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He said it was either him or the—
“—puppet when we fuck,” Dave groans.
Dave never gets what he wants. If he were strong enough, he’d take it.
“I played an entire game that demonstrated to all the kids, trolls, and an alternate version of you that Cal is literally the root of every one of our problems. Not to mention the evilest thing in the universe.”
You put a finger to your lips.
Dave strains against his bonds. His sexual bonds. He made you strap his arms to the headboard of his bed—yes, you’re on your little bro’s tiny mattress in his childhood room, should’ve gotten him a bed frame when he was young—presumably so he wouldn’t squirm off the bed when Cal starts to move. Dave is also naked. That’s not your fault, because he always had clothes in his wardrobe. His shades are carefully folded and resting on the nightstand.
FEED THE BETA, Cal says from your shoulder.
You reach over onto the nightstand and cut out a square of sheet cake. It flops onto the paper plate, and you rustle through the bag for a plastic fork.
“Aw man, is that Cal’s face printed on it?” Dave whines.
You fork the first bite into his mouth. He chews, considers, and swallows. He’s so thin that you can imagine it going straight down his esophagus. “At least it’s not vanilla. That’d be ironic. Rose says you got your definition of irony from an Alanis Morissette song.”
You stab at the next piece.
“Oh, you don’t like that? LOL.” Dave pronounces “LOL” as a word rather than the three separate letters composing the acronym.
You shake your head and nudge the forkful to his mouth at the same time he turns his head. Blue frosting accidentally smears from the corner of his mouth to the middle of the cheek.
“Bleh. At least Cal likes it.” Dave tries to wipe off his face with his hands, forgetting he’s restrained. His eyebrows furrow in surprise, frustration, or neither. You’re still not good at facial expressions despite your resurrected status. “Why am I interested in what Cal likes again?”
You wait patiently.
“Right”—and here Dave contorts into his faux-intellectual expression—“Cal’s your best friend, and whatever Cal says goes. Dude, I hate to break it to you: even besties don’t control each other’s sex lives. Unless they’re directly involved. Wait, were you and Cal having sex before the game? My Bro and his puppet? And now I can only fuck you if he’s involved because you two are so inextricably intertwined that to separate one would be to destroy the other? Sure, that makes total sense. If only Rose could see me now!”
HE IS MENTIONING. THE BITCH TOO MUCH, Cal says. USE YOUR FILTHY HANDS.
You pinch more of the cake to handfeed Dave, who hoods his eyes and sucks on your fingers to achieve a sultry air, and mostly succeeds.
YES. MORE.
Dave licks your thumb. You swipe your thumb over his cheek to collect the frosting, and he swallows that too.
“Can I have some water?”
The cup contains AJ with ice cubes, but no liquid dihydrogen monoxide. You tip it slowly. Dave’s red lips are stained purple with the blue frosting. He noises when he’s finished, but you steepen the angle. Dave waxes poetic about AJ, so he can finish all of it. He’d close his mouth if he didn’t want it. Dave swallows audibly. You retrieve the cake.
The next two bites go down easy. You shift and Dave muffles his cry from you shifting your fully clothed position on his boner. You’re keeping it classy: white T-shirt, jeans, socks, gloves, hat, shades. A classic love interest outfit.
“Last bite?”
You collect it on the fork.
“Gimme.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he sighs. “Are we really gonna have sex this time? Or just the weird foreplay your puppet directs?”
Dave is flippant, but he should regulate his words around Cal, who exacts revenge mercilessly at being mocked.
You cut another slice.
Dave’s face falls. “Bro, not another one!”
You drop the fork into the garbage, toss your gloves on the nightstand, and feed him by hand, crumb by crumb like a bird. He eats out of your hand when you cup it—complaining but desperate to please.
Three-quarters through, he shuts his mouth. You place the plate carefully to the side, wedge a thumbnail between his teeth, and pry his mouth open. The average strength of a human bite is 162 PSI. If you lose your grip, he could easily bite off your fingers.
“Nnn!”
MOUTH.
If he says so. You cram a wooden serving spoon into Dave’s mouth and hold it in place. You deliberately knock off your hat to the bed with the other hand, then scoop up the remainder of the cake.
“Aw, ‘ro, no—”
The spoon exits, and you press your mouth to his. Your tongue pushes the unchewed bite into his mouth.
SWALLOW.
Dave tenses. You pinch his nose shut; mouths still pressed together but close lipped.
You stroke his hair then hold his head in place. He trembles, then swallows.
GOOD BOY.
You release his nose. He takes a deep breath. You’re a real mama bird.
“Bro, you don’t hafta to do what Cal says.”
You quirk an eyebrow. Of course you do.
He sighs again, but he’s still as erect as before, if not more. Even when you cut off his air, he was surprised but unafraid. With him, Cal is gentle. You can be so, so gentle.
You rake your fingers over the surface of the cake, smearing Cal’s image. You smear the frosting down Dave’s neck, torso, and hips.
You are not allowed to kiss Dave directly on the mouth, per Cal’s orders, but everywhere else is fair game. The feeding doesn’t count. You grip his head still—“Not the hair, not the—goddamn it.”—and kiss his soft neck. You lick and suck it. You go to town on the junction between neck and jaw, raising purple blotches slow enough for Dave not to feel the twinge. He is a frog in a pot of boiling water. The trick is to increase the heat gradually.
After his neck is clean of food and recolored purple, you move to the hollow between his collarbones. Dave whimpers when you bite next to it.
THE ALPHA MALE SAYS. IN HIS HEAD. THAT HE WANTS TO CONSUME YOU.
You did not. But if that’s what Cal said, then you did.
Dave chuckles nervously. “In a sexy way, right?”
You lick down his torso, following the blue frosting in the shape of a question mark.
“Bro. Right?”
You kiss his stomach. A giggle-squeal escapes him.
VERY TENDER.
“Because it’s fine!” Dave squeaks as you tickle his ribs, running your fingers over the protruding bones. Dave is a skeleton, anorexic thin with protruding jaw bones and a hollow where the stomach should be, bird-bone wrists and ankles. “I’m totally cool if you w-wanna eat me! Ack! Stop!”
You relent and suck a bruise onto his hip instead. Cal retreats in your head.
“We should probably just... talk about it first. I mean, I am a god now. I can basically come back from anything, seeing as I’m not participating in anything heroic or nefarious by the Game’s standa—!”
You ruin what intact parts of the cake remain by sloppily scooping the remainder of the icing and smushing it across his happy trail and along the base of his dick, and diving for it.
“Fuckin’,” Dave groans, hips jerking upwards until you press down firmly and carpe diem the shit out of his dick, “just like a dog with peanut butter. Not that I’d know, because I once asked for one and you refused. You said that owning a dog was like being saddled with another child that was, uh—can I say that word if I’m quoting you? That was not one of your greatest parenting moments.”
You flick the base of his dick to shut him up.
“I don’t think I’m incapable of being quiet! John said it’s because I like to hear myself talk, and Rose said that I’m obsessed with genitals, and Jade said I compulsively dump my problems on everyone else because I lived in a silent house trapped with you and my thoughts and I’m so desperate to feel any sort of connection that I expose every part of myself to others because I’m hoping that they’ll enlighten me about—enlighten?! I don’t use that wo—Rose, get out!” and he yells that last part, straining.
You gather a balloonful of air in your lungs and slowly release it. The lights in the room dim. You never knew her, but a Rose Strider would have been a killing machine. Considering the multiverse, she exists. Just not in any timeline that matters. You have Dave to thank for that.
“I—I want you to keep going.” Dave winces and tries to wriggle out of the death grip you have on his hips. “It’s not you, Bro, I swear, it’s just... Fuck.” He flops back. “Just this once, I wanted...”
You wait.
“Never mind. Keep going.”
You smile. This is your favorite part.
“Your unironic smile is creepy, has anyone ever told you that?”
You poke his stomach. It squishes underneath the tip of your finger; thin, but without a muscle to be found. You don’t know how he made it through the Game.
“Fair point.”
You go down on him. The mind may scramble, but the mouth never forgets.
Giving oral is like riding a bike—in which there are two wheels, you end up scraped if you do it wrong, and there’s always some asshole in tight pants who insists he can do it better.
SHUT. UP.
You subtly nudge Cal to the back of your head and perfunctorily kiss the head, then lick off the pre. Cock tastes mostly of skin, but the taste of come is bitter. You were a virgin before he revived you, and never flexible enough to suck your own.
You play with him. Everything is done sickly sweet to the point of sentimentality. You aren’t sucking dick for your disgusting sexual pleasure; you are “making love.” Your thoughts are infrequent and blank, but very clean.
He isn’t trimmed, but you circumnavigate. You roll his balls between your fingers and suck. You were never inept despite your inexperience, and Dave shot off like a rocket the first few times you touched him.
“B-Bro...”
Dave is very noisy. You’d despised this, but tolerate it now. An empty husk like you is incapable of emotion. You disregard his vocalizations.
His shaft is next. Earnestness can be faked with a procedure. Touch lightly, kiss, stroke. It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t want it. You lave your tongue from base to head and nurse at the tip. Dave’s legs shoot into a bend when you flick your tongue under the head.
You slowly swallow around his length, which is average when fully hard. You don’t fault him for this. A big dick like yours is an inconvenience; another source of frustration in a life of forced chastity.
Dave doesn’t reach the back of your throat, so you allow him to facefuck you and press your hands on his thighs when he becomes overenthusiastic. When you pull off, he wraps his legs around you. You remove them using his scrawny ankles and hook his knees over your shoulders. He almost dislodges Cal, but you rearrange him in time.
“You’re not gonna—you totally are. Oh, man...”
With that enthusiastic admission, you eat his ass. At this point, Dave holds very little qualms about assplay, but has much to say about you feeding him, licking him, and then eating him out. His digressions become shakier once your tongue enters his unmentionables, but his unceasing flow is commendable. You pat his flank and tune him out.
Cal isn’t present. You bask in the quiet.
You return to yourself when Dave cries out and his heels stab into your back. You detach with a distinctly wet sound and wipe off your mouth with your forearm.
Dave’s eyes are damp, and he’s breathing very heavily for someone who hasn’t done anything. “Classy.”
You lick your lips and glance casually at his dick.
Dave catches on. Dave is not many things, but sometimes he’s quick. “Not back to the dick after the ass. I’m gonna get so many ass STDs... AssTDs?”
This is incorrect, but you’re not going to tell him. His dick is hard and discolored. You touch it with one finger, and it twitches. You laugh in the only way you can—a soft breath expelled through your throat. Dave glares, but it melts into bliss as you begin to jerk him off.
By Dave’s reactions, you could qualify as a sex god. The explosive way he reacts to you is something Cal finds hysterical, even if the latter detests the sex. The moment you concentrated on Dave’s dick, Cal went to his happy place. He’ll get his laughter quota in when he returns.
“Fuck, I’m so close,” Dave moans. When he gets close to finishing, he reverts to cheesy porn dialogue. This is humorous. “C’mon, give it to me!”
There’s something to be said about the sexiness of a cheesy porno. You sit down on your haunches. You’ll be here awhile. You release his dick, which bobs sadly in the air before sinking under its weight.
“Ha ha,” Dave says, “you just stopped because you’re gonna restart any second now, because you’re my chill, tenderhearted Brodad?”
You silently count to ten before resuming.
Dave noises loudly in relief. You work him up again. His balls tense up; his shaft throbs. His skin is very soft.
“Yes, yes, yes—!” So of course you release him. “No!”
You tease him by running a finger over the length, like your nail is an intrepid explorer and his dickhead is the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. This is unappreciated.
“My balls are actually blue. Go up close and check their color right now.”
You humor him, after untangling his feet and lowering them. A magnifying glass appears in your hand—they’ll have to iron that kink out later—and you inspect the color of your little brother’s balls. They don’t fall under any shade of blue, but could be classified as in a state of distress. If these testicles could emote, they would be requesting to see the manager. Or enacting DEFCON 2.
“Stop neglecting me! This is like my childhood all over again!”
The magnifying glass disappears. You pick up the cup that contained the AJ and abscond to the kitchen.
“Wah—!? Wait, what are you doing? I was joking—I was—”
Clunk clunk goes the dispenser as ice falls into the cup. It’s the only functioning part of the fridge. You return to the bedroom and resume your position between Dave’s legs.
You crunch on an ice cube. Your mouth is very dry. You retrieve another and display it to Dave. This chunk of frozen water is a rabbit pulled out of a hat, and you’re the magician. The cube cracks, because your fridge is shit. A piece falls.
“What a perfectly normal ice cube.” Dave chuckles nervously. “Serving no other purpose than to be orally ingested?”
You’ve been ignoring the fact that you’re hard. Really, you should get some award for sainthood. You shrug, hopefully conveying an apology.
“Nooooooo. No no no no no. Was it the joke about childhood neglect? The times I doubted Cal wasn’t the hottest shit to ever exist before he was revealed to be, again, the root of all evil? Because I don’t think you really listened when I said that, seeing how he’s still on your back like paradox space’s creepiest baby monkey.”
You fish out some more ice and map out its dimensions with your fingertips, which numb within seconds. The melted water drips onto Dave. You climb onto his legs.
“I posit that if you and I laid aside our problems and honestly discussed our issues, we could work through my impending trauma. Which, I might add, would easily be diverted if you put the ice back in the cup, your hand on my dick, and you’re not listening to a word I say, aren’t you.”
You were, but wanted to run out the clock on his Dave-monologue. Davelogue. Your humor is simply the best there is. Dave yells and tries to buck you off when you press the ice to his dick.
“Do you want me to apologize to Cal?! I don’t even know what I’d be apologizing for, but I’m sure I can think of something.”
You remove the ice and toss it in your hand. You despise the cold. It’s why you liked living in Texas even though it had no other redeeming qualities.
Dave perks up. He pretends otherwise, but he’s downright excitable when he forgets himself as he tries to reestablish his place in your good graces. “I’m sorry for dropping to Earth on a meteor. I’m sorry for making you a guardian. My guardian specifically. I’m sorry for lots of things!” His mouth twists. “I’m sorry for... lots... of... You’re not stopping me?”
You shake your head. Kid’s gotta earn his keep.
“Can you touch me, at least?”
You wrap your hand around his hip. You don’t mind doing this one more time. You can barely feel his skin.
“But if I apologize well enough, you’ll let me, right? I’ll get to come?”
You don’t respond. He bites his lip. You can’t even imagine what happened in the years you were dead to make him open like this. He’s as readable as a billboard.
“Oh, well, where do I start,” Dave says, and he bites his lip to implicate sarcasm. That one you pick up. “I’m sorry for being born. That must’ve been such an inconvenience for you. Your era of lone wolf radness—obliterated! So sorry for ruining your life. I bet you didn’t even have one before I was born!” He points a finger at you, wrist twisting at an uncomfortable angle. “You crashed to Earth as a baby, then the next thing you knew you were saddled with one you didn’t want. I’m sorry for—”
He gasps as you start petting him.
“For failing. Being a disappointment. Sucking at strifing. You ever considered the issue was the shitty swords? Wouldn’t have been sent down the broken sword path if I’d been unbreakable, huh?”
Dave, unbreakable. As he would’ve been if you did your job right. You bite your lip and your other hand drifts to your belt. Cal stirs threateningly in your head. The key is to do it without thinking at all. Head blank as a page.
“Sorry for growing into a hero that, direct quote, is so afraid to step into his role that his entire personality becomes nothing but shirking responsibility in both narrative and personal life, thanks a lot, Jade!”
Belt undone, dick out of boxers. So casual you ain’t even know it until it’s done. Dave’s definitely gonna start crying this time.
“Sorry for trying to make sense of my life by f-fucking”—his breath hitches, there’s the first tear—“fucking my Bro, who’s not even real! You know you’re not real, right?”
You nod. You inch up his thigh anyway.
“So here I am, with a fake Hope version of my dead brother, for which I’m also sorry. I’m sorry you hated me so much and I never knew why. I thought about it a whole lot, talked about it with everyone—sorry for that too—and the only conclusion was that I’m fucked up, and that’s why you hate me.”
Your breathing is heavy but controlled. You toy with his dick. You toy with him. You love being in control for once, having power over him, the inevitable; beware a puppet learning its strings.
“I’m sorry for knowing that if I start yelling at you for how fucked up you are and how you destroyed me, then you’ll get off on it even more than you’re getting off on it now!”
You get him hard. It’s not difficult. He finds pleasure in hating himself too.
“And I’m sorry for having so little self-esteem that I let you do this to me, only to—to—” Nice, he’s crying. “Only to love it!”
You’re going to finish in about thirty seconds if he keeps this up. No one said you were a good person.
“The most humiliating thing is that even though my entire life and hero’s journey is centered around you and the terrible, abusive, yes, abusive things you did to me through either neglect or an attempt at betterment—which you failed by all accounts—”
Here’s where you come all over Dave’s stomach. It feels good, and you’re not all that proud of it. Score.
“I’m playing second fiddle to your fucking puppet!”
Any post-orgasm bliss you were pointedly not acknowledging vanishes into the ether as Cal awakens at the mention of him. No laughter—you’re in the doghouse.
WHAT IS THIS. DISGUSTING BULLSHIT. PANTS ON. THIS ENDS NOW.
Your head goes blurry. Your hands hike your pants over your hips. The zipping startles you.
I EXPECTED MORE OF YOU. COMPLYING IN THE BETA MALE’S COMPLETION? CLEARLY I SHOULD’VE BEEN. A BETTER SUPERVISOR.
Man, you did not miss this.
YOU ARE A TODDLER, Cal informs you.
“You let him talk to you like that?” Dave asks.
AND HE WILL OBEY. IF HE KNOWS WHAT IS GOOD FOR HIM. ICE HIM.
“What—?”
Your hand reaches into the cup and retrieves a fistful of ice. Dave howls at the top of his lungs as you press it to his dick.
SHUT UP. PATHETIC SCUM, Cal booms. One thing about being dead is you forgot how much your head hurts when he yells.
“What does that even mean?!” Dave whimpers, struggling to squirm away from the cold.
YOUR HUMAN “PLAYTIME” IS OVER.
“Bro—Bro, it hurts—”
You know first-hand how uncomfortable it is to be on the precipice of orgasm only to be inched down.
“You’re hurting me—stop—”
You remove your hand, only to readjust. You fist his shaft slowly, dragging the ice up and down. You lie next to him, denying him what he wants, and he sobs. His body is warm yet he shivers. You shush him; it’s the only sound you can produce other than your pathetic exhale of a laugh. Back to gentle for him. Back to tender. Gotta show him—show—
“Stop, Bro, just stop,” Dave begs. “He’s not even real; he can’t control you. It’s just Hope, like you. Lemme come, please, I’m sorry.”
You shake your head. You can’t say no to Cal. He’s in your head. He raised you. He’s your best friend. He’s you.
You pet Dave some more as he trembles and sniffles into your neck. He no longer tries to get away, succumbed to his fate. It’s the worst thing you ever taught him.
Dave’s dick slowly softens, but it puts up a fair fight. “You don’t love me,” he informs you. “You only have room in your heart for that puppet.”
You press your lips to his feverish and sweaty forehead, something you never did before the Game.
“That’s not enough, Bro.”
You can be gentle the millionth time you break his heart.
“I love you,” he croaks. The melted water runs off his inner thighs. Some ends up in his belly button while the rest puddles beneath his hips. For all intents and purposes, it’s as if he wet the bed. “You ruined me for anyone else. The least you could do is reciprocate.”
Everything you did ended up being for nothing. The training, the neglect, Cal blasting your head at all hours of the day. You wanted to improve Dave into his best self, because even if he stole your life then you could make him independent and whole, something you weren’t fated to be. You love Dave despite him dooming you, but it’s the Dirk love: the dark, corrupted kind.
Cal was first. Cal was always first. In your head, your dreams, worming his way into your heart. You’re half of a whole but promised to a puppet. Dave will never understand that it’s far too late for you.
You tweak Dave’s nose, and his laugh is a shiver. His cock lies flaccid against his thigh as if he’d just come.
“I’m nauseous,” he apprises you, endeavoring to sit up for the umpteenth time. He kicks his feet in frustration, and they tangle hopelessly in the blankets. “Untie me.”
You swing your feet off the side of the bed and stand up, ready to unfasten him, when Cal purrs in your head.
“That was way too much cake,” he continues, heedless of the way you silently plead with Cal, who wants his idol worship too. “An orgasm might have made me digest faster, but nope. Not that I’m blaming you, even though I am. Do you know how morally difficult it is to sodomise the self when your biological sister is the Seer of Light? Where are you going?”
KITCHEN. NOW.
“No, is this a Cal thing? Pick me for once, Bro, pick me! I’m your little brother! That is a puppet! I am here and also a human person”—his voice trails after you as you flashstep to the kitchen—“and you’re gone.”
Cal untangles from your back and sits crisscross on the counter directly over the cutlery drawer. He grins at you, and you smile back weakly. Cal only allows you to touch Dave in ways he deems repulsive if you redeem yourself to him directly after in the perfect prayer.
At this point in the scene, Dave finds catharsis, bids you farewell, and vanishes into the night like an asshole, leaving Cal empty again.
You were pleased as punch when Dave revived you, and Cal was in your head like he’d never left. However…
A Knight of Time. If anyone understands self-sacrifice for the greater good, it’s Dave. You open the drawer. If he never learned, he shouldn’t have survived the Game.
The meat cleaver is heavy. Cal twines around you. Strange gods demand strange prayers. The chopping block is hauled out. This isn’t the first time, although when you were alive, Cal never made you go through with it; you needed your hands to repair him.
“Come back! I know you love me, Bro, OK? You’re my guardian. You had to, it was in your job description that Skaia nailed to your door like it was Martin Luther and you were the All Saints’ Church. 95 ways to parent. So what if you sucked? I was yours and you were supposed to love me. Not Cal, me. I’m literally lying here naked on the bed like an ectoincestuous wet dream, and—”
You place the towel next to the board.
“You don’t need the towel for puppet cleanup,” Dave laughs nervously, “but knowing you, you probably have fake blood packets in Cal for realism, so I get it—”
You didn’t know he could see you when he’s in the other room. That’ll make this more traumatizing.
“Do you love me?” Dave asks you.
You put your right hand on the block and spread your fingers. It leaves a wet stain.
YOU LOVE ME, says Cal.
Your left hand clutches his cloth body and brings him up your face. You kiss him on the mouth. You lick inside. Your grip crumples his shirt and he tastes of wood and plastic.
He doesn’t kiss you back, and you mush him closer in desperation. When you were alive, he’d make you dream that he was a giant green snake, and he’d open his maw and consume you slowly. You’d wake up with your screaming muffled into his mitt and aroused halfway to insanity—the squirming, panting, whining type. He’d mock you. He’d make you mutilate yourself. You love him, you nod. You love him.
You release Cal, breathless, and he hangs suspended in the air and watches. You pick up the cleaver.
Dave screams as you bring it down like he’s the one on the block.
You wish you could say the pain of losing a pinky was blinding and overwhelming and that it blocked out your senses for an indeterminable amount of time or some bullshit. You tried to slit your throat when you were alive and instead severed your vocal cords, and when Dave stitched you up, no more than nine years old, you hated him more than anything else. The sounds he made then were miserable, lowing like a barnyard animal.
You have felt much worse pain.
The towel is pressed to the stump as Cal plasters onto your back and curls his limbs around you.
Dave howls himself hoarse in the bedroom, begging for you to come back and untie him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He gasps and chokes like he did when he was a baby and you didn’t comfort him. You just let him cry.
He vomits and his sounds cease immediately.
You enter the bedroom. Dave gurgles, wrists chafed from yanking. The bed is covered in sick, and he’s choking on the remainder he didn’t spew.
If Dave dies in this nowhere space, will he die in real life too?
You sit next to him and stroke his face with your hand. Your blood smears and stains what blue frosting remains.
Dave’s eyes bulge and his face turns red. He kicks his feet and twists around. You strap his legs down. You sit and you watch and stroke his stomach. His struggles are the only sounds in the room. His entire body begs for you to free him, face turning blue.
You can be so, so gentle.
SEE. THIS IS MUCH BETTER, Cal says, floating above you.
Dave, panicking, is doing his best to hyperventilate, but his airway is blocked and he’s prone on his back.
THE BOY ISN’T TALKING ANYMORE. ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU WANTED, DIRK?
You bow your head. Your fingers trace bloody patterns on his chest. You draw a heart.
Dave retches, then vanishes. The room disappears along with him, along with your discarded hat and gloves, and is replaced with an enclosed gray blankness that throbs with your heartbeat. Cal drops lifeless next to you. You pick him up and bury your face in his plush stomach. You aren’t grieving. You just sit.
“Dave!” a disembodied girl’s voice shrieks. It comes from all around you, like a cinema without a screen. She fumbles, then says, “Jade, get Jane over here right now. He’s choking on his own vomit and—yes, he was in the—OK, I’m turning him onto his side, fingers in mouth—” Thumping. A wet rattle.
Dave’s heavy choking. A pop with two new female voices.
“Get the airway unblocked, if we need to, we’ll—”
“Jane, over here, quick, he’s—”
“OK—”
Dave regurgitates the rest of the contents of his stomach onto the floor. It’s followed by an identical splatter.
“Oh no, Jane, not you too...”
“He just upchucked blue cake, are we not going to talk about how he is bringing back things from there?”
“How do you know?”
“Please, do you think Dave’s eaten for the past month?”
Even though you’re not in the room, you feel a pressure in your ears, almost an inversion of space. Then: two new presences.
“Here, mate, drink this.”
Dave coughs again.
“Jake and Roxy here too, fantastic. Now we’re just missing John and the whole crew is back together.”
“John hasn’t left his house in months.”
“Neither did Dirky.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Shut up, Jake,” Jane says. “And stop looking like a kicked dog.”
“We have to destroy this space,” Rose says. “It’s killing him. When Terezi comes back, Jake and I will contact her. We were the ones to construct it, so we’ll dismantle it.”
“No!” Dave rasps.
“We don’t know if Terezi will ever come back,” says Jade. “We should do it now. I’ll help. Dave is important to me too, even though everyone seems to forget that.”
“None of you are listen—listening to me!”
Space inverts again twice. “Here’s a shirt and pants,” says Roxy. Another time. “And a towel.” And another. “Look, some wipes. Now they all match. Let’s just ignore the Heart aspect, OK?”
“We’ve all seen Dave without clothes,” Rose says wearily. “And are you referring those on the clothes, or the one smeared in blood on his chest?”
A rush of air. “Oh my—guys, what happened? Why’s Dave naked again, and—is that barf?”
“Heya, John.”
“Jake. Did he go into the dumb mind space you guys built for him again, even though we agreed he wouldn’t?”
“That… sums it up, chap.”
“John! You’re here!”
A sheepish chuckle. “Hi, Jane. Sorry, I was sleeping.”
“I need to go back!”
“Dave, put on some pants first.” Rose clears her throat. “We need to dismantle the space. Who knows what or who Dave will bring back next time.”
“Maybe I want to bring him back!”
“Dave...” Jade says. “All our guardians are dead except Jane’s. We agreed when we ended the game—by majority—that we wouldn’t revive them. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. I know you remember because you were part of the majority—”
“Citing it as afraid they’d come back ‘wrong,’” Rose interjects smoothly. “We collaborated for you to work through your issues because no one here is really a therapist, not even me, and you were affected the most by Dirk’s death.”
“Suicide,” John mutters. “It was suicide.”
“But you’re not even talking to Dirk,” Roxy weedles Dave. “You’re talking, or—uh, talking with heavy quotes—with your guardian—which is fine! No judgment! But you’re killing yourself, which is... not as fine. You’re always in there.”
“He’s not even real,” Dave says. “Why’s everyone looking at Jake?”
“Erm—Dirk had a tendency to splinter, and with my Hope, in the game, I—”
“He created another Dirk who lived in his head that gradually became realer,” Jane snaps. “What even happened to him?”
“I—I don’t quite remember—he, Brain Ghost Dirk! He gave me a dream boner once!”
“Really?” Jade asks.
“Ah, I love when we respect ectobiological boundaries,” Rose says.
“You spent years flirting with Dave over Pesterchum, you’re one to talk!”
“Well, who knows what you and John got up to on that ship for a sweep and a half.”
“Leave me out of this!”
“Everybody, shut up!” Roxy yells. “Let’s let Dave clean himself up, then get out. Leave him some dignity or something.”
“Do you think that’s the best idea?” Rose says.
“What’s the alternative? Creating a rotating sentry system?”
Rose clearly goes to argue, and reconsiders. “That’s… not a bad idea. I’ve been staying in the same house keeping an eye on him for who knows how long. I’d like to have the house to me and my wife again. Not that you’re intruding, Dave. No offense.”
“Great,” says John. “Dave, you’re coming with me.”
“Wait—” but the voices have already disappeared in a rush of wind.
“Dude, your house is a mess. There’s, like, piles of trash everywhere.”
“Yeah,” John says dryly. “I’m depressed. I’m sure you knew that, seeing as it’s what everyone talks about.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, man. The girls hold Socratic seminars over me fucking my older brother.”
“Consolation prize, I guess.”
Dave shuffles his feet. “Well, I don’t wanna impose or some shit. Do you have a room for me? Or are we sleeping on the same mattress? Two boys one bed, if you get my drift.”
“Unnecessary.” John snorts. “I have this whole empty house. You can take one of the extra rooms. Oh, not that one. That one was... That one was my dad’s.”
“...Sorry. I’ll just—”
“The extra bed sheets and pillowcases are in the closet. Night, Dave. If I hear you moaning because you went back into the nowhere space, I’m coming in and beating you up.”
You can hear Dave’s mouth open as he contemplates speaking, but he shuts it with a click. John closes the door behind him. Not the smartest move for a sentry, but hey, the kid’s a goober.
Fabric rustles as Dave makes his bed. He falls onto it and the springs creak. From his pained groan, some dig into his back. “This is your fault,” he says. “I don’t know how, but it is.”
Is he talking to you?
“This is addressed to Bro, by the way. You were supposed to be dead, but I bet you’re listening somehow. Just in case John hears me through the wall and thinks I’m talking to myself.” Quieter, he asks, “Why’d you try to kill me? Do you hate me that much, or just yourself?”
He knows the answer. You lie in the gray nothingness and entwine with Cal.
“Brain Ghost Bro,” Dave laments. “Dirk never stopped splintering. BGB. Why the hell not?”
As Dave falls asleep, you listen to his heartbeat. By sound alone, it’s unclear if he cries. You’ve never been able to tell.
