Archive of Our Own ^beta

ahahahaha you fucked up

The words, the following clang of the metal bucket impacting against the side of Karkat's head, and the resultant fwoosh of Jade ceasing to be a portal to the Green Sun are barely done echoing in your ears before you think it, and it's vocalized only moments later.

well, now what do we do?

Three years is a very long time to simply sit around and wait while the battleship makes its trip through the space between dimensions or wherever the place where you are is called. Jade knows spacey things better, you just command the wind, and wind probably isn't all that useful when you're already traveling at a hair's breadth under the speed of light.

Three years is a lot of time to kill.

You think now might be a good time to fire up that old game you haven't played in months, the Ghostbusters II MMORPG that Gamebro infamously rated one and a half hats and said was "mad awful, don't waste your dough on this garbage, brochachos" (they were right, though you are loathe to admit it). Maybe between you, your sister, Dave Sprite, and any consorts you can convince to play, you'll have enough players to actually have some fun with it, at least for a while.

i've got an idea.

You ask Jade to teleport your games from your room; she does, and with a little bit of work, you find a working computer on the battleship. You're standing at the alchemiter and about to duplicate it a hundred times over when Dave Sprite interrupts you.

man dont tell me youre going to make everyone play that haggard old thing
hey, ghostbusters ii mmorpg is a classic.
classic piece of garbage maybe
remember when you made me try it and you introduced me to everyone
and i literally mean everyone
there were maybe a dozen people who ever played that thing including us
yes, but this time will be different. i bet the salamanders will love it!
haha youre probably right
i could totally see the crocodiles being useless pieces of shit and playing this game all day
or they would except its not going to work
what do you mean, "not going to work?"
dude earth was destroyed and were in some crazy noneuclidian space besides
there is no server for an mmorpg client to connect to anymore
oh shit, i forgot!
hold on maybe i can save the day and ensure a few minutes of dicking around with ghosts for everyone
let me see the install disc

==>

A week later, Dave Sprite has a private server set up for the game and the consorts can't get enough of it. They're not very good at it, given their tendancy to bust each other instead of the ghosts, but it makes them feel good, so at least it's something. You tell Dave Sprite that you never knew he could code. He says he can't, but becoming a sprite has given him some kind of instinct for it. He supposes it's part of the game's infinite bullshit.

At the very least, it's given all of you a distraction for the next few days, so it all works out.

==>

i dont know john, theres nothing here in the rules about that
i think you just want free money!
that is nonsense, and also hogwash. lemme see that!

It is three days later and you are bored out of your skull and already so tired of the Ghostbusters II MMORPG. Jade never had any interest in it to begin with, and Dave Sprite somehow managed to break the game wide open within a day and easily become the most powerful character on the server. The consorts try and try but they're not much competition and trying to play co-op with them doesn't go much better.

Jade suggests Monopoly, since she's never played it and always kind of wanted to. Dave Sprite cracks a joke about how the trip will be over before the game is. You can't think of anything better to do, so Monopoly it is.

Now the game has devolved into bickering over the rules, as Monopoly games are wont to do. Your car piece landed right on Free Parking and Jade insists the seventy-five dollars Dave Sprite paid for his shoe stopping on Luxury Tax stays in the bank and not in your hands. You snatch the rules sheet from her hands and skim it over, but you can't seem to find what you're looking for.

free parking is just a space where nothing happens. it's called luxury tax, not involuntary lottery!

You are about to counter by saying that Dave Sprite wouldn't have tucked his payment under the board next to the space if it weren't supposed to work like that, and that you and your Dad had always put tax money on Free Parking when you played this game as a little kid, when Dave Sprite chimes in.

its a pretty common house rule
also probably the main reason why this fucking game takes so long to play
house rule?
a rule people make up on their own to change things up
like how everyone has their own rules for war
whats war?

Jade's money glows a light blue for an instant, and then disappears in a barely audible vwoop. You bite your lower lip to stop yourself from laughing.

a card game where you split the deck and play the top card
high card wins and everyone has their own rules about what happens when there's a tie
or what the high card actually is
some people use kings as the highest, some use aces, some use jokers
its a pretty common game and everyone has their own name and rules for it
oh, can we play it sometime? it sounds fun!

Jade has never played most of these games with another person, so she finds this sort of thing fascinating. You ask Dave Sprite how he knows so much about game rules. Dave never seemed to be much for card games, and Bro seemed like the kind of guy who was more into sparring and stuff like that.

its all up here i guess
im part of a game so i guess games are my thing
ohh, i get it! yeah, i think im starting to get stuff like that, too
hey, wait, whered my money go?

Your money is gone too, and Dave Sprite admits he saw his disappear around the time he started explaining house rules to miss furry godtier adoroharley here. A hoo hoo hoo echoes from down the hall, a clear indicator to the identity of the culprit.

you win, grandma
hey, dave sprite! it's like that dane cook joke.
fuck you john
what did i tell you about talking about dane cook
it's four in the morning, grandma! you win!
haha i guess i was paying luxury tax out the ass there at the end
at least were not sitting on baltic

Jade waves goodbye and flashes bright green for an instant before vanishing to wherever it is god-tier half-sprite, half-dog girls go while you try to stop yourself from laughing. The edge of Dave Sprite's mouth curls into the faintest smile.

It's hard sometimes to remember old in-jokes.

==>

Sometimes Dave Sprite comes around to grab a snack or watch an old TV show but mostly, he tends to keep to himself, despite Jade's insistence to the contrary. She'll be all come watch a movie with us sometime!!! and he'll be all nah i got sprite business to take care of, and then he'll wander off to do whatever it is he does, hovering about a foot off the ground. It doesn't strike you as particularly weird; in a lot of ways Dave Sprite reminds you of Dave, except he doesn't seem to like puppets anymore. Sometimes you bring up the subject just to make one of your in-jokes, and he remembers all of that, but it's like he's not comfortable joking about his brother's weird butt puppets anymore.

One day, you notice that his wound hasn't quite healed yet, and it still bleeds through his bandages sometimes.

so like, what is that, anyway? apple juice?
dont know
you wanna grab a straw and find out?
come on man this shit is as fresh squeezed as it gets

He extends a hand to you, stained and wet with yellow.

haha eww!

==>

so why do you call him "dave sprite"? like, two words?

You think about it for a second. Why DO you call him that?

well... it's sort of who he is. more to make him different from regular dave, i guess.
i mean, think of how weird it'd be after this trip if i said "hey dave, you want an ice cream cone?" and both of them say yes.
i see it mostly like it's part of his name, but also...
he's not really the REAL dave, i guess?
what do you mean?
we saw dave, remember? right before we started this trip, we saw him at the green sun, he's god tier and everything!
but dave sprite is alternate timeline dave, he's not our dave, he's not REAL dave.
i dont know, they both seem real to me!

Jade shoots you a look, and you kind of wince in response because it's exactly the kind of look Dad used to give you when you'd done something wrong and you just knew he was disappointed in you.

i hate to say it, john, but youre being kind of a douche
wait, what? hey, wait up!

Jade walks away from you in a huff, and you struggle to keep pace with her.

hey, why am i a douche?

She stops, without turning to look at you, and you instinctively gulp. You know you're in for it now.

am i just "jade sprite" to you?
no, why would you be?
well, i kind of AM her, you know!!!
oh, right... i'd kind of forgotten she was prototyped with your dream self. but you're also JADE jade, because you ascended to the god tiers.
...i think so, anyway. vriska's explanation was kind of hard to follow.

Jade shakes her head.

the point is, she was jade and i was jade and now we are *both* jade, and if youd said i wasnt jade back then i bet i would have punched your lights out!!!
haha, or you would have cried on me!

She is at least seven feet away from you when she takes a swing at you, and even though the punch doesn't come close to connecting, you still somehow feel a sharp pain in your shoulder. Your arm goes numb as you stumble back.

ow! fuck, how'd you even do that???
what part of witch of SPACE didnt you understand?

You rub your sore arm as she continues.

you should be nicer to dave, ok? hes done a lot for you, you know
yeah? like what?
oh i dont know, maybe the whole "going back in time to make sure you didnt listen to terezi and get yourself killed" thing? you know, the whole reason hes even here in the first place???

Wow. How could you forget something like that? Jade was right, you've been kind of a douche, and a stupid one at that.

well... ok, yeah, that was really important and obviously i'm glad he did that. i'm not saying he's unimportant or anything, because he totally is important.
i'm just saying he's not main timeline dave.
maybe not, but he is A dave, and he WAS main timeline dave up until *his* john died
thats why he remembers everything
just like i WAS jadesprite
he did a lot for us, and hes our friend, so you need to stop being a jerk to him

You open your mouth to defend yourself, but she fizzles out and teleports away, presumably to her room, before you can say anything else.

==>

There are a couple of mysteries of Dave Sprite that you've wondered about for some time now, and one day when you round a corner and catch him floating along mopping up a hallway, you decide maybe you can try to solve one of them. He raps when he's alone, or when he thinks he's alone, and it's about the strangest things; conversations he's had with people, the consorts making messes of everything, what it's like being orange, even stuff he looks at while he's rapping.

leaking shit like im getting paid
mopping up the floor like the damn galley maid
gotta tell harley to clean up her shit
even if i got no legs to trip over it

Nanna and Jaspers's voices have a sort of echo to them (you presume Jade Sprite's voice did too, since you never got to meet her). Dave Sprite's voice is no different, but he also speaks in autotune, and you're not sure if that's the game's doing or if that's all Dave. His peculiar quirk of speech lends itself well to his raps, and even though they're just as dumb as regular Dave's raps, you have to admit Dave Sprite is more fun to listen to, if only because his voice is a computer. Unlike regular Dave, though, Dave Sprite usually stops if he figures out someone's watching him, which never seems to take long.

Usually.

egbert, useful as a cancerous lump
busy checking out my impetuous rump
but the jokes on him cuz there aint nothing to see
just a ghostly sprite tail on the end of me

You laugh, and join in.

"dave sprite?" that's only half-right, think for a second and you just might,
remember what you killed in mid-flight,
the bird jade threw in the kernalsprite,
it's why you love things that shine bright!

Dave Sprite nearly doubles over, his laughter booming down the hallway.

wow man that was terrible even by my standards
hey, i learned everything i know about rapping from you!
i know
the student has surpassed the master
you are the new king of awful rhymes and sick beats
like literally sick
the beats are lying in bed hooked up to iv machines and youre beatboxing like a doofus in the nurses station
all piping your nasty lyrics through the emergency intercom
sir could you please stop, most of the patients have weeks to live and they dont want the last thing they hear to be your sorry ass jam
sir please what you are doing is the opposite of medicine

The mental picture makes you laugh harder, until you see something that makes you stop cold. There are orangish-yellow splotches on the ground and you had assumed Dave Sprite had just spilled something and was cleaning it up.

That is, until you notice his bandages are still bloody, and a yellow drop falls from his wound onto the floor.

dude! your, your-- the thing!
what
oh shit

Moments ago, you'd been laughing with your buddy, and now you are concerned for his life. How long has it been since your trip began? How long has he been bleeding? You try to touch it, to maybe see if there's anything you can do, but he drifts backwards, hovering just outside of your reach.

why doesn't the bleeding stop?
dont worry about it man
it doesnt bother me that much
ill be fine

Neither of you are laughing after that.

==>

so, do you know why dave is still bleeding?

You and Nanna and Casey (Viceroy Bubbles, you correct yourself: she's going through a phase and you're trying to be supportive) are playing Go Fish because it's one of the few games Nanna doesn't cheat at. You figure Nanna might know what's wrong with him, or at least be more likely to tell you than Jaspers would be. Jaspers isn't stupid, but he's also a cat, and he tends to mostly just talk about cat stuff.

He was wounded, John! Do you have any queens?
no. and i was asking more about why he doesn't stop bleeding.
We can't repair our own injuries. He'll probably have to stay that way.

Nanna waits for you to ask for her next card. You absentmindedly peer at your hand without really paying attention to the game.

isn't that bad, though? i mean, he's constantly bleeding. that can't be good.
He'll be fine as long as the battlefield is intact, and Jade has Skaia safely stowed away, so there's nothing to worry about.

A flash of green light and a loud shlorp cuts your conversation short. Jade is standing in the center of the room, her hair and clothes sopping wet, water dripping to the floor.

umm... that was meant for dave.
JOHN!!!

You can't stop laughing about poor Jade getting the old bucket-of-water-on-the-door by accident, even as she's chasing you down and you're flying away as fast as the wind will carry you. You're hiding in the holds later on with Casey when Dave Sprite finds you and you decide to pass the time with Crazy Eights.

dont you ever get tired of these games
we were born to play games, dude.

He's silent for a moment as he watches Casey fidget with her cards, then he sighs.

aint that the fucking truth
smartest thing youve said since this whole trip started

You try to punch him playfully in the shoulder, but you clip the edge of his torn wing by mistake, and your hand comes back slick with yellow-orange blood. Dave Sprite raises his eyebrows and you can't tell if he's looking at your hand or your face.

sorry man
didnt mean to leak gross sprite juice all over you like that

There's a bit of an awkward silence, and you wonder if Vriska knows how to play Crazy Eights.

==>

You find Dave's room one day when he forgets to clean up after his trail. He sleeps in a space above a staff room, or whatever it is that he does up there because you're not sure if sprites sleep at night or if they just stay awake forever. There's a ladder leading up to it, though for who you're not sure, since the only people on the ship who can't fly are the consorts, and you're not sure why they'd want to come up here. Perhaps he just didn't feel like it was complete without one.

His little room is surrounded by windows, giving you a full view of the strange space outside and tinting everything in the room green. There's little else here; the rafters are bare and the only furniture is a small dresser that you're pretty sure he had Jade teleport up. You stifle a chuckle at his nest in the corner, built from pillows and old shirts and the soft pale feathers that sometimes fall off his neck or his one good wing.

The nest and the small collection of glittering things on the dresser remind you that your friend is still part bird. Mirrors line the top of the dresser, laid out to catch the light and reflect it amongst the small piles of coins and shiny rocks. Gold ribbons of wallpaper flutter about as you give them a gentle push with the wind, and you spot something silver amid the pile. It's not as shiny as most of his collection, but you snatch it up to get a closer look.

It's a Monopoly piece. The top hat. And the weight of everything hits you all at once.

It's just a tiny metal hat and yet it represents everything that the game has taken away from you that you'll never have again. When Jack stabbed you through the heart, it hurt and burned and stung but it eventually stopped. All you had to do was wait, and that didn't take very long at all. When Jack stabbed your father through the heart, the pain was worse in every possible way, and all the time in the world isn't going to undo it. There's no way to fix that, and you can't deal. Would that the game had seen fit to assign you Time rather than Breath, it could have all been undone but now he's gone and there's nothing you or anyone else can do and it's all too much and you just stand there, paralyzed, unable to move or talk and barely able to breathe.

fuck i thought this might happen
should have tossed that damn thing out the fucking airlock but no
you know how birds are man
we see something shiny and we just gotta snap that shit up
hoard that shit like its fucking golden treasure
fuck man im sorry

He grabs your shoulders and spins you around and you instinctively hug him tight. He responds in kind, his remaining wing folding itself around you.

You don't remember when you started crying.

how... how do you get over it?
you dont
you just sort of
keep going i guess
i mean shit i know technically it wasnt MY bro that got ran through but
you know

You sniff as he untangles himself from you. He's kind of at a loss as to where to go from here and you can't blame him, you're a mess and he kind of found you snooping around his area and oh god, you're such a tool, you're a fucking toolbox and you don't even know.

you ok?
...i'm hungry.

It's all you can manage to say and he doesn't question it, he just nods and you follow him down the ship to the ship's mess hall. He makes you mac and cheese because it's the only thing he knows how to make. It comes out of Jade's cookalizer kind of burnt and with way too much cheese. Partway through eating it, you pull a feather out of your mouth. When you're done he hands you a coffee mug of ice cream and a fork. He sticks around and talks with you until you're tired of talking, and when Dave waves goodbye and floats off, you go to your room and hide the little top hat under your bed so you don't have to look at it.

Dave's lost a lot, and you feel like a jerk when Jade's words buzz around in your skull again. He watched sort-of-his Bro get stabbed but it's not just that. The very reason he came back, the reason he exists at all was to save you and Jade. He's not your Dave, but you're not his John and Jade's not his Jade, Typheus murdered his John and his Jade never even made it into the medium.

You look down at your shirt. It's stained green.

She's right. You really are a douche.

==>

do you think we can fix him?
who, davesprite?
yeah. i mean, bleeding all the time can't be good for him. there's gotta be something we can do.
hmmmmmmmmmmm...... youre right, but im not sure how wed do it
oh for the love of--!

Jade is trying to teach herself how to juggle, but she keeps messing up and using her space powers instead of doing it the right way. She bites her lip to stop herself from swearing.

he made a deal with hephaestus, but that was to fix red daves sword
i dont know if he can be fixed--- shitting DICKnipples!!!!!

An apple and a lemon roll away for a moment before Jade warps them back to her hands.

i wonder if there's any space stuff you could try?
i cant say i never thought about it... but space isnt really that good for healing
just for moving things around and making them big or small
i could PROBABLY force his wound shut? but it wouldnt be like if itd healed naturally
im actually kind of afraid to try it because it could really mess him up...
breath sounds like you could use it for that, though!!! did you do any quests like that?
ugh... yeah. it was pretty gross though.

It was a short quest; rescue a salamander princess from an ogre. The twist came when you defeated the ogre and made your way to the highest room in the tower she'd been kept in and you found her dying. Not dead, because there's nothing Breath could have done about that, but her wound and ragged breathing was a definite clue she wasn't long for this world unless you acted quickly. You managed to save her, with a move that seemed to be pure instinct but had only occured to you just then, but once you'd gotten her back to the village she insisted on you becoming her salamander prince. You told her my apologies, my lady, but i cannot allow myself to rest, not as long as evil still stalks this land. and she swooned and everyone bought it and you continued your life as an adventuring bachelor.

Sometimes you pass by her on the ship and she winks at you.

i haven't had to use that power since then, so i kind of forgot i had it.
you ought to give it a try! if it works, then great, and if not, no--- fucking SHITBURGERS!!!!

You try to duck but you don't get out of the way in time, and the tomato smashes into your face, seeds and pulpy bits and red juice dripping down your neck.

hehehe
sorry about that

==>

You're kind of surprised when it is Dave who asks you to join him and Jade for a movie, since you've kind of relentlessly insisted he come see one for a while. You let out a hearty oh ho ho! i see how it is. when he tells you that Jade had actually asked him personally, and he responds by flicking your ear. Things escalate from there until Jade finds you trapped in a headlock, desperately trying to give Dave's tail an indian burn, and she collapses to the ground in laughter.

so this is the thanks i get for defending my sister's honor.
i see how it is!

You can't keep a straight face, though, and you start laughing too.

cmon guys, the movies ready to start
i made popcorn and picked one out and everything, its all set up in my room
aw man, your room is on the other side of the ship and it takes like thirty minutes to get th--
oh right
space powers

It takes a minute or so for the green afterimages to leave your vision and the smell of ozone to leave your nostrils, and Dave makes her promise not to do that again without asking him. You would know the sound of the Armageddon DVD starting up anywhere though.

ive never seen it, i know you love it, and if dave hates it then at least he can have fun making fun of it

Dave doesn't really sit on the couch, so much as he hovers a few inches above the space between you and Jade. It turns out that Jade was right, though you could have told her that, because Regular Dave hates this movie too. He throws kernels of popcorn at the screen when Liv Tyler is onscreen just to spite you.

It's sort of strange that Dave will eat popcorn. You don't think you've seen him ever eat a meal, but he'll dip his bird hand in and grab as much of a handful as his claws will allow, occasionally spearing a piece every now and then. You figure maybe he doesn't eat so much now because he doesn't really need to and he just likes the taste of popcorn. He'll point out the tiniest, most inane details in the movie, like if someone's wearing an expensive watch, or if they glance a certain way for a tenth of a second at another character (you just know theres a dark corner of the internet somewhere where somebody wrote armageddon fanfiction based entirely on that two frame long glance). It makes you laugh. You catch Jade's fingers interlacing with his bird talons out of the corner of your eye but you don't bring any attention to it. You're just glad your buddy's having a good time.

Steven Tyler's belting out the last few lines of I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing and the popcorn bowl is down to unpopped kernels, salt, and a greasy sheen. Jade asks if the two of you are up for another movie, and she takes the bowl to make more popcorn when you both agree to it.

haha, remember how many remixes of that song you sent me?
sure do
i made each one of them suck harder than the last and you loved them anyway
god, we were so lame!
what do you mean "were"
you got yourself killed twice because you cant resist the troll ladies i guess
and i turned into a bird
you and i are the reigning champions of lame

You reach for the popcorn bowl to throw it at him but remember Jade took it just after your hand hits nothing but air. Dave pops open the Playstation 2 and puts Armageddon back in its case. Drops of yellow stain the couch and the floor. You stare at him for a moment.

oh
dang
sorry about that
ill tell jade ill clean it up
what? oh, no, i was actually thinking...
what if i could fix you?
yeah right

You stand up and peer intently at the bandages wrapped around Dave's waist. He turns slowly toward you, an eyebrow raised over his shades.

you got a plan for this egbert?

He backs away a bit, keeping some space between you.

dude, seriously! i think i might be able to.
it was a thing i learned to do in the game, i just forgot about it because i only ever had to do it once.
oh
well that would have been nice to know about BEFORE i leaked dave sauce all over harleys couch but better late than never i guess
haha, shut up and hold still for a second!

He doesn't back away when you step closer.

so how does this work
do you just sort of wave your hand over it and think happy thoughts

You kind of really wish he was right, before you suddenly grab his shoulders. In his surprise a genuine, honest-to-god caw?! escapes his throat before you mutter a quick no homo! and press your lips to his before you can convince yourself not to go through with it.

It's not a kiss, not really, though you think it must look a lot like one. It's more like artificial respiration, you're trying to breathe life into the guy, not smooch him. The wind whips around the room, picking up papers and knocking over squiddles and manthro chaps but it's nothing you won't be glad to fix later if this just works. You swear you feel him relax, just a bit, and you think it might actually be working.

john!!!!!

Dave immediately pushes you off of him and shoots a horrified glance at the door where Jade stands, the popcorn bowl sitting atop a pile of now-ruined popcorn on the floor.

i---
no
don't
don't fucking TOUCH me john
just
fuck you, okay
fuck you
wait!

He flies, faster than you've ever seen him move, between Jade and the door frame to escape.

damnit.

Movie night is over.

==>

You don't see Dave for a long time after that.

Your first birthday on the ship comes and goes. Jaspers manages to rile up Jade's dog half trying to meow the birthday song for you, and somehow you are knocked unconcious during the debacle. In your dreams, you get kicked in the face by a girl in Derse pajamas, and a fishy troll you've never seen before talks about how her plan worked before she throws a trident at you and you wake up. You are never sure if your dreams happen in the dream bubbles Jade talks about or if they're just regular dreams that happen in your brain.

You do come clean to Jade about what you were trying to do for Dave Sprite, mostly to clear up any confusion, but also in the hopes that she'll explain to him what you were doing, since you never seem to see him in person anymore. She seems to understand and you poke fun at her for being so relieved at Dave Sprite's status as an eligible bachelor. She pokes you in the ribs and you laugh harder.

Sometimes you see Dave Sprite online in your friends list on the Ghostbusters MMO, but you almost never find any physical sign of him nowadays. Sometimes you find an errant drop of yellow in the halls and you hope the lack of them means the healy thing mostly worked, and not that Dave Sprite is just getting better at cleaning up after himself.

Maybe he just didn't realize what you were doing, dear.
i told him i was going to try to fix him, though.
and i SAID "no homo!" look, it's not my fault the game gave me a healing move that so strongly resembles kissing.

One thing you remember your Dad saying about Nanna is that she always used to make the best lasagna, and try as he might, he could never quite get her old recipe right. You used to laugh about it with him because his lasagna was still really good and you couldn't imagine Nanna's being much better, but you were so very wrong. Nanna is easily the best cook on the ship. Jade's cookalizer makes good food, but cookalizer food tastes like TV dinners, and even though Nanna mostly cooks with sprite magic, her meals taste just as good as homemade stuff. You don't eat consort food; it isn't bad, until you bite into a cookie and realize there's a cricket in it.

You just happened to be passing by the ship's kitchen when you smelled it: the telltale scent of lasagna in the oven. Your stomach grumbled and you knew you had to stick around. Jaspers is "helping" Nanna cook, and by that you suppose he is batting around a piece of dry spaghetti on the floor.

Perhaps you should talk to him about it.
Let him know you didn't mean anything romantic about it, if that's what he needs to hear.
ugh. if i can ever find him.
Meow.

Jaspers manages to finally pick up the spaghetti strand with his mouth, before snapping it in half. You grab another piece and toss it toward him, and he starts playing with it.

Sometimes you swear you can feel a hole in your stomach where Dave Sprite's wound used to be, right under your ribcage and all the way around. You don't know if that's a side effect of the healy thing or if it's just because you feel bad for him. He'd been cut in half and the game's code kept him alive long enough for him to tape himself back together. He should have died, but the game wouldn't allow it. Jade told you it'd happened when Bec was prototyped, that he and Bro were fighting Jack and they weren't ready and could never be ready to handle fighting against that kind of power.

You need to find him. You've got a lot to answer for.

==>

yo, happy late birthday
christ has it been a year already
seems like it was only yesterday i told rose i was going back
anyway man look we cant keep this up
jade told me the deal and i thought about it and i guess i overreacted
i mean its not like you really wanted some of this feathery beak action
you just did what you had to do
hey i made you some pancakes

You rub your eyes, still mostly asleep as you stand in the open doorway. Dave Sprite is holding a plate of some pretty wrecked flapjacks. They look like they stuck to the pan and had to be scraped off, and came off mostly in pieces.

did you know theres not one goddamned bottle of maple syrup on the entire fucking ship
i had to use honey instead
also i kind of burned them a little but i thought if i drowned them in honey itd block out the taste of char
and by a little i mean the pan caught fire and jaspers and i panicked and we probably would have burned the kitchen down if your grandma hadnt happened to find us
look man i never pretended i was ever anything resembling a good cook
i thought the oven was a spare cupboard until i was eight

You laugh at him, and just like that, you're bros again.

do i even want to know where you picked up a move like that
i, uh... i had to do it to one of the salamanders for a quest.
oh gross man
forget i asked

You try to take a bite of pancake that isn't a burnt part, but it's all burnt part and tastes kind of like sickly-sweet charcoal.

damn, though, dude. has it really only been a year? it feels like we've been stuck here forever.
hey, can you still do time stuff?
maybe? i havent really tried
i gave main dave the timetables so i doubt i can do anything spectacular
and in any case times not really my business anymore
bird things are all the rage nowadays
jesus egbert try to keep up
you could probably jump ahead and skip the trip completely. i kind of wish i could do that, myself.
no you dont
you just lose time that way and less time is never a thing you need

That just makes you think of Dad.

==>

you want to what???

You can hardly believe it yourself, especially after the scene you caused just trying it last time. But it didn't take, not all the way, and you don't like leaving a job half-finished. Not one as important as fixing up your buddy.

you heard me, i want to try it again.
you've seen him, haven't you? he doesn't bleed all the time anymore and his wing even mostly grew back, that means it worked! but not all the way, because i was interrupted before i could finish healing him.
no, no, i don't blame you, it was probably a really shocking thing to walk in on. but the point is, i didn't get to finish and i think he's not fixed all the way.
it's the least i can do for him, seeing how he's the reason i'm still here and all.

Jade stares at you for a moment before sighing and nodding her head.

ill talk to him but i cant guarantee anything
you did kind of spring it on him that first time! but now that he knows what you have to do, maybe hell be ok with it
thanks.

==>

dude check it

Dave Sprite dumps a plastic bag onto your lap, and it thuds with a rattle. You look at it for a second before realizing what he's found.

damn, where'd you find these?
there's not a lot of candy left on the ship anymore. well, none that wasn't made by the consorts, anyway, and their candy has bugs in it.
man dont talk shit about consort candy
consort candy rules okay
you just like it because youre a bird and birds eat things like bugs without even thinking about it.

You captchalogue the bag of M&Ms and write down the code before tearing into it. Good candy is hard to find, but alchemized candy is better than nothing.

jade found it and almost kept it for herself before i told her dogs cant eat chocolate
i was just messing with her but she wont touch the stuff anymore
and i dont really want it so
there you go
our loss is your gain i guess

You pop an orange M&M into your mouth as Dave Sprite sits (actually sits, not hovers) next to you, overlooking the lower deck. His tail bends where his legs would have gone. This is the first time you've seen him try to sit down like a normal person.

hey, um, sorry about earlier. the healing thing, i mean.
i probably should have just told you what was up instead of springing it on you like that.
it's cool
you probably just wanted to get it over with
i dont know if id have agreed to it if id known and it mostly worked so no hard feelings

You look out over the deck. The crocodiles are playing some kind of game with the turtles, with a Prospitian acting as referee, you think. Or maybe he's the goalie. You can never quite tell what's going on with those guys sometimes.

you're still bleeding a little, though.
shit
i guess i am
its the least of my problems though
what do you mean, "least of?" what's wrong?
i wouldn't mind doing the healing thing again if you think it'd help.
jesus john at least take me out to dinner first
i'm serious! if you think i can fix it--
you cant
its not anything you can make right because theres technically nothing wrong with it
its all shit i didnt consider before i jumped into the fucking kernelsprite to stop the other me from prototyping cal
i mean
i dont even know if it was bad but i had calsprite in my timeline and the hell a sprite should be a useless tool that just laughs at you all the fucking time
i just wanted to help and make sure you guys didnt fuck up so when i saw id gone far enough that i hadnt prototyped anything but the dead bird yet
i guess i was thinking more about that than having to deal with a ghost butt and freak claws for hands for the rest of my life
theyre great for cutting up enemies but not even the imps that are still left are that rambunctious anymore
jade wont let me go into her grandpas library anymore
i keep accidentally tearing up the books
im actually kind of anxious to get to this new session
fightings just about all im good at anymore
hardly know what to do with myself now

He looks down at his own hands, fingers lengthened and nails twisted into dark, sharp talons.

if it makes you feel any better, i think your claws are kind of neat.
youre wrong and they arent
theyre lame and they suck
but thanks

You feel strange inside, knowing that you can't fix something that isn't really broken, and doubly so since that something is, in some way, your best friend. You don't think the healy thing can help him that much but it burns you not to try.

i want to try again.
mister egbert are you trying to seduce me
stop joking around for two fucking seconds, you horse's ass!
okay, so i can't give you back your legs or regular hands, probably. but i know i can at least fix your stomach up for good! please, at least let me do that for you.
please.

His chin drops to his chest, one claw held to his stomach.

well
alright yeah, itd be nice not to have to change my bandages every night for once

You'd thought that with the both of you knowing what's coming ahead of time, it wouldn't be so weird, but you are so very wrong. The two of you stand up and face each other and just thinking about it makes you nervous. Light doesn't quite reflect off of him correctly, giving him a glow that makes him look more like a special effect from a movie than an actual person.

so when does this totally hetero brokiss start
cameras rolling egbert
its the end of the movie and were wasting film here
are you going to get the girl or not
come on man i aint got all day

You plant your hands on his shoulders, brushing over his feathery mane and holy shit he's so soft.

yeah uh thanks
i guess

Fuck, did you say that out loud? You panic, pulling him into you and beginning the process before you can think about it any more. He exhales into you before trying to relax but he's tense. Nervous? You don't know. You breathe into him extra hard. He was almost completely healed the first time, so it shouldn't take much effort to finish the job, but that last bit is giving you a hell of a lot more resistance than you'd bargained for. You think he mumbles john into your mouth and you try to tell him hang on, i've almost got it! before giving it all you've got. You can't see it, but you can feel it stitching him back together, rewriting the broken lines of code that keep him bleeding. Before too long, the feeling disappears completely, like trying to blow too much air into a balloon, and you know there's nothing more you can do.

You stumble and fall to the floor, somewhat lightheaded.

john

Dave Sprite unties his bandages: his stomach is stained orange, but the cut is gone, only the hole built into his chest as a sheathe for his sword remaining. His wing, the one that had been severed, grows before your eyes to match the intact one, the old shriveled feathers on its backside falling out before being replaced with healthy ones.

You pant, breathing heavily from the effects of pouring so much of your aspect into healing him.

i did it. holy shit, it worked.
you're good as new.

You sprawl out onto the floor in exhaustion. Dave quickly tries to pick you up, obviously afraid you've passed out. You run your hands through his feathers.

shit, man. you're really soft. haha, you're made of bones.
dude stop it

He drops you and you laugh at him. Okay, maybe you are being a little weird, but in your defense, you haven't been this tired in a long time.

listen man
thanks
i mean it
dun worry 'bout it. s'all i could do for m'buddy, y'know?

You don't know what he says to that, because you fall asleep on the floor, right then and there.

==>

say, nanna, do you ever miss having legs?

She is helping you clean bits of pie filling off of your glasses and face and out of your hair after a particularly spirited game of checkers; you told her that the rule forcing you to jump one of her pieces was a complete load, that you'd never heard of that rule and she obviously made it up on the spot because capturing that piece would have given her a triple jump on her next turn. The argument escalated from there until game ended when you got a faceful of pastry and accidentally kicked over the board. Red and black plastic discs litter the floor.

Legs, John?
yeah, like walking and stuff.
Hmm, can't say I do. Walking was somewhat difficult for me, last I recall.
oh, right. but i kind of think dave misses being just a regular guy.
Ah.

With the last bit of crust and blueberry goop wiped off your face, the towel in Nannasprite's hand disappears.

Well, he's pretty special! Jaspers and I were long gone before the prototyping brought us back, and even Jade's dream self had been dead for some time.
so you think it might be because he was alive when he prototyped himself?

Your hair is still kind of sticky and the smell of blueberry is still in your nose.

We're still alive, John.

You think about it as you go to take a shower.

==>

When you get really bored, sometimes you ask Jade to shrink you down and send you to the Land of Wind and Shade and you kill time by doing sidequests. You make a few extra boondollars and a few units of grist doing stuff for the consorts who elected to stay in their villages. You help them harvest mushrooms and catch bugs. You help rebuild a house or two. Sometimes they need help putting out fires. One time, they make you kiss a baby, which is weird but they're absolutely nuts over gestures like that from their hero.

There are two places you don't really want to go, though. The first is Typheus's lair, and you're not too keen on visiting the guy who has technically already one-shot you once before, even if you could probably take him now. Maybe that'll be the last quest you do. Maybe you'll bring Dave. He's talked to Hephaestus and lived, maybe he knows how denizens tick.

The second is your old house. You've had Jade teleport stuff from it before but in all the time you've spent traveling to the new session, you have yet to visit it again. All the additions Rose made to it tower over the landscape, a constant beacon on the horizon pointing to where Skaia used to be. Now it points to empty space, mostly. Once, it pointed to Jade's comparitively giant face, and you were still laughing about it when she whisked you out of your land.

You're more afraid of it than you are of Typheus's lair. But you muster up the courage to check it out one day, anyway.

It's everything you remember, yet nothing like it. The TV on the wall is cracked and smeared with imp goo. The furniture is torn apart and harlequin statues lie scattered across the living room floor. Bits of grist you somehow forgot to pick up glow behind corners and under things. Dad's weird pictures still hang on the walls. He was into a lot of weird stuff and you never knew why. You guess you'll never know. You bite your lower lip and continue to your old room.

It's seen better days. Your room isn't quite how you remembered it, the walls rearranged for the purposes of the game. Parts of your computer are strewn across the floor, but it's just as well because you're pretty sure it wouldn't have worked anyway. You sit in your old chair and just kind of wish you could log in to Pesterchum and see how Dave and Rose are doing, or what Vriska's up to. You even miss Karkat.

It isn't right, seeing your house messed up like this. After all, you lived here for thirteen years. But you suppose it's not your home. Not anymore.

And you know what? You're more okay with that than you thought you'd be.

==>

nah, dude, i went back there a while ago. jade pretty much teleported everything of value out of my house a long time ago. there's nothing left there.
bummer
i bet there's still games and stuff at your place, though! like, we could get your bro's xbox and bring it out here.
or we could just have jade teleport it out and save us the trip
i'd like to see your house, though! or, well, your apartment, i guess. you don't think it'd be cool hanging out there for a while?

Dave sighs and scratches the back of his head.

yeah
i guess we could do that

His place turns out to be in much better shape than yours. His toilet is stuck in the hallway and there are things out of place but the imps didn't mess everything up like they did to your house. Maybe between him and Bro, they never stood a chance. All the electronic equipment still seems to be in place, and there are stacks of puppets and weapons everywhere. He really wasn't kidding, the place is exactly like the pictures he used to send you.

The first thing Dave does when he comes in is pick up a few swords, and once he finds one he likes, he jams it into his chest.

dude!
aw fuck that's better
feeling like a million bucks now that ive got a proper weapon in me
it just didnt feel right having that hole there you know?
dont worry about me man it doesnt hurt

You groan at him. You'd forgotten he was supposed to have a sword through him as part of his prototyping. He must have lost the original one.

remember how we used to talk about hanging out when we finally got to meet up, but you never wanted me to come your place?
haha so much for that
welcome to striders shitty sword and puppet emporium
you didn't even get to see my place! not that you're missing much, it's kind of a huge mess.

You try to bring yourself to touch one of the smuppets, but you cannot do it. You cannot touch the puppet ass.

did you even get any imps in here? this place is really well-preserved compared to my house.
a few

He reaches for the Hustlin' Fuzz poster in the corner above the speaker, and the paper gives, just enough to produce that sound that makes you gasp a little, because paper ripping is only a nice sound on Christmas and birthdays. Dave pauses for an instant before bringing his hand down and slashing four huge gashes in it.

i shouldnt be here

He sighs, his head hangs low and he doesn't turn around to face you. It comes deep, from the pit of his stomach. You know that sound. You're sure you made it yourself, during your visit to your old house.

This was a bad idea and you are the worst kind of jerk for bringing him here. You tap him on the shoulder and you spread your arms when he turns around, but he doesn't take you up on your offer, even though you sort of want to hug him really badly.

none of this is mine
i cant just take his things
it is, though! you're dave too!

You say it louder and faster than you expected to. He moves ever-so-slightly, just enough that you know you've surprised him. Your hands ball into fists and you want to say more, except you don't know how to put it into words.

thanks john
i really dont need most of this stuff anymore though
but there is one thing i dont mind taking

He floats over to Bro's Xbox 360, carefully picking up one of the controllers.

its not mine but technically its not his either
and i dont think bro would have minded

You want to say something, but words fail you again. So you just wrap the cords around Dave's claws and tuck the console under your arm and shut the door behind you. Both of you fly up the stairwell as fast as you can manage, narrowly missing the railings every turn because there's no hole in the middle to fly through like in the movies. Dave beats you to the roof and you flip upside-down and brake hard into the ceiling to stop yourself from crashing, and you almost lose your grip on the Xbox. Sburb's machines still sit on the roof alongside leftover bits of grist and health pickups. Jade's comparatively giant head looks down on you and Dave gives her an almost imperceptible nod.

You're not going to ask Dave to play Bro's old games, or ask him to go with you anywhere anymore. You have a shitty track record of finding fun things to do, anyway. You decide you're just going to do the stuff he wants to do. You're not sure what that is anymore, just that he eats popcorn and maybe you could get him to eat M&Ms and he still likes making fun of Armageddon and he thinks swords are neat and he probably doesn't care all that much about apple juice anymore.

Dave flies a little higher and starts crowing, and that familiar feeling of disorientation hits your stomach for a moment as Jade plucks you from the miniaturized Land of Heat and Clockwork. A crowd of consorts chatter on the deck. Cards little the floor and a frisbee nearly smacks you in the head as Jade puts the planets back into her sylladex. A pair of crocodiles grab the Xbox from you and an iguana takes the cords from Dave before he tucks into the bridge and disappears.

whats wrong, john?
nothing!

She tilts her head to the side like a curious pup.

but you were so excited to go, and you werent down there for very long...
eh. we decided not to stay. it was pretty boring compared to all of... this!
haha, yeah, theyre pretty crazy! at least theyre having fun though

She picks up a frisbee and tosses it to you, but it's hard not to cheat when you have god tier powers. You can fly up and grab it when it flies too high, and sometimes she manages to catch it even when its a few inches away from her hand. The consorts shout and clap and cheer the both of you on enthusiastically, for just about anything you do. When Jade uses her space powers rather obviously, you use the wind to try to keep the frisbee away from her a bit longer, but it disappears when you accidentally almost hit her in the face.

whoops... i think i sent it too far away
yeah there it goes

You look up, and it is ridiculous what kind of air that thing is getting. You should probably get the ruler and check it out.

yeah, it's not coming back.
jade, you might be the only person who ever threw a frisbee so far out of bounds that it was literally lost to the space between dimensions.
hehe

==>

haha what?
dude im serious
we need to stay sharp for the new session and the imps dont even really want to fight anymore
at the very least itll kill some time

You give it some thought. He's probably right, and a little practice never hurt anyone. You guess sparring with Dave every now and then would probably be good for you.

well, okay. it would be pretty embarassing to get there and not remember which end of the hammer i'm supposed to hold on to.
let's go alchemize some practice weapons.
nah were good
might as well use our regular gear so we get used to the feel of it
and this way theres a reason to
you know
actually try not to get hit
no way, what if one of us really gets hurt?
dude were both practically immortal right now remember
youre a god and theres nothing particularly heroic or just about biting it just because some bird guy cut you up during a play fight
and if you kick my ass well i guess i can pucker up afterward
that's true. but i'd rather not actually have someone break a bone or something.
even if we're both invincible, dying still hurts a lot.

You subconciously place your hand over your chest, over the exact spot where Jack stabbed you over a year ago.

oh
yeah
alright well do it your way
lets go to the alchemiter

Fifteen minutes later, you are standing across from Dave, holding SQUEAKY PLASTIC MJOLNIR as Dave pulls his CARDBOARD KATANA from his chest. Jade met up with the two of you in the halls and, after agreeing that keeping your combat skills up to snuff was in your best interest, made a NERF ASSAULT RIFLE and declared herself the referee for the first match. A pair of turtles overheard her excited declaration, and now the deck is packed with consorts and chess guys, cheering their chosen warriors on in this spectacle of mock combat.

Both of you have agreed to a basic set of rules; no windy things, no weird time shit, and no flight; you are to stay grounded, and Dave is to hover at normal height. A round is won when one combatant scores a clean hit on the other, and winner is best two out of three. Jade raises her arm, and when she lets it fall, the game is on.

Dave immediately charges you, putting what Bro taught him for years to the test. How he manages to flash-step without legs is beyond you, but only a last-second parry with the handle of your hammer saves you from losing the round mere moments after it begins. You push off and he jumps backwards; you bring your hammer round but catch nothing but air, leaving you off-balance. He circles around you and the back of your neck stings with the distinctive thwack of cardboard against flesh.

Dave takes round one, and the crocodiles and dersites erupt in a chorus of nakking and cheers.

haha maybe you shouldnt have listened to me way back then and put something else in your specibus
hammers are strong but theyre heavy
you miss and you leave yourself wide open
man, i guess i am a little rusty.
but my hammers have gotten me through the game so far.
i won't go down without a fight, dave!
bring it on windy boy

Jade signals the beginning of round 2, and you decide to take the fight to him. You open with a wide charging swing, which he easily dodges, and he ducks around you again, presumably to take the easy opening.

You're ready for him this time. Instead of letting yourself go off-balance, the weight of your hammer flows into a dodge and a block that Dave doesn't expect. He rolls forward in an attempt to use his momentum to avoid your next move; you see that coming too. He blocks your hammer strike with the flat of his blade and pushes off, hoping to use the shock to give himself an opening, but you duck the swing and counter with one of your own. Your hammer collides with Dave's side, and the sharp squeak sends the salamanders and prospitans into a frenzy of glubs and shouts.

1-1.

final round, dave!
you're good, i'll give you that much. but you'll never beat me.
nice shot back there
but well see about that

Jade's hand falls to begin round 3, and the fight begins with the two of you circling each other, your respective weapons readied in front of you. The crocodiles are chanting LET'S GO BIRD KNIGHT and the salamanders have actually made and began holding up a sign reading YOU CAN DO IT WINDY ONE. The roar of the crowd is deafening.

Dave drags his cardboard katana across his neck. You smirk at him and give him a thumbs-down.

Both of you advance at once, and you are a flurry of strikes and dodges and parries and shouts, both of you desperate to win the contest. He unleashes a spinning slash that you duck under before countering with a jumping strike. Dave sidesteps and circles around to your back and tries to score a horizontal swipe, but you pull your hammer over your head and block it from behind. He pushes off and you sping around and block another attack, and another.

Dave is coming at you with a ferocity you haven't seen in him before, and it's actually kind of scary, even if he's only got a cardboard sword.

You put all your weight into one wide swing; Dave blocks it with the flat of his blade, but the impact sends it sailing out of his hands. Before he can retrieve it, you dash in to score the match point.

Dave counters with an inhuman howl and a claw swipe that leaves a gash in the side of your face.

The makeshift arena is dead silent. He immediately recognizes what he's done, his face twisting into an expression of utter horror when he looks down at his talons and sees them coated with red.

fuck
FUCK
jesus christ what the fuck did i just do
somebody get nanna up here
oh my god
Out, all of you! Go on now, shoo!

The consorts and carapace people clear out as Jade teleports Nanna to the deck. A towel materializes in her hand and she immediately presses it to your wound.

john im so sorry oh my god
i dont know what happened i just sort of did it without even thinking
i swear i didnt mean to mangle your face
i
it's okay, i think it's probably not as bad as it looks. it barely even hurts right now, it's just bleeding a lot.
Jade, could you fetch the first-aid kit from the starboard locker room, please?
on it

A bright flash of green light, and the small box appears in Jade's hand, which Nanna takes and opens.

Thank you, dear.
John, I dare say you might be right, hoo hoo! Once we stop the bleeding, I think you're going to be fine.

Nanna dabs the cut with a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol, and the sting actually hurts more than the wound itself. Dave keeps apologizing for it and Jade keeps asking things like is your eye ok??? can you still see out of it??? (you can, Dave missed your eye completely) and when you've assured them that yes, you think you're going to be alright, they leave to do their own things, but not before telling them not to let this accident stop them from sparring every now and then, because Dave was still right and you still need to keep in practice with your weapons. Nanna huffs at you but you're still pretty sure your right, all things considered.

Once you're bandaged up, you thank Nanna for the help and tell her the whole thing has tired you out and you're going to take a nap. She says she'll check up on you later to make sure you're not still bleeding, but that she's pretty sure you're going to be fine.

On the trip back to your room, you wonder why Dave wanted to use the real weapons, if he was going to react so badly to accidentally injuring you. It's only when your hand is on your doorknob that you realize that's how he and Bro used to do things.

==>

When you wake up, you find Jaspers half-asleep and purring by your side, and you figure he probably saw everything and wanted to make sure you're okay. You scratch him behind the ears and he closes his eyes and tilts his head up when you scratch under his chin, and turns his head and even his entire body around so you'll scratch him in exactly the right spot.

I love you john!
Im so glad youre ok! I was really worried there for a moment i really really was.

You can't help but grin when he says that. He is just a silly pink princess cat with tentacles but making him happy makes you happy too.

Why did dave scratch you like that? That was really mean of him and i hope he doesnt do it again! If he tries to do it again i will scratch him back.
oh, he didn't do it on purpose, it was an accident.
Ohhhhhhhhhh! Ok i understand.

You stroke the top of Jaspers' head and he starts purring louder.

you know, rose is going to be so jealous when we meet up with her again.
Oh i love rose a lot but i love you too john!
Youre really good at scratching too and its so nice.
Purr purr purrrrrrrrrrr.

You laugh at him because he sounds ridiculous, purring and actually speaking the word "purr" at the same time. He sounds like Darth Vader talking into a fan when he does that, except without the creepy breathing and not at all menacing. You stroke Jaspersprite's back and his fur doesn't feel like a real animal's, more like the fuzzy stuff they make really nice teddy bears out of.

A thought pops into your mind.

i wonder if dave would like to get scratched like this, too.
Oh yes i cant imagine anyone who wouldnt like a good scratch john!
Purr purr.

Your hand moves to the side of his face and he nuzzles your fingers as you scratch his cheeks. His eyes close again and his purrs get louder and louder until he falls asleep with his head lying against you. Eventually, your stomach decides it's time to grab something to eat, and when you roll to your feet he stretches and yawns and floats away through your door, like all of that didn't mean anything more than a good spot to nap. You're pretty sure that's also a Cat Thing, kind of like how Dave's nest and piles of shiny bits are Bird Things.

That makes you smile.

==>

You find Dave struggling with one of the Xbox controllers; apparently, he had Jade size it up for his hands, but it doesn't seem to be working so well. He has to hold it at an awkward angle, the size of the buttons makes them harder to press, and the increased space between them make the games more difficult to work than the developers ever intented. They probably never could have imagined their game would ever be played by a half-bird ghost kid with bird claws for hands. He tries, though, and to his credit, he's not doing that bad in Grand Snack Fuckyeah.

sup
sorry about almost clawing your face off the other day
i dont know what got into me man
you knocked that sword out of my hand and the next thing i know youre on the floor and bleeding and my claws are red
hey, it's alright.
check it out, it's already healed up. there's barely even a scar there anymore, you can only see it if you're really close.
okay good to hear
i was kind of afraid i fucked up your eye or something
nope!

He turns his attention back to the game.

i think im finally getting the hang of this
i still have to play on easy mode for now but im learning
i just wish bro had bought an arcade stick
now that i could probably rock a high score or two on

The soft downy feathers lining his neck are a stark contrast to the light of the TV screen, and the light bends and warps around his sprite body in just such a way that it looks really inviting. You kind really want to hug him and maybe bury your face in those feathers, and okay, that's kind of weird! But doesn't everyone need a hug sometimes?

You don't hug him, but you do stand behind him and start scratching his shoulders, sort of like how you scratch Jaspers.

He freezes. The controller drops to the ground. A nearby iguana is startled and scampers out of the room.

dude what the ffffuck
stop it
stop?

You spread your hands on his shoulders, a little disppointed. He responds by standing up and turning toward you, and holding up his hands like he's pushing you away. He doesn't say anything for a while as he gazes at the floor.

what's wrong?
look
i didnt want to say anything but youve kinda forced my gross mutant hand on this

He hovers backwards and presses the power button on the TV, turning it off. The room darkens and you're suddenly aware of how quiet it is. He must be serious. A pit forms in your stomach as Dave runs a hand through his hair, saying nothing for a few long, agonizing moments.

you gotta cut this out
like no games here man
i know i joked around about it a lot when you tried to heal me up but im being 100% fucking serious here
im not saying i dont appreciate what you did for me
i do
seriously im really glad i dont just fucking ooze all over the place like a damp sponge anymore
but you cant keep doing
THIS
what?
the kissing and the hugging and the surprise massage bullshit
look i get we had a moment up in my room
youre my main bro and i wanted you to feel better about shit
but this has got to stop
hey, i said no homo! who says a guy can't make his buddy feel better?

He groans as he crosses his arms, talons curling against the bend of his elbow.

really
because the fact that it keeps happening suggests otherwise
no! it's just---
my feathery orange bird ass is already spoken for
damnit, i'm not--- wait---
WHAT?
so no more of this totally heterosexual tonsil hockey or cuddling and especially as fuck not any more god damn unsolicited backrubs do i make myself clear
what do you mean, "spoken for?"
oh yeah i hit it off real good with one of the crocodile ladies
asked her to go steady with me
were going to reptile prom together next month
ask that salamander princess who keeps giving you the eye and well make it a double date
dude there's only one other person on the entire ship besides us
who the fuck did you think i meant
so you and jade...?
YES
finally
john egbert boy genius gets it

You guess you saw this coming but you said nothing. You figured it wasn't your place to mention it. They'd tell you when and if they were ready. You kind of feel like a jerk about the circumstances, though.

man... i feel like kind of an asshole.
like kind of a HUGE asshole.
i just wanted you to be happy, i guess. you seem so miserable sometimes.
and i just really wanted to help, but i'm always saying and doing stupid shit. i mean, fuck, me being a dumbass is kind of the entire reason you're a bird guy now and i wish i could fix all of that.
i guess what i'm saying is...
i just want to make you feel normal again.

He takes a deep breath and sighs heavily.

i know
that you try i meant
but you cant fix me
its not possible
its just how i am now
im a freak

You raise your hand and try to say something, but you don't know what you can say to that, and your arm falls back to your side.

but
look man i dont know how to put it
except maybe that she makes me feel like less of one
but hey look
i know you try
and i appreciate that
seriously
even if you are a doofus about it
so since youre itching for it and im sure you wont let me get away without one
how about a bro hug bump
come on man i am giving you full permission to touch my feathers here
that kind of thing doesnt just happen
most of the time
damnit man get over here and hug me this instant

So you do. You grin widely into his shoulder. You're happy, you're happy for him. When you finally let go...

so dude i gotta ask
what was the deal with the surprise back massage
well, um... it was kind of jaspers' idea.
i should have known
that fucking cat would put you up to this
did he do that ridiculous thing where he purrs and actually says the WORD "purr" at the same time
yeah.
hilarious

==>

Life on the ship is pretty normal for a long time after that. The consorts and the carapace people do whatever it is game constructs like to do. The sparring matches continue without another incident like the first one. Nanna and Jaspers get into it, though Nanna's method of "fighting" is mostly summoning an oven and blasting pies at her opponent like some kind of pastry-firing machine gun. The carapaces even set up a tournament amongst themselves, and the final round, pitting a smallish guy calling himself the Prospitan Swordsman against a portly fellow known as the Angry Duelist, is an exciting back-and-forth affair that ends in a Swordsman victory.

You give Dave his space, just like he asked, and sometimes you pass by him and Jade on the ship and you swear he looks happier when he's with her. And damnit, if being with Jade makes him feel normal, then you're happy for him.

But things don't stay normal. Sometimes, Dave disappears for days at a time. Sometimes, not even Jade or Jaspers or the consorts see him for days.

Jade convinces you to go back to your old house for your second birthday on the ship. You're not sure how. You suppose some part of you still wants to call this place "home". Jade cleans up your living room and for a moment you swear you've stepped back in time. You realize there's one movie you haven't watched together during this whole trip, and neither of you can believe you've gone this long without watching con Air.

It doesn't go as well as you thought it would. The movie just reminds you of everything you used to have, everything that the game took from you. Nic Cage is nothing like Dad, but his character is someone's dad and everything that reminds you of that is another reminder of what you're missing.

You kind of hate this movie now.

You can't believe you ever took this movie seriously. It's not even just that it reminds you of your old life, it's just not a good movie and you can hardly believe you ever enjoyed it. It is one hundred and fifteen minutes of every godawful action movie cliche ever invented. Things that used to be awesome and badass are cheesy and ridiculous. Dave was right, this movie sucks, and also blows.

And now one of Dave Sprite's feathers is poking you in the ass. You are so mad. He was here but he skipped out on your birthday? At first you think maybe it's your fault, he and Jaspers don't always get along because he's a bird and Jaspers is a fucking cat. But Jade makes it clear it's not your fault.

he uh...
kind of broke up with me

And you kind of fly off the handle after that and say a bunch of stuff you don't mean. But even that doesn't compare to the mood you're in after you find the note, because that guy has gone too far. You are determined to kick his ghostly ass through and through.

But you tantrum so hard, you fall asleep before you can do that. You see Jack in your dreams and you don't know if this is a dream bubble or a regular dream but you are so unbelievably pissed at everything that you don't care. During your fight, you see Rose for the first time in two years.

You feel a little better when your hammer makes Jack wear a ridiculous hat. He flies off and a second, white Jack chases after him.

You learn Vriska has been dead for two years. You learn she dated the John that died in Dave Sprite's timeline. You learn that his ghost was killed again by a brand-new villain.

You wake up with Tavros's ring in your hand and a lingering sense of regret.

==>

You don't see Dave Sprite for a long time after that.

Jade organizes a funeral, of sorts, for everyone you lost. Everybody comes out for it; Nanna, Jaspers, the consorts, the carapace people, even Dave Sprite. Her idea was more of a memorial service than an actual funeral, but you can't fault her for trying. The consorts don't pay a lot of attention because that's just how they are, but the prospitans and dersites come in rememberance of everyone who fell by Jack's hand. You can respect that.

She's built a bunch of little rockets, one for each person the game took from you, all scrawled with their names and ready to be sent into the void of paradox space. You think it's probably an appropriate sendoff.

You pop the top off of the Dad rocket. Nanna slips a little harlequin figurine, packed into whatever Jade put in the rocket to make it go. You fumble around in your pockets for a bit until you find the Monopoly hat and set it atop the jester's head, then you screw the top back on and put it back where it was. Nanna's forehead is all wrinkled and she's trying not to frown so hard. You reach over and give her a hug. You didn't know her when she was alive, but you're glad you have her now.

Jade places a can of bullets into the Grandpa rocket. She's lived alone for most of her live because her Grandpa died a long time ago, but she wants to do this for him, too. Jaspers puts a cat toy into the Mom rocket. He was the only one of you who really knew her. You wonder if Rose had a funeral like this one for her mom with Dave and her new troll friends.

Dave Sprite doesn't put anything in the Bro rocket.

i cant fit a sword or a throwing star in there
maybe i could jam a smuppet in there but fuck that im not giving him the satisfaction
dude wouldnt want one of his puppets ruined like that anyway

When he thinks nobody's paying attention, he tucks a rolled-up piece of paper into the rocket before putting it back. You figure whatever message he had is between him and Bro.

There are two more rockets that he doesn't open and don't have any names written on them, but you think you know who they're for. They have to be for his Jade and his John, the ones from his timeline. The ones he couldn't save. You take a deep breath and sigh when you remember what Vriska said happened to other-John. You decide it's probably best you don't tell him.

ready everyone?!
yep!
light em up

Jaspers lies down and curls up around your legs. You take Nanna's hand and she squeezes as Casey starts to light the rockets. Jade offers her hand to Dave Sprite, and he refuses at first but doesn't turn her down a second time. He actually offers his other hand to you.

look man
im sorry about what happened on your birthday
i took that shit too far and it wasn't cool
hey, i said a bunch of stuff i wish i hadn't, too.

You take it and watch Casey run off in surprise when the first rocket lights and sputters loudly. Jade manages to grab a spark and drag it across the fuses to light the rest of them. The rockets shoot off into paradox space, hissing and leaving behind smoky grey trails. The consorts nak and glub and thwip and pop their bubbles and kick their feet in excitement.

Dad's rocket goes first, exploding into a round blue shower of sparks that rumbles across the ship. Jade barks in surprise and the consorts become even more frenzied. Grandpa's explodes next, a cluster of green lights that explode once more into even more green lights. Mom's rocket bursts into pink, and you squeeze Dave Sprite's hand as the Bro rocket detonates red. He doesn't squeeze back, he just sort of moves his fingers a bit. Maybe he's afraid he's going to maim you again. Nanna sighs, and you give her hand a squeeze, too. She does squeeze back.

The rockets for alternate you and Jade explode at the same time, with a loud boom and scattering bright white sparks everywhere. The last two rockets go off and create a cascade of gold and purple light, and all of the carapace people salute. You realize the last two were for them, to honor the fallen soldiers, and you nod your head in reverence.

It won't be long until the trip is over.

==>

You're asleep when you finally arrive in the new session, though you don't realize it until you wake up. You get to talk to Vriska again and she's got an army and a plan to take out the new big bad guy. The troll who looks like she could be her sister tells you all about Lord English and his rise to power. It's pretty interesting stuff, even if she's really long-winded.

You wake up to find a note taped to your chest.

so i guess were here finally
christ what a ride its been
sorry i havent kept in touch but lets face it you can go hang out with real dave now
so um have fun with that i guess
later

==>

You find him on the deck, looking over this strange new planet's landscape. The green hills are dotted with stone monuments that remind you of Stonehenge. Dave Sprite is just kind of sitting with his ghostly tail hanging over the edge. You sit down next to him.

sup

Neither of you speak for a while, the silence hanging thick in the air, until you decide to say anything just to break it.

i guess we beat the trolls and rose and other dave here.
it shouldn't be too long until they get here, though.

More silence.

i guess it wont be long now
huh?
until we go back to the awesome status quo of pretending i never existed in the first place

Your heart sinks on hearing it. You were such an asshole last year.

i--
no its fine
i knew this was going to happen
its been fun pretending but the real dave strider is going to be here any minute now
i figure ill ditch this place and maybe sink my claws into some imps or something
maybe ill feel like less of a useless tool
not gonna lie man ive been itching for a real fight for a while now
just to have something to do with myself i guess
dude, no. you're just as real as he is.
nah
hes a god tier knight of time and ive got feathers and mutant razor hands and a gross ghost butt
i just hope he didnt shack up with that crazy troll girl and forget about jade
he had a thing for jade?
im ten million percent sure he did because i used to be him
and
i did too
but she deserves better than me
god i was so selfish even trying to make us anything
no god damnit you shut the hell up egbert
the truth of the matter is
im not him
maybe i was once but that was a long time ago

You just kind of stare at him for a moment before you decide to simply speak your mind.

you're still dave to me, though.
i mean, we spent three years together. i'm not going to just forget about you, dude!
yes, red dave is one of my best bros. but i think orange dave is pretty neat, too.
you are going to be stuck with me until one of us drops dead from old age, and you are just going to have to deal with it.

You sling an arm around his shoulder and pull him in for a side hug. Rather than resisting, he does the same, folding one of his wings around you. An idea comes to your mind, and you decide to just go with it; you start scratching around Dave's neck and shoulders. Somewhat surprisingly, to you, he's not weirded out by it anymore.

thanks man
oh shit that feels nice
a little to the right aghhhhhhhhhhhh yeah thats the stuff

He tries not to groan but when he accidentally lets out a peep you can't help but laugh at him, even when he threatens to disembowel you for telling anyone about it (that actually makes you laugh harder). You don't mind when he rests his head on your shoulder.

You think you could get used to this.

oh hey have you seen jade at all
i tried to find her earlier but i couldnt
nope, can't say i have.
i wonder what she's up to?