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The first thing he said to you was, "Nice cape." You looked at him and deadpanned: "I heard Princes wear pumpkin pants." Rose pursed her lips and John snorted and then you were all too busy to think for a while. But you had to run into each other eventually.
You expected him to be taller than you, broader and somehow all-encompassing, but what you get is a boy about your age with freckled bony shoulders, maybe an inch of height on you, and just as much fear as fire behind his fierce anime shades.
No irony master he, well, not any more than you are at sixteen, but he smells almost right (more metal and oil, less warmth and Texas dust) and his glasses are nearly the same and when you are finally alone, it's hard to defy the urge to shed a tear or two. You stare at each other from behind mirrored plastic like it's a funny kind of strife, each daring the other to land the first blow. To your vast surprise, he breaks first, pulling his glasses off to reveal eyes blurred with relief or misery or fuckall knows what he's thinking. Your heart does a loop-the-loop; his eyes are exactly the same, the right color, the right shape. He's your Bro. Your eyes water, but nothing spills. You're cool.
His hands shake as he reaches out to pull off your aviators, and there's a shy set to his mouth that it takes you a moment to understand. But you remember Rose's timeline charts and you realize that he's never met you before. You're a distant fantasy for him, not the remnant of breathing reality that he is for you.
You remember the corpse, the sword, the smell of blood and silence.
"Red. Huh."
Did new universe you ever have pictures taken without his shades? Is this actually a surprise? Seems it might be.
He puts both pairs of glasses down and looks away, rubbing his shoulder. Is that ...yeah, it is. No mistaking that pixelated face. Hella Jeff stares back at you.
"What the actual fuck?"
"Can I just -- what?"
You speak at the same time, words running over each other in an impolite torrent. It eases the tension a little, and he gives you the tiniest of smiles.
"Did it myself. Well, with a little robotic help, of course. In honor of. Of."
And then he's done, orange eyes overflowing with stupid Strider tears. You pap at his untattooed shoulder, reflexes tuned by three years of living with high-strung lunatic trolls, and he blinks. The contact does something weird to your stomach and you step closer, wrapping your arms around him and inhaling. He is still, shock or surprise or some mysterious other chain of emotion locking his limbs. He smells like smoke, like steel and chemicals and ocean air and that vague boystink you associate with too-hot summers and melting asphalt. You wrinkle your nose. He lifts his arms to hold you tight, hands digging into your shoulders through the cape. It takes him a moment, but then he buries his face in your shoulder. You wonder how you smell to him. Redolent of meteor filth? Coffee? Troll? Essence of Knight of Time? You close your eyes and breathe and cling to each other like the ectobiowhateverthefuck relatives you are.
You have an armful of (Bro-not-Bro) Dirk. His name is Dirk and he has lost all his coolkid points. It's sort of okay, though, because you pretty much lost all of yours too, because goddamn. You missed your irony-god-evil-puppet-master-strife-buddy-horrible-teacher-best-guardian Bro. You missed him so much. This isn't him, but he's close enough and it'll do.
--
His arms around you are a mixed blessing, comfort and agony rolled into one. He's all wrong, not tall and suave and dressed in a stylin' suit. He's just a kid, just like you. Shorter, even, though not by much. But he's still got that face, those glasses, and oh god, his eyes are what you thought they'd be, red as his God Tier garb.
He recognized the tattoo, somehow knew what it meant for you. He can't know about a lot of the rest of it, about the drones and being alone for so long and your chest just hurts at having him here instead of four hundred years ago dying trying to save the human race. Some part of you is marveling at how cool he is, knowing that he had a guardian, that his died somewhere in the game. How can he be holding onto you with still hands, when yours are shaking like waves? He paps your back, soothing you, and you let him.
You let him. It feels nice. Nicer than Jake's too-forceful too-showy bropats and nicer than Roxy's open-hand slap-and-cuddles of sexually frustrated camaraderie. Nice like he knows something about being a Strider and the rank impossibility of showing your hand. The thoughts are getting away from you, so you lift your head from his shoulder (Good on you, Dirk. No damp spots on that fine Godcape.) and unclench your fists from the velvet-soft fabric. You step back, and he lets you go and there's a moment of NO please don't leave in your head, but you quell it and pick up your glasses. Politeness dictates that you give him his first, and then put yours on.
You lift one hand to ruffle his hair and he just stops like an unwound clock, hands frozen at odd angles. He blanches, and you know you hit a nerve. Apologies spring to your mouth, but he shakes his head before you can get a word out.
"No, Br--Dirk. I can honestly say that this time it totally was not you, it was me."
His voice cracks a little. You pap his face the way you always wished someone could pap you. Well, someone with human hands, anyway. Nothing against Lil' Cal, he was a great guardian for a long time, but puppet mitts were not the same thing at all. He puts his hand over yours and you take a moment to marvel at how similar the shapes of your fingers are, slender with larger knuckles and long square nailbeds. Your nails are less ragged, he has more calluses, and you have more scars visible, but you are recognizably of the same genes.
He whispers, "Shoosh," and you emit a tiny bark of a laugh.
"Do you even understand that? You're from a different universe, Dave." You only stumble over the initial D when you say his name.
"Oh, come on. You know I spent the last three years hanging with trolls, right? I speak your language well enough."
You nod and curl your palm over his cheek. He leans forward and you lean to match him, meeting forehead-to-forehead in a gesture of absolute Strider solidarity. His hair is soft and tickles a little, but all that matters is that you are no longer alone.