjusted members of your group of Sburb survivors.
You reach up and take your shades off.
Unable to mask his expression, his mouth opens slightly in surprise. You keep noticing the theater of emotions that plays out rather openly on his face. You’re grateful that alt you couldn’t beat that out of him entirely.
You fold the glasses neatly and captchalogue them for easy access, just in case anyone stumbles upon the two of you. This isn’t something you’re ready for just anyone to see.
“...I’m going to do my best,” you say finally, allowing him another moment of vulnerability. He pauses to digest this, and then smiles in earnest.
“Yeah. Me too, dude,” he says, looking up at the wispy clouds in the sky. You politely pretend not to notice how he keeps tracking your movements out of the corner of his eye. If that’s what it takes to keep this afloat, you’ll allow it. It’s a small price to pay to atone for the sins of your alt self.
Ignoring the clench of turbulence swelling in your chest, you tilt your head up, studying the blue of the sky. Just as blue as the Houston waters, but much more welcoming. You lay in the grass next to your brother, your burgeoning friend.
You feel like you might be able to get out of this without capsizing.