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The game is done. You are in your new universe, sitting on the futon in your old apartment while bro pays the pizza boy. You made your new universe an exact replica of your old universe, one day before the game. Everyone from the old universe has been moved, unsuspecting to the point of not even knowing, and the only people who know shit about this and aged are the people who played. The alpha kids are gone now, though. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The trolls and alphas were supposed to be the only difference about the universe.
You’re waiting for your bro to bring the pizza to you so that you can tame your stomach before attempting to sleep. You’re pretty sure that you won’t sleep pretty deeply tonight, your mind being too scarred to let you sleep well.
“No tip?” the pizza boy asked, rather irritated. Your bro frowns and opens the door a little more so he can see the apartment a little better.
“Do I look like I can afford to tip you?” he responds. It’s true; the futon is the only furniture within sight of the door that isn’t made of plywood on top of cinderblocks. Your cable company stopped giving you service after you neglected to pay for it a few months before the game, so you’re just staring at static on the screen. It wasn’t bro’s fault; he was an uneducated teenager who had to care for a thirteen year old. He really had no way to pay for all the luxuries you wanted, though he tried.
The pizza boy lets out a defeated ‘oh’ before walking away. Bro shuts the door and turns to face you. The smell of food makes your stomach growl, and it’s not long before you and bro are fighting over the last slice. "I payed for the pizza" he says, "The day you pay for it is the day I let you have the last slice." You sigh. You really don't want to start paying for shit now.
“Go ahead, man. But for the record, you’re a total douche.” you grumble before heading off to your room. You hate loosing. You sigh again, “Night, bro.”
* * *
You wake up to a faint knocking at your door. You bury your head under the pillow and roll over. The knocking gets louder.
“Fuck off,” you grumble, but you know that it won’t help. Your door creaks open.
“Bro? Dave?” you hear a small voice say. Strange, bro didn’t usually sound like a scared child. He never let on that he was scared at all.
“What.” You half growl.
“I had a bad dream, I don’t want to be alone tonight.” he responds sheepishly, and you mumble something about how he’s being a baby as you make room for him next to you.
“I hope you brought you own pillow, man. I’m not sharing.”
“Thanks,” he says, and you roll your eyes.
It’s not long before sleep overcomes you again. As a thick fog passes over your mind, you sigh and drift away.
* * *
“No man! It’s said criss-mass, you don’t say the ‘h’ or the‘t’, they just put extra letters in there to confuse people or some shit.” You are on the meteor with Dirk, teaching him to say the words he miss-pronounced. You had to admit, for a guy that taught himself to read, write, and speak; he was remarkably good at English. He didn’t quite get sarcasm or jokes unless it was a text log, but hey! He didn’t talk to anyone until after he started playing the game.
“Okay, man. I got it. Criss-mass. Christmas!” he smiles his perfect smile, and it’s impossible to resist the urge to kiss it. He kisses you back and tangles his fingers in your hair. That’s when John and Karkat walk in. By now Karkat understands what a brother or sister is, but still doesn’t get how Dirk is any different than bro. His face turns red with fury, as everybody just has to follow his stupid shipping charts.
“Dave! Dirk! What the fu―”
* * *
You wake up after being slapped in the face. Initially, you are annoyed, but when you open your eyes and sit up you see your bro thrashing wildly in his sleep. The sheets are a tangled mess, and there are tears streaming down bro’s face. He’s screaming your name, and you wonder why the screaming didn’t wake you up. You don’t care. You need to wake your bro up.
“Bro! Wake up! BRO!” he doesn’t wake up. The thrashing is getting more and more violent. “BRO! C’MON! WAKE UP!” nothing happens. You begin to panic. You try turning on your lamp to see if the light helps. It doesn’t do a thing. You snatch it up, yanking the chord out of the wall, and hurl it against the far wall with frustration. He starts awake and jolts upright.
“It’s just a dream.” you almost-whisper in a soothing voice as you wrap your arms around his torso to stroke his back in a relaxing way, that always worked with alpha-Dirk when he had nightmares. He just slumps down on your shoulder and whimpers softly. You murmur “its okay” every now and then, still stroking your brother’s back, until he falls asleep. You then lay him gently on his pillow, wipe the tears off his face with your thumbs, and give him a light kiss on his forehead.
You don’t think you’ll be able to sleep again tonight, so you climb out of bed and get dressed. You look at the clock; it’s five in the morning. It’s too early to eat, and too early to make a pot of coffee so that it will be ready for bro, so you decide to draw shitty comics and pester Terezi.
At seven fifty you get bored and put on a pot of hot black for your bro, and within ten minutes the smell of freshly brewed coffee wakes him up. He trudges into the kitchen, still half-asleep, and pours himself a mug. He downs it quickly and turns to you. You’ve got a bruise on your face from where he hit you, and he looks concerned. You wave it off with some bullshit about it not hurting. The truth is, it’s throbbing and you’re kicking yourself for not putting ice on it.
“Listen, about last night . . .” he says, “I’m really sorry.”
“Bro, listen. It’s fine. Dirk had nightmares t―” you stop yourself. Bro didn’t know about the alpha kids, and shit is about to get complicated. You facepalm as a confused look spreads across his face.
“Dave. I’m Dirk. I don’t understand.”
“Fuck. Okay, I’ll try to explain this as simply as I can. It involves the game.” You sigh. You’re never gonna let yourself be so stupid again. “Pretty much, we had to reset our universe. We were the beta kids, and the new versions of everybody were the alpha kids. This was the only way to save the world.
“The kids who were actually playing the game in the alpha universe turned out to not be us. One of them was Dirk Strider, he was pretty much mini you. We had hot Strider sex on a meteor.
“Unfortunately, the alpha kids didn’t make it to our new universe, and I miss him so much. I’m somewhat depressed right now and I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” You hope that covered it enough, you can't talk about Dirk any longer without crying.
You get to your room with two long strides and shut the door behind you. You plunk down onto the incredibly plush bed bro made for you. Bro follows you in a few minutes later and studies your face. You have no idea what he sees.
“I can be your Dirk.”
A feeling washes over you, but you’re not quite sure what it is. You think that deep down you were hoping to hear something like this from him. You find yourself leaning in towards him and you press a light kiss into his lips. It feels good. You kiss him again, harder and longer. Your fingers tangle in his hair and you don’t realize you’re on top of bro until his head hits the pillow.