If you'd have to place bets on what was going to happen today, getting strangled by a puppet that you thought was buried in a ditch somewhere was not exactly on the list. Still, here you are, the fabric tangling itself around your neck proving far stronger than you'd thought possible. It's cotton, for fuck's sake. And it's more than two decades old by now.

Dirk's somewhere behind you, frozen in shock—you don't really blame the kid for that, you'd be freaking out too, only you're still being strangled by the thing and—

“REALLY THOUGHT YOU COULD JUST WALTZ UP IN HERE, HUH, SHITKID?”

Jesus fucking Christ did the puppet just talk. Your hands on the plush arm around your neck go slack in surprise for just a second, which is enough for the thing to tighten its grip. You can barely get out a “hrgk” before it's cutting off your air supply entirely. You back up into something—the wall, probably—but before you feel yourself hit the floor the pressure around your neck is relieved. You fall to the floor, one hand still grabbing the leg of the desk. Everything's a lot brighter suddenly—ah, your glasses. Breathing heavily, you can vaguely make out the dark silhouette of them against the floor. You grab for them, shoving them onto your face in a way you're sure Dirk would make a terribly dry comment about. The fact he doesn't, along with the various noises coming from just ahead of you, indicates that your kid is either about to do something very stupid, or that he's already doing it.

You rub at your temples, headache worsening by the second. You really, really need some answers.

⏴

Your name is DANTE STRIDER, and you're really hoping this guy will just let you in so you can do your job.

Well, it isn't your actual job, per se. It's more of a—charity thing, which is how Roseanne puts it when she's in a real snarky mood. Your actual job is making movies that no one understands, even if everyone in the scene likes to pretend they do because it makes them feel smart, or at least smarter than all those people who don't know how to appreciate real cinema released mostly through various channels on the internet. None of your films have been shown in theatres so far. You have vehemently opposed all offers to do so unless they switch to a randomly chosen movie starring Nicholas Cage in the exact middle of yours, citing your very specific artistic vision. This is bullshit, of course, but the fact that it is such obvious bullshit is just another layer of artistic obscurity added to your already enigmatic figure.

This is what you do to make sure the world doesn't end. It's more of a side hustle than anything else.

Still, it's easier to do that when you actually have some idea of what's going on—in this case, why the hell there's a huge knot in the timeline for this specific building. It's grinding at your brain like sandpaper.

“You're sure this is the place?” Dirk asks behind you, voice laced with just a hint of exasperation. Having to go up the stairs must have tired him out.

“The place is gonna give me a migraine if we stay here any longer, so, yeah, I'm pretty sure this is it,” you say, rubbing at your forehead.

Sighing, you prepare to knock on the door again.

Just as you're about to, though, it opens, revealing a stout, well-built man, hair bleached blond—though it's been a while since he touched it up; you can make out the roots even through shit eyesight and shades. His nose is broken, and there's a scar running right above the bridge of it. His eyes are either a very light shade of brown or, more likely considering the circumstances, a bright shade of yellow-orange. You can't really tell through your shades. Focusing closer, there's a few other scars littered haphazardly on his face—what you initially thought was a sneer seems instead to be scar tissue slightly pulling at his mouth. His outfit is the very definition of depression chic: a loose-hanging t-shirt and sweatpants. No socks, either, you notice—this is either not a man about to leave the apartment, or he's been walking on coals, Houston-style. Turning back to his face, his expression is hard to place, but it certainly isn't surprise, with his eyebrows furrowed like that. More like concern, maybe? You consider asking Dirk when you've maneuvered your way inside.

Dirk, for his part, isn't saying anything; this isn't unusual for him. You're used to him taking a back seat when you go out to work cases like this; the people you work for, and with, rarely appreciate getting scolded for playing around with the fabric of reality by a pre-teen. Still, there's a reason you bring him along; it's easier to go straight to the problem with Dirk covering what you might have missed than it is trying to get through all the proper channels to bring Roseanne or someone else in the Harleys' employ along for the ride. You shudder at the thought. The case report preamble alone...

So yes, maybe you do bring Dirk along with you as your seeing-eye kid. Really, he's getting valuable life experience out of it; as long as you keep him out of too much trouble, it should be fine.

Before you can get to asking him about the vibes, though, you need to actually pass this first obstacle. You clear your throat, about to speak, but you pause when you see that the man is looking straight past you, eyes locked on Dirk like he's just seen a ghost. That's... notable. At the noise, he looks back at you, but it's clear his mind is elsewhere. The silence emanating from Dirk behind you grows just a bit tenser.

Still, you don your best disarming smile.

“Hiya, Dante Strider at your service.”

The guy grunts at your introduction. Not the best reaction you've had, but it's not the worst, either. You keep going.

“I bet you're wondering why the hell this douche,” you point at yourself with a thumb, “is knockin' on your door like he's some kind of door to door salesman tryin' for employee of the month—but believe it or not, I'm not trying to sell you anything at all.”

You shrug, shaking your head as if the mere idea of you trying to get anyone to buy anything is the single most ridiculous idea you've ever heard.

“Nope,” you pop the p for emphasis, “there's been something going down here. And I'm here to fix it for ya.”

No reaction. You continue.

“I'm guessing there's been a couple weird things going on here in the past,” you make a rolling gesture with your wrist, trying to imply the vague idea of time loops really make it hard to tell how long anything's taking, am I right? without actually saying anything like that, “couple hours? Maybe days?”

You know it has to be. It's been making your head spin for the past twenty minutes.

⏪

“It's a big one,” you say, gripping the railing and hissing through your teeth. The noise is building in the back of your head like pinpricks.

“That bad?” Dirk says behind you. He stops for a moment, apparently lost in thought, but doesn't say anything more. You're still only a couple floors up the building, but you can already make out the fraying parts of the threads from where you're standing. It's like a knot in a ball of yarn that's been knitted into a sweater: it looks fine until you start actually wearing it, and then it manages to get right into the joint of your elbow when you rest it on the table and you know that was Rose's first sweater and it's not like you're going to stop wearing it, it just kind of sucks ass. Because it was knitted by an eleven-year-old.

Anyway. That's what it feels like. A weird knot really grinding its way into your funny bone. Except your funny bone here is your brain, and the knot is a time anomaly that you really just want to get to the center of and fix so you can go home.

“Do we really have to take the stairs?” Dirk says, after a minute, and you can hear the way he's trying not to sound whiny about it. “Couldn't we just take the elevator and narrow it down based on where it gets worse?”

“Come on, kid,” you say, making your way up to the next landing before turning around and pointing down at him, “no one ever got good at supernatural shit without training.”

You're pretty sure if looks could kill, you would have been dead ten times over by now. Luckily for you, you're too near-sighted to make out the utter disdain on your kid's face. Plus he has shades on. Lessens the effect by at least 50%.

Still, he doesn't groan about it, just climbs up the stairs to where you're still waiting for him.

“Is this it?” he asks, looking around. You aren't on an actual floor with apartments on it, just an in-between leading up to the next floor.

“Nah, there's at least three—four more floors before we get there,” you say, ignoring the squawk he lets out, even if it is very funny. You smirk down at him, ruffling his hair. “I'd say race me, but we both know I'd cheat.”

He glowers at you, smoothing out his hair again. You grin, bracing yourself for the headache that's on the way.

⏩

Anyway. Back to where you're standing, trying to get into the damn place that's making your hair stand on end.

You lean in just a bit, hands still in your pockets, and try for that good ol' conspiratorial huddle. Even then, the man does not react in any visible way. In fact, it seems like he's deliberately avoiding making any movements at all, still as a statue.

“Maybe some things that you can't explain? Or at least, not without sounding completely out of your mind,” you continue, and that does get a reaction from the man—an almost derisive snort.

“Could say that,” he says. There's something you're not getting, but by the tone of his voice, he doesn't expect you to, either.

Instead of clarifying, he just turns around and goes into the apartment. He leaves the door open behind him, though, which must count for something—you turn back to Dirk, who raises an eyebrow at you, and you shrug, nodding at the open door. He grimaces, but it's not like you're going to get anywhere with this without actually going in, so you shrug and go into the apartment.

It is—

The first thing that comes into your mind is a mess. The vague shapes of a heap of clothes on the sofa—bed, maybe—on the far end, a desk piled high in brightly-colored cans, walls covered in—posters, you guess, along with some kinds of memorabilia? It's obvious that it's been a while since anyone here has had guests, or at least ones that weren't already used to this state of things. There's—a turntable, you figure, up against one wall, cords trailing across the floor to some kind of mixer beside the opposite wall. Close to the door, right by where you're standing, there's a counter. It's not quite piled high with dishes, but it hasn't been cleared in a while.

The next thing is bachelor pad. There's a kitchen, yes, but no place to actually sit down and eat other than the desk and the bed-sofa. Scratch that, there's another chair resting up against the mixer. Still, there isn't a table or anything. It's not a studio apartment, though—you can make out two doors opposite each other, probably leading to a bathroom and bedroom, respectively. The man who opened the door for you is leaning against one of the counters in the kitchen area, drumming his fingers against the surface. It's a one-two-three, slightly off in tempo.

The third thing, the one that takes about a second more to register, is holy shit is that a shuriken stuck in the wall. It stops you in your track for a moment as you try to pry it out from where it's lodged itself right beside the doorway, leading Dirk to poke you in the back before you move aside, pointedly gesturing at the weapon lodged into the wall. He looks up at it, then back at you, then behind you at where the guy's still tapping out his waltz. Dirk grimaces again, looking past you.

“There's swords on the walls,” he whispers, obviously trying to keep it low enough that the man won't hear.

“Come on, kid, you have shitty mall katanas on your walls,” you whisper back.

“Yeah, as an ironic statement on how the masculine ideal is a shitty antiquated pastiche of an imagined better past,” he hisses, somehow managing to break out a thesis statement in less than five seconds, “not as a thirty-year-old man who lives alone—”

“Come on. Let's just do this, alright?”

He huffs, but quiets down.

It's a small place—you're pretty sure you've seen most of it once you walk in, unless the bedroom or bathroom lead further into some odd labyrinthine construction that couldn't possibly fit inside this apartment complex. It's happened before.

You pause before you get any further, though.

There's something moving on the sofa-bed thing—you can't really make it out, but you hear Dirk breathe in sharply behind you. He tugs at your jacket about something, but when you look back at him, he pauses.

“That—nevermind.”

Whatever it is, he doesn't elaborate, so you turn back to the thing on the sofa. It's closer to a someone than a something, you realize, when you see the faint outline of the figure on the sofa turning to face you. They've got blonde hair, whoever it is—not the same bleached tone as the man, though. More of a yellow. Skin's paler than the man by a fair few shades, almost blending in to the white of the sofa. Wearing sunglasses too, by the looks of it. That seems—distinctive, to say the least. Might not be quite the same kind of albinism as you, but still, it's a point of relatability—you're going to need that.

“Hey,” you say, throwing up a hand for whoever's on the sofa—seems like a kid, considering the relative height, “just checking in. Freaky shit going on here, right?”

There's a mumble from the sofa, though you don't quite make it out from where you're still standing by the door. You make your way into the apartment proper, Dirk trailing behind you. He's obviously nervous about something—he keeps tapping his hand against his leg, a slight constant sound behind you, though you doubt he's aware of it.

“Yeah,” you hear from the sofa, “shit's been gettin' real weird.”

Teenage boy, you're guessing from the tone.

“Good thing I'm here to sort it out, then,” you say, trying to get things a little bit lighter, “dunno how much you heard about what I was sayin' earlier to your...”

You glance over to the man still leaning against the kitchen counter, but he offers nothing up. Shit. Might be a bit of a complicated situation there. You clear your throat.

“...Dad?” you end up saying for lack of response, which is clearly not the right conclusion: the kid starts coughing like he's got something in his throat. For some reason Dirk breathes in sharply through his teeth behind you, too. You really need to get an aside with him, you think. There's something going on—something he needs to tell you. Just not in front of these two.

The kid in the sofa clears his throat, clearly trying to cover up the tail end of the coughing fit.

“Nah,” he says, “that's my Bro.”

Yeah, okay, like that explains the reaction. Still, it's not like you can throw stones, what with the glass mansion complete with elaborate glass garden you've built regarding your own family issues.

“Okay, hi,” you say, making your way into the apartment proper—there really aren't a lot of places to sit, though, so you end up leaning against the desk across from the sofa like some kind of youth counsellor trying to get hip with the kids.

“I'm Dante Strider,” you try to smile as disarmingly as possible, “here to fix up all the funky time shit going on 'round here.”

The kid doesn't move an inch from where he's lounged over the sofa, head resting on his hands. It's deeply unsettling.

“'Sup. Dave.” He flicks you a lazy salute, then turns to look back to where his Bro's still leaning against the counter. How does he not get sore from that? You're already debating with yourself whether you just give up and take the gamer chair already, but you somehow don't think someone with swords on his walls would take kindly to a stranger seating himself in his throne, even if the swords are decorative. Somewhere back by the door, Dirk makes some kind of strangled noise, but he covers it up quickly by clearing his throat.

“Thank fuck you're here, man,” Dave says, “shit's been going off the rails. Was starting to think we'd get stuck in this apartment forever.”

His voice is tense, even as he tries to sound relaxed. Then again, it's not exactly a nice situation to be in—you get if the kid's a bit on edge.

You grin. It's the somewhat smug one that makes you look like a scammer—at least according to Dirk. Cracking your knuckles and rolling your shoulders, you stand up a bit from where you've been leaning.

“Alright, let me get started.”

You close your eyes, breathe in deeply. You've never really been into the whole meditation thing, no matter how much Roseanne's bugged you about it, but for what it's worth, it has helped you a lot with getting in to the mindset you need to shift your perception. Somewhere at the tip of your mind you feel the frayed strands of time running through you and into each other, weaving themselves into a singular fabric that encompasses you wholly—the delicate touch of it against your skin sends shivers down every nerve in your body, and the second before it starts to tighten around your throat you open your eyes again.

The apartment is...

Well. It's one thing to feel it thunking away at your mind constantly. It's a whole other thing entirely to see it like this.

If you thought the place was a mess before you started doing your thing, this makes it look pristine in comparison. Every inch that you lay your eyes on is covered with red string-film, looped in around and through itself like someone let a cat into a room just absolutely filled to the brim with yarn. There's strands going back and forth so many times you can barely even see how many edits have been made, knots that you don't even want to think about straightening out—you barely know where to start with it. Weirdly enough, you can't really spot the beginning part of the loop—even going through the patterns gets you so bogged down in the details that it's hard to follow where it's supposed to have been twisted up.

Still, there's some parts here and there that you take note of—mostly the weird tangle surrounding Dave. Probably the origin point, then, you're guessing—not too much of a surprise, there, considering the whole weird powers starting to set in when you're a teen theme you've noticed with cases like these.

The man, too, has some very odd strings surrounding him—if anything, there's more frayed ends sticking out from his tangle than with Dave, which... you don't like the implications of, to say the least.

In any case, you need to make sure you actually stay in the loop, so you set to work weaving your presence here into the web right after where it starts—around 9 in the morning, you think, by the warmth of the silky trail—and wince when you run back into the rough cut of this morning from outside. You silently apologize to you from a few hours ago—technically later today, you remember with a grimace—for not coming in and telling him about what the deal is going to be, but he'll figure it out. You're proof of that.

Once you've made sure that both you and Dirk will start out here, too, you do another quick runover of what might need to happen here. There's a fair few knots that'll need either loosening or cutting entirely—depends on how well the kid can manage to fix it himself, you suppose. There's a fair few tangles around Dave along with his Bro, and some of those are leading off into corners of the apartment you haven't really taken a good look at. You pause, because a few of those are leading back into the corner under the desk—when you follow them, kneeling down to look under the table, you come face to face with a small figure. It's almost entirely wrapped in the red string, except for two eyes peeking out through.

The red tinge of the world in this state means it takes a moment for you to realize why you feel like you're seeing a ghost.

They're bright orange.

Glass irises in a shade you thought you would never see again except in your nightmares stare at nothing, unfocused, and you blink. Red strings fade away into nothing as you're shocked back into your body, feel time start flowing again.

You take it in, the puppet unmistakably the same as the one that's carved a deep hollow in your mind.

A decade and a half has worn the thing down, though, colors of the fabric faded from the ones still vivid in your memory. It seems so much smaller, hunched over in the corner, folded into itself. It seems almost... melancholy.

Then its head moves, eyes zeroing in to stare straight at you, and it starts cackling.

⏵

Looking around you from where you've collapsed against the floor, you don't quite register what's happened before there's another loud thump, this time from across the apartment. Focusing your vision as best you can, you realize the vague shape of the man is no longer leaning against the counter, but rather hunched over on the floor—probably an almost perfect mirror to where you yourself are sitting, catching your breath.

Before you can make anything of it, though, the scuffle happening right in front of you soon catches your attention again, as you spot the figure of Dirk struggling with the puppet now in his grasp. He's doing his—well, you've never understood exactly what it is he does, but it leaves you with the distinct image of about three or four different Dirks overlaid on each other, each with their own flickering image of the puppet in hand, before they snap back into one again. The puppet, now limp in his hands, does not move, though you suspect it's more of a sign of surrender than anything else.

Dave, on his part, has stood up from the sofa, clearly panicked.

“Jesus fucking Christ, man,” he says, words pouring out in a torrent you can't quite keep up with as he moves over to where Dirk's standing, “what the fuck was that? That's—that's weird, right? Is that supposed to happen? Come on, you weird puppet piece of shit—Bro, who the fuck is this guy? Dante Strider?”

The last part seems to be aimed at the man now on his hands and knees in the kitchen area, breathing loudly enough that you can make out the shakiness in every exhale. Dirk, too, seems unsteady on his feet, still holding onto the puppet at an arm's length.

“Come on, dude, just—” Dave says, a grimace in his voice as he gestures at the thing, “let go of him. It. It's fine, he isn't gonna do anything. Probably.”

Dirk takes a second to register the words directed at him, but lets the thing flop onto the floor without a word. You stand up, supporting yourself against the wall, and Dirk hurries over to you. Hunching over to meet him at eye level, you put your hands on his shoulders to steady him. He isn't used to using his powers, much less on this level—he's probably going to crash. Still, he soldiers on—whatever he has to tell you, it's serious.

“He—” Dirk gestures back at where the man's still sitting, “you know him, right?”

You look over. It doesn't help you a lot, considering your dogshit eyesight, but it gives you an excuse not to have to see the way your kid's practically working his way into a panic attack again. The man is whispering something, but you can't make it out from where you're standing.

“Or—I don't know—he knows you,” Dirk continues, clearly picking up on your skepticism.

You have a very bad feeling about this, but you really, really don't want to have to think about it. Your eyes flicker over to the puppet still lying on the floor. Dave's standing over it, back to you as he looks back and forth between the puppet and the man now crouched on the kitchen floor.

You don't know that the puppet is here because that man is your brother. Maybe he abandoned it to haunt someone else, an unfortunate idiot who was taken in by some strange promise of escape by way of violence.

The puppet turns to face you, too, bright yellow-orange meeting red, and you quickly turn your gaze away from it. That thing is never going to stop giving you the heebie-jeebies. Dirk starts talking as you turn your attention back to him, voice low and frantic.

“Listen,” he hisses out, whispering, “I tried to tell you earlier, but it was in the middle of something and you didn't—”

You hold your hands up, trying to get him to slow down.

“It's fine,” you say, “just breathe for me, alright? In through the nose and out through the mouth.”

You get him to follow your breaths, hands on his shoulders. It starts out shaky, exhales stuttering, but he gets there eventually.

“I tried to tell you,” he repeats, “I didn't think it was anything important first. Just a weird coincidence.”

This gets your attention. He must notice the sharpness in your stance, because he tenses up too.

“The nameplate. On the door. D. Strider.”

You cringe. You really were naïve to hope for it to be someone else, if even for a second. Whatever hope you had, it's been rapidly worn down in the past five minutes.

It does explain—a lot, if not everything. Why the man—your brother—didn't bother giving you his name. Why he's been so—stand-offish, cautious, whatever you want to call it—why he's been like that. It sure as hell explains why the puppet is here. You groan, rubbing your hands against your eyebrows for any kind of relief from the massive conceptual headache coming on on top of the one already consuming half of your mind.

If you knew you'd be dealing with family matters today, you doubt you would have made it out of the bed. But here you are. You've integrated yourself into the loop now; you're not leaving until it's been solved.

There's a thunk above you, and you turn to see a—

Had it not been for the circle you've just had to square, you might have had more energy in you to be surprised. Confused, maybe. As is, you've just had about ten seconds to deal with the fact that you're going to have to talk to your brother who you haven't seen in 16 years. Maybe no one can blame you for the blankness washing over your mind as you watch a black-white-and-red figure hover down from a now-open latch in the ceiling.

Its face is hidden by the hand covering it, and as it starts gesturing you let out a bark of laughter that's entirely involuntary. It's wearing twin triangle shades, because of fucking course it is. Why the fuck would it not be. Its voice is weirdly scrubbed, like someone took the man's—your brother's voice and painstakenly extracted every hint of a drawl. Oddly unstable, too, like someone took the pitch controller on a keyboard and tried to break it.

“I swear to God, Dirk, I take my eyes off you for a moment and you're already trying to—”

The thing stops in its tracks, head swerving from where it's been facing your brother and over to you, the red lights in its shades blinking off for a moment before flickering on again, now fully focused on you. Dirk, too, turns to you, but he doesn't say anything.

“Should've seen that coming,” the—robot? hologram?—says, whistling low. “That's the other guy, right?”

“Guess the whole bein' a robot thing didn't make ya any smarter'n me,” Derek Fucking Strider says from where he's still half-lying on the kitchen floor, “that ain't anyone you know. Kid's his, too.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that,” the robot starts, “obviously the—”

It stops itself in the middle of the sentence, only just seeming to notice Dirk. Dirk, on his end, raises a hand in a small wave. He's taking all this remarkably well, you think, but then again, there's not exactly been a lot of breathing room for any of you to really freak out in. The robot, on the other hand...

“Motherfucker.” Its voice takes on a robotic hiss at the tail end of the word, distortion and noise garbling the last syllable beyond recognition. “That isn't—?”

It points at you, but cuts itself off again before finishing the question. Apparently this is still enough for your brother to get the whole message, because he shakes his head. Dave, still standing over the limp puppet, mumbles something under his breath.

“Wait, who exactly is it that I'm not?” you say, because you can't help yourself. Shit's getting real off-script and no one's giving you prompts to bounce off of. Might as well try to grab the reins a little.

You let the kid comment pass—you're guessing he's just surprised you've managed any kind of relationship for long enough. You're surprised, too, because Dave seems older than Dirk, and you stop that train of thought immediately because you do not want to think about how your younger brother would have ended up alone in an apartment with a kid that's older than yours by at least a few years. And him calling Derek his bro, too.

“None of your business,” the man you're sure is your brother says, having managed to stand up from where he's been seated on the floor for a good while now. He pauses for a moment, locking eyes with you from across the apartment. You're still halfway on your knees, hand on your kid's shoulder, and you freeze. Your jaw tenses.

He crosses the space between you in a few strides, moving right past Dave, who lets out a squawk as he steps out of the way. Still, your brother doesn't stop in front of you like you expect him to, instead going past you and grabbing something from off the desk. He fiddles with whatever it is, and you see as he puts them on that it's a pair of angular shades, not unlike those you gave your kid a while back. Dave, on his part, seems to have pulled back, hands in his pockets. He keeps shifting his weight nervously.

Your brother turns to you, face impassive.

“Kid's yours,” he says, gesturing to Dave. Then here's a thunk, and where he'd been standing just a second before there is little else than empty space and Dave, his mouth open in a protest that did not get out before his “Bro” did. Fucking hell. You didn't even know you could flashstep without using bullshit time powers.

You're left wondering what the fuck that all was about, replaying the scene that just played out, and the second thing that runs across your mind is that, shit, if Dave's your kid, who...

Ah, you think, looking closer at Dave, whose face has turned stone again. His hair's wound in semi-tight curls, bridge of his nose lower than yours at his age. Stealing a glance at Dirk, you're getting increasingly suspicious of where he's got that from. When you get out of here, you have a lot of questions for Roux.

For now, though, you're sure that Dave has a lot more questions for you. He seems a lot less preoccupied with figuring you out than he is swearing out his—guardian, your mind supplies, because you somehow doubt your brother's ever actually broached the subject. At least, not in any way that actually cleared anything up, considering how Dave reacted when you implied your brother was his dad. Speaking of things needing to be cleared up, the robot seems to have disappeared as well. You were really hoping to get some answers out of that guy. Must have taken the puppet with it, too. It's just you, Dirk still standing by your side, and Dave.

“Okay, yeah, sure, great going, you fucker, just leave a guy to try and figure out what the hell's going on—” the kid mumbles under his breath, before turning towards you.

“So you're my dad, right?” he says, tone just on the manic side of totally monotone. “How do you and Bro know each other? Is he your ex you've punted your kid off to or something? Okay, shit, stop making that face, I was making a joke, dude—”

You feel some mixture of disbelief and revulsion settle on your face at the thought. You try to reel it back, but you don't manage to exorcise it entirely before Dave notices.

“So not that, judging by your reaction,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, no, abso-fucking-lutely not,” you say, “he's my brother.”

The kid goes entirely rigid. Then, as if he doesn't even realize it, he lets out a bark of laughter.

Beside you, Dirk swears.

“Has he always been like that?” Dave says, a strange manic grimace working its way onto his face.

“Like what?”

“Distant to the point of being a spot on the fucking horizon when trying to talk about anything deeper than the combo mechanics for Street Fighter, for starters,” he replies, glancing back over his shoulder at a latch in the ceiling. That must be where he ran off to.

You sigh. Figures he wouldn't exactly be an outstanding parental figure.

“Yeah, it's always been pretty bad,” you say, sitting down in your brother's gamer chair. You're willing to bet he hasn't gotten any better in the past decade and a half, either. You hear the chair squeak under you, and another moment passes before you realize this is actually a pretty shitty chair. At the very least, it's deeply uncomfortable to anyone who isn't the guy who's been using it this whole time.

Dave seems to startle at that, but he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he just goes over to the sofa, sitting cross-legged in it for good measure. Dirk looks between the two of you, and you nod over at the sofa. He shouldn't be having to stand up while you're having the most awkward conversation this side of the country. Your kid sits down next to Dave, who you guess is also your kid, actually.

“So. You're my dad.”

It's a great monotone the kid's got, you'll give him that. Doesn't even trail off at the end to imply a sentence left unfinished on purpose, or even a questioning tone to coax more out of you. Pure and plain statement of fact.

“Yeah.”

Riveting conversation. You really don't know how this could get any better. You start twiddling your thumbs, because what fucking else are you supposed to do. Christ. You are a parody of yourself.

Looking over at Dirk past Dave, who isn't even looking at you, you catch your kid bouncing his leg like he's trying to keep quiet. You guess you understand why, but it's also a bit—wait fuck he totally hasn't actually said hi to Dave has he.

“Shit, you didn't get introduced, right? This is—”

You gesture at Dirk, but he interrupts you before you can do the honors. He's strangely jumpy about it, which you guess is fair, considering he's meeting... well. Family. Around his age, too.

“Dirk. You—you might know me as timeausTestified, though.”

He mumbles the last bit quickly after a windup, like an embarrassing secret you have to get out before you lose your nerve.

“Wait,” Dave says, “you're Rose's cousin? From the server?”

You look between them, the genuine surprise on Dave's face the most of a reaction you've seen from him so far. Past your initial bout of speechlessness, you still can't find anything to say. The kids already know each other. Jesus fucking Christ. Just your luck to have been a single talk with your kid about internet safety to realize your brother's been raising a kid this whole time. You know Dirk's got a good handful of friends online, but you've never pried about it—shit, wouldn't it be fucking hilarious if he knew old man Harley's grandkids? And by funny you mean fucking terrifying. You dismiss the thought with a shudder. You can't jinx yourself like that.

Dirk seems to barely be able to speak, and just nods instead. Dave, on his part, seems to barrel onwards. It's frankly admirable, the way he just steamrolls into until-now undiscovered territories of awkwardness.

“Fuck, no, you're my, like, actual brother, not Rose's cousin—shit, does this mean I'm her cousin too? She's your cousin on your mom's side, right? Is our—” he looks at you for a moment, and you really do not get paid enough to witness kids having familial crises in real time, “do we have the same mom?”

Hell. You don't get paid enough to have familial crises. The question takes you another moment, but in the end you can't find a faster way out. You shrug.

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

It's hard, watching a kid go through about ten different kinds of emotional turmoil at the same time. It's hard, but considering the amount of parents in the world, you're sure someone out there understands. Doesn't make it any better seeing it happen in real time. And with your own kid, too. Fuck. A thought passes through your mind—couldn't your brother lie to you about something like this?—but you dismiss it, because you can't find a reason that he'd keep a kid of his own in the first place. If he's been raising the kid for the past fifteen years or so, he would punt the kid back on you as soon as you showed up.

Fuck, you think, Derek raised your kid. How old was he when—when whatever happened happened? How—why did Roux come to him first? Why didn't he—

Well. You know perfectly well why he wouldn't tell you.

Whatever your face is showing of your thoughts, Dave doesn't notice.

“She—” he seems to remember something, and puts a lid on the excitement that seems to have been about to bubble over for the past few revelations. “She's okay, right? Heard some stuff about her from Dirk.”

You clear your throat.

“Yeah, she's fine,” you think, for a moment, whether he'd know any more about your extended family, and decide to take the risk. “She's staying with Roseanne right now. Sorry, where's the bathroom? I know this is like, a huge emotional moment or whatever, but I am still kind of a guy with a digestive system, so.”

Dave shuts his mouth like it's a mousetrap and points over at one of the doors. As you make your way towards it, you sneak a glance back at the kids. There's a moment where Dave slumps over, but then he turns to face Dirk, and whatever he starts talking about is muffled as you shut the door behind you. You feel a bit bad for leaving the kid in the middle of that, but you're not having a great time either.

The bathroom is tiny. You splash your face with water from the sink and try not to think too hard about everything. You already have a time migraine. You really don't need to be giving yourself a regular one on top of that, even if you're going to have to talk to Dave about everything at some point.

You rummage through the cabinet, figuring that if you know your brother, he'd probably keep well-stocked on painkillers. His headaches have always been bad. It takes you little time to find some Ibuprofen, and you shake out two pills into your palm. It's not the best, but it'll do.

You almost swallow them dry, but the image of Rose lecturing Dirk on the dangers of taking medication without water bubbles up unbidden, so you let yourself suffer the indignity of drinking right from the sink. You wipe your mouth with your sleeve, the shitty aftertaste only just mitigated by the water.

When you get out, Dave and Dirk are in the middle of something on the floor by the sofa; you hear rummaging around and Dave rambling about each of the games he pulls out, pausing whenever Dirk speaks up. Eventually, it seems that he comes across something your kid hasn't seen before, and he immediately springs on the chance.

“Shit, dude, you don't know Bubsy? That shit's classic. High fucking art. Come on, you're gonna love this.”

He pauses as he spots you over the sofa. Dirk, too, looks back over at you.

“Hey,” Dave says, “just checking in, you aren't gonna put me in time jail or, like, time juvie or something, right? Dirk was telling me you weren't, but I don't think I can trust a guy who's best friends with the most vicious pranksters on planet Earth.”

Dirk lets out a Hey at that, but you get where Dave's coming from. It would be kind of weird to have some adult you've never met before waltz up to your loop and instantly recognize the situation you're stuck in. You'd've thought you were in trouble too.

“Nah, I'm just here to sort shit out. I'm gonna have some questions for you, but I gotta scope stuff out first, so you shouldn't worry about having to do anything yet. Just leave all the prelim stuff to me.”

“Told you so,” Dirk says from where he's seated on the sofa.

You really hope that painkiller's going to start working soon. It's not that what you said isn't true, it's just a bit more lenient than you'd usually be—it doesn't help matters if the kid's any more worked up than he already is. Putting the kettle over, you let your mind drift. You're lucky the puppet's nowhere to be found; considering what it was like, you can't imagine the loop's been great, either. You really are lucky the thing never talked before. The robot, too, is strange—your brother's powers, whatever they are, must be tangled up in the loop. Whatever your brother may be capable of, you don't believe he'd be able to actually create a seemingly-sentient android.

Couldn't he? Thinking over it again, you're actually not that sure.

You start rummaging around in the cupboards, trying to find anything you can put into your mug of warm water. There doesn't seem to be anything, not even the customary old-ass box of tea that's probably got more spiderwebs in it than actual tea.

“Does Di—De—does your Bro have any coffee or something?” you half-yell over the apartment, hoping against hope.

“There should be a couple of Red Bulls in the fridge,” Dave says from where he and Dirk are gaming.

You grimace.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” you say, sighing.

“There should be instant coffee in the back of the last cupboard on the left,” a voice says from behind you, pitch entirely too digital to be human, and you almost jump out of your skin at it.

“Jesus fucking hell man,” you hiss out as you turn to face it, “warn a guy, wouldya?”

“Not my fault you weren't paying attention,” it says, shrugging. It's standing right under the latch—or, rather, it's floating right under the latch, legs crossed as it sits on thin air.

“Kind of hard to pay attention to something you aren't expecting to be there,” you say, putting down the mug on the counter.

It looks back up at the latch in the ceiling—the way in to some kind of attic, you assume, or at least some storage space.

“You can say that again,” it says, letting out a strange mechanical sigh. “There's... We need to talk.”

“Hold on,” you say, “what's your name?”

The robot blinks, as if it wasn't expecting you to actually acknowledge it before going straight into the serious business.

“That's Hal,” Dave answers for him from over on the sofa, “he's kind of Bro's... brain buddy? Something like that. Showed up during the loop.”

“Kid's about right,” Hal shrugs. “We've met before, but it doesn't hurt to get a proper introduction. I'm not sure I actually had a name when we talked.”

You raise an eyebrow at him, since you're sure that if you met an actual robot you would have remembered it. Hal, seeing your expression, rolls his eyes.

“Okay, meet might be a strong word. More like I was vaguely aware of interacting with you,” he says, crossing his arms. “And I'm guessing you didn't really know what was going on.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me for not noticing,” you say, “my brother wasn't exactly talkin' to me about jack nor shit.”

“Not like he was understanding it either,” Hal snipes back, and then lets out a sigh of frustration. “Fucking hell, of course he leaves me to defend himself when he can't be bothered to deal with the problems he's created. Asshole.”

“Listen, it's fine, alright? Just sayin'. As far as I know, this is the first time we've met. If you say we have, sure.”

“Obviously we haven't met physically,” he says, “only reason I’m here, actual body and all that, is because of whatever weird shit’s been happening.”

He shoots you a critical glance.

“Guessing you’ve got a lot more experience with that than any of the rest of us.”

You shrug.

“I dabble.”

“It's going to take a lot more than dabbling to solve this whole mess,” he says, looking back at the latch again.

Yeah, you think bitterly, you really should have seem this coming.

⏪

You wake up.

There's something wrong. It's a feeling in the back of your teeth, back of your brainstem.

You grumble, but let it stay for now. If it's anything you'll have to figure out, either you'll come back to tell yourself about it, or you'll find out eventually. The morning is spent halfway on edge, your cereal left in the sink as you find yourself unable to finish it. Dirk, who gets up at 7 A.M. sharp, is already tinkering away at something in his room—you can hear him going through his scrap metal box.

Turning on the TV, you distantly hear the reports of a crash on the highway between Houston and Dallas.

The car, which some eyewitnesses report as having appeared out of nowhere, was apparently empty at the time of the crash. Around a dozen people have been injured, and police are currently trying to find the owner of the reportedly-empty car.

Something in the back of your mouth clicks. It's in the shape of a crashed car with no one that could have driven it to where it ended up. You taste the sunset gold of 9 p.m. on a thing that appeared at 9 a.m. in the morning.

“Dirk,” you say, “how about a trip to Houston?”

⏵

Once you arrive at the building, the sun now high in the sky, you nod at Dirk.

“Come on,” you say, putting your hand on his shoulder.

“Really?” he asks, indignant. “Do we have to?”

You put on your best begging face.

“Only if there's a good reason to,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Well, first of all we don't know when the,” you pause for a second, trying to sort out what kind of anomaly this is, “loop actually starts, so what if we come in and there's already a million things gone wrong that we can't fix? It's a time problem, I'm not just doing this because I want to.”

You do also kind of want to, though.

He sighs, and resigns himself to his fate of being whipped back in time around five hours. The world moves in reverse around the two of you, and soon enough you're standing in front of the same building, the sun a few notches back in the sky from a moment ago.

Technically speaking, you've already been here the whole time. It's your own private way of teleportation. You have always been a bit envious of old lady Harley, and while you can't actually instantly be anywhere in the world you could ever want to, you can at least pretend the travel time didn't happen in the first place. Time travel does not lessen travel time when you're the one having to drive the car, which you found out very early on and to disastrous consequences. You still miss that car; it got towed too soon for you to fix it yourself.

Still, you're not going to cry over potentially un-spilt milk. Dirk, taking a step back and steadying himself, shakes his head, probably trying to offset the dizziness that allegedly comes with the maneuvre. While you have done a good deal of jobs with him, you still try to keep the time travel with other people to a minimum, or at least contained to closed loops that are easy to resolve. You really don't need anyone to start making paradoxes—luckily, you didn't see any other Dirks or Dantes when you got here, so you're guessing you're going to be fine on that front.

⏩

As you're mulling over your conversation with Hal, still sitting against the desk, a sudden chill runs through you. It's the only thing that warns you before there's a thunk and your brother appears in the middle of the room. Dave does not visibly react and just keeps his combo up, while Dirk, also sitting on the sofa, startles at the sound. He looks back over at your brother as well, clear distrust radiating from every pore of his being. You wonder why he's so hostile towards the other Dirk—your brother, you mean—but you guess that's what happens when the first thing you notice about a guy is his sword collection and the second thing is how his puppet tried to strangle your guardian.

“Hey. Roof.”

He says it like an order, and Dave seems almost to jump out of his skin. He looks over at your brother, then glances between you and Dirk, as if to make sure he heard things right.

“Sure, dude, but—”

Derek shakes his head, leaving Dave looking confused. Dirk seems to go more on edge at that, but you don't get to say anything else before your brother speaks again.

“Not you, little man. I'm talkin' to Doc Brown here.”

He cocks his head at you, and you're taken aback for a moment—you hadn't expected him to actually be the one to make the first move. Dave seems to settle back down. Still, there's some kind of tension between them that hasn't quite dissipated at the... reassurance? Whatever it is, you file it in the folder in your brain labelled Very Suspicious Behaviour To Exhibit Towards The Kid You're Raising, Derek. It's been growing thicker by the hour. Dirk, on his part, seems about to get out of his seat as well, but your brother shakes his head.

“None of Marty's business, either,” he says, crossing his arms, “this is a grown-up conversation.”

“Sorry, kid,” you say, when Dirk just bristles more at that, “shit's private. Just between me and your uncle.”

Derek is still for a moment, and then just. Leaves. You sigh—you really wish he would stop doing that flashstep thing.

“Hey, Dave,” you say, “how do you get up on the roof from here?”

⏵

When you get out, the sun is beating down on the rooftop like it's a wrestler who can't hear the ten-count going. Like the rooftop is being used as an outlet through which it can unleash years of pent-up hatred and rage. Like it can break through concrete on anything other than a million-year timescale. You suddenly feel like you should be getting ready for a fight yourself, when you look out at the concrete plain. Your brother's standing a little out of the way from the stairway, looking out at the buildings surrounding the apartment complex, his back to where you're standing. He's got one hand in his pocket, the other holding something—a cigarette. He must have already lit it. You wonder, for a moment, when he started smoking.

“Why the fuck are you here,” he says, back still turned to you.

You shrug, before realizing that, oh yeah, he isn't facing you. Still. The act has symbolic meaning—even if he can't see it, you still need to express your indifference in every way possible. Or something.

“I sure as hell wasn't expecting a family reunion,” you say, “even if that's what I'm gettin'.”

You pause, just for a moment, to see if he reacts. He doesn't say anything, but you hear the disdain in the way he sniffs. Like a bull rearing back for the run. Can't start waving red in front of him now, you think, not if you want this to stay a conversation rather than a fight.

“Might be the only person qualified to fix the mess you've made of the timeline, at the very least,” you say. “Should appreciate getting a pro to sort stuff out for free.”

He laughs at that, a short sharp bark that has the hair on the back of your neck on end. Shit, you really should have worded that more carefully.

“'Course you're blamin' me for it,” he says, tone acid, “like it isn't the kid who's managed to fuck up so bad you had to get involved.”

What? What the fuck is he talking about? Is he seriously thinking this is about blame? You aren't about to hold a kid accountable for something that, for all you know, happened by pure chance. Even if he had meant to do it, you doubt he'd known what was going on, or what would happen—God knows you sure as hell didn't.

“Don't bring Dave into this,” you say, “you've seen him—shit, I've known him for like two hours—even I can tell he barely knows what he's doing.”

“Please,” he says, looking at you over his shoulder—you can practically hear him rolling his eyes, “you're telling me he knows enough to put a loop like this into—what, how did you notice again? Interference in the main timeline, I'm guessing? Started out as a sequestered loop, then got worked into real spacetime, where you picked up on it? He managed to do that and you're telling me he barely knows what he's doing.”

He takes a drag from the cigarette, as if to punctuate. You blink. You hadn't gotten that far—the sequestered loop idea hadn't even occurred to you—but the puzzle pieces fit perfectly. He exhales, and turning on his heel to face you. There's still something bothering you, though, even if Hal's words from before keep trying to drag you away from picking at it.

“How the hell would you know if there was a loop before this? Actually, wait, how the hell do you know there's a loop at all?”

The only reason Dirk knows, as far as you know, is because you've already set your own start point in the loop later than your original one—a kind of mini-loop, the one you made when you arrived at the apartment. You established this outside of the range of the loop, so it keeps being true even once you go inside it. Like the car crashed on the highway from Houston to Dallas. Which really should have clued you in on the loop being closed before this—the loop being integrated into the main timeline is what alerted you to it in the first place, but that would mean that the crash needed to have happened before this loop, the one in which you saw the crash to begin with, which should have been one of the first loops, if not the first, because it's the first one you noticed—

This, you remember, this is why time shit gives you headaches. Along with the weird extra sense you've gained for it, too, but that's another thing.

“Beats me,” he says, interrupting your train of thought before you can even lay down the rails, “aren't you the expert on all this shit?”

You bristle, because how are you supposed to know what's been going on when he isn't telling you? It isn't just the loop you're stuck on.

“Doesn't mean I know everything,” you say, frustrated, “especially not what the hell's going on with you.” You need to deal with whatever brought that damn puppet to walking and talking sentience too. You never thought there would come a day you'd wish Cal was just teleporting to your brother's side.

“I'm not the one who made the loop, smartass,” Dirk fires back, “why should I know why I have to wake up every morning listening to Limp Bizkit?”

“Apparently you still know enough to lecture me on it,” you snap, “I know how a fucking time loop works. I'm supposed to be the guy who goes around fixing this shit—”

Fuck, you realize with a start, you know what he's doing. He's riling you up. The bastard is trying to get you to fight him. It's working, too, which is about as infuriating as the thought that he thinks he can just get away with doing this shit again, like you aren't both grown men who should be perfectly capable of talking this out. You take a breath, try to rethink this.

“Okay,” you say, holding your hands up, “whatever. You don't know how the hell this happened, and neither do I, but lucky for you it's my job to try and figure that out. So you can just—stay out of it, do whatever you like, while I try to talk to Dave and—Hal, or whoever—and figure out what happened. If Dave knows as much as you seem to think he does, I'm getting further talking to him than I am talking to you, right? So if I just... go downstairs, try and get him to talk to me, you can stay up here and do... whatever you want to do up here. Capiche?”

It leaves a sour taste in your mouth, but this is the best you can do for now. You hold out a hand. The silence drags out for far too long, Dirk still looking at you from across his shoulder. Eventually, he lets the cigarette drop, grinding it into the concrete roof with his heel. He turns to face you wholly, looking down at where you're still holding out for a handshake, and pointedly crosses his arms.

“Y'know,” he starts, the closest to an actual snarl you've heard from him, “there really isn't any reason I shouldn't think you're just another piece of myself that decided to jump ship.”

“You said it yourself, didn't you? Probably not from your brain if I've got my kid with me.” You raise your eyebrows. “Wouldn't want to spend any time in your brain anyway, if I had the choice. Not if it's that crowded.”

“Yeah, well, it's worse than it sounds, believe me.”

It's the slightest bit quieter than he's been so far. Even so, you can't help yourself.

“You're telling me that sharing a brain with a homicidal puppet is worse than it sounds? You must be joking.”

“Cal's the only asshole in here who's got the right idea,” he says, sounding more tired than anything.

“And what's that,” you say, can't help the sardonic tone, “fuck around and leave before you can find out? Leave a smoking crater behind you as you drive into the sunset?”

“Real blaze of glory,” he mumbles, bitterness in every syllable.

You really shouldn't say it. Which is probably exactly why you do, because you're a masochistic piece of shit who still feels sorry for what you did, for what you've made your brother into.

“Yeah, 'cause that went so well the first time.”

You feel the echo of the punch coming before anything else—your timesense has been on edge this whole time, feeding you slices of the future before it happens, but that doesn't mean you manage to dodge it. A fist hits you right in the stomach, pressing out the breath in your lungs. You stumble back into the doorway a few steps, but your shit's together before he manages to get in another shot—you pause it.

The world stands still. Dirk's standing in the doorway, mid-exhale, arm still on its way down back to his side from where he's just thrown you a right hook straight to the gut.

This is going to be tricky. You aren't a physical main, so letting him get in close at any point is going to be a bad idea. Without a weapon, though, you're shit out of luck in any drawn-out confrontation. You briefly consider going down to get one of the swords, but escalating at this point is more dangerous than it's worth. You don't know what he's capable of, even if you have your suspicions.

You'll have to do this quick, overpower him without getting dragged into anything extensive. The best way to do that is probably—well. You'll find out whether you decide to or not when you let time flow again. You make your way past the figure of your brother, trying not to move him too much as you get behind him and outside onto the roof proper.

The second you unpause, you wait for just a moment—but there doesn't seem to be any backup coming yet, so you resign yourself to a fight that's going to be a pain in the ass. Dirk, from where he's standing, startles—it's got to be disorienting, suddenly finding your place switched with your opponent—but he rallies himself remarkably well, with only a split second before he turns back and immediately launches himself at you. You dodge at the last instant, another echo of impact alerting you to exactly when to drop to the left, leaving him to land and turn towards you again, breathing heavily through his mouth.

You don't say anything—neither does he, for that matter, both of you on edge in the summer heat. You keep your stance loose and low as he circles you, waiting for a chance to strike. From the weight of the punch, you guess he's got more mass than you—if it comes to close combat, you're going to have to tire him out before anything else. You don't know if you can get loose if he manages a full-body tackle. It's a decent amount of space you have to deal with, even if it's still far too much of a roof for you to be entirely comfortable with anything serious.

He steps in at you—and, fuck, you forgot about the flashstep—he knees you in the stomach, hitting you directly in the same spot as before. You double over, grit your teeth as you steady yourself before tackling him yourself, arms shielding your face as you push him away and onto the ground with your forearms against his ribcage. He grunts, but in the time it takes you to step back and steady yourself he's already on his feet again.

You take a reckless swing at him. Either he underestimates your wingspan or muscle memory fails him, because he skips back a step too few—he's still close enough for you to hit him squarely in the face. It's a nice, clean punch, knuckles left sore at the impact against his teeth. He swears under his breath, and you bask in the moment of holy shit you actually got a hit in and then the horror of you just hit your brother who you haven't seen in years for about half a second before he reels back, and you just manage to dodge the punch aimed right at your face. You don't manage to avoid his body, though, which flies shoulder-first at you.

You manage a few steps back, barely avoiding getting thrown onto the ground back-first before you fold your knee, letting him fall on top of you—you try to take advantage of the moment of confusion where he expects resistance but only meets gravity, but he rights himself before you can use his weight against him, punting you with an elbow in the gut to sit up on top of you.

“Jesus,” you huff, trying to ease the burn in your lungs and holding up your arms flat against the roof, “can't we just take a breather?”

You can't see his eyes, but you're pretty sure he's glaring at you. His arm goes back, and you instinctively close your eyes, brace yourself for the coming pain. Even with the echo, you only just manage to move with it to lessen the pain blossoming across the right side of your face, his fist already going back for another one.

“Do you have any,” he says, in between punches, “fucking—idea—what you did to me?”

He pauses, catches his breath from where he's pinning you down, leaving you only with the throbbing pain in your mouth from where he's split your lip. Every thought you might have had is lying on the concrete, ground into dust by the repeated blows to your face.

“'Course you don't,” he mumbles, “'course you fuckin' don't.”

You carefully do not react as you feel a strand double back through to now from somewhere in the near future, a figure fading in just behind Dirk. He realizes just a moment too late to turn, but by then you from the future is already grabbing his shoulders, keeping him restrained. You take a quick breather before you join the fray again.

The fight is rough, but it doesn't take long before there's an opening. The two of you manage to pin him down, sitting on his back until the kicking and yelling subsides.

“If you don't stop this,” you say, “I'm pretty sure you can figure out what's gonna happen. And believe me, I don't want a million of me fucking around and breaking the paper-thin excuse of a foundation that reality's on in this building, either.”

He holds his hands up, fingers spread.

“I got it, I got it. Just let me go, okay? I ain't gonna start bitin' ya, promise,” he says, clearly exhausted.

You stand up, salute the future you that bothered coming back with a flick of the wrist as he fades away. Dirk lays still on the ground for a moment before he grunts, pushing himself up to rest on his forearms.

“If you do that again,” you say, “I'm going to put you in time-out. Literally.”

“Sure, whatever,” he says, waving you off as he sits up. He doesn't say anything more, just looking at you where you're waiting for him to stand up. Eventually you turn and head down through the stairwell again, and even though you're wary of turning your back to him he doesn't immediately go for your neck, so that's something.

The two of you make your way down to the apartment. You offer Derek your support when you see the way he's limping down the stairs, but he just looks blankly at the proffered hand and then back up at you, like he's a wounded animal trying to figure out how you're going to humiliate him this time. He doesn't accept it, choosing instead to lean against the wall of the stairwell.

You get down to the apartment before he does, and while Dirk rushes over to ask what the hell that all was, and why the hell you look like you've got the shit kicked out of you, Dave, who's sitting on the sofa, takes one look at you and turns back to where he's gaming. It's concerning.

“I'd say you should see the other guy,” you tell Dirk, as you're reversing the worst of the damage, “but, y'know. Probably can't avoid it.”

When your brother stumbles his way into the apartment, Dirk grimaces, but stays silent. Again, you wonder if you shouldn't just have fixed the guy up while you were up on the roof. Then again, you suspect that might just make the resentment flare up even worse. Sighing, you open the fridge to get yourself something to drink. There's a large bottle of orange soda in the door, along with a lot of orange soda cans. You grimace, wonder how the hell he's managed to keep up any kind of dental hygiene the past years. Shit, you don't know that he has—could be walking around with a whole new set of teeth, for all you know.

“Y'want something?” you ask, glancing over at him. He's quiet. So are Dave and Dirk, the sounds of whatever game they're playing turned down. Nosy brats.

“You know,” he says, voice clear, “you would have done us both a favor if you had finished the job the first time.”

He says it like it's a fact. Undisputable. You're frozen for a moment, and it's only when he reaches past you and into the fridge, pushing you aside to grab something at the back, that you snap out of it.

Jesus fucking Christ. He really does hate you, doesn't he.

“I'll leave you to it,” he says, cracking open the beer with the same hand he's holding it in.

You look at him, trying to figure out what the hell he's talking about. He notices your confusion and just kind of shrugs as he takes a sip.

“The time loop shit,” he clarifies, “guessin' you don't need my help figuring it out.”

There's the thunk again, and before you've managed to say anything at all, he's flashstepped out.

You groan in frustration. What an asshole.

Glancing over at where Dirk and Dave are gaming, you see Hal hovering behind them, looking over the back of the sofa at the TV. Lil' Cal's still on the floor by the desk, though his eyes have come free of their tape prison and keep staring right at you.

You really don't know what to make of the two of them. You can help Dave out with figuring his stuff out, sure, but Hal and Cal—they're an unknown factor in this. Considering what Hal said earlier, you're doubting this is just a case of getting the knot in the timeline out and then going home to congratulate yourself on a job well done.

You start mulling over it again. There must be something you're missing.

⏴

“Going from our conversation, I'm guessing you're...” you trail off, gesturing at the robot, “not normally like this?”

“If by like this you mean corporeal,” the robot says, irritation clear in his voice, “then yeah, this shit's about as abnormal as it gets. Fucker couldn't even be bothered to give me proper wiring.”

You blink at that statement. Noticing your clear confusion, the robot—Hal, you think, you really need to remember his name—crosses his arms. He pauses, seems to think for a moment.

“Imagine, if you will,” he starts, “a robot. Or android, depending on which term you prefer for humanoid semi-autonomous beings.”

“Sure. Lookin' right at one,” you say, but he shakes his head.

“No, something completely from scratch. Think about the process of building it. What kind of computational system would you put in place to create, or at least simulate, consciousness? How do the mechanisms for its most basic functions work? If it's supposed to be able to work on the same level of delicate movement as the human body, you're going to need some kind of sensory input, something to make sure it knows how hard or softly it's gripping something—how much processing power are you dedicating to that? How much of the memory space needs to be allocated to the very basic processes of existing in physical space and being able to interact and interface with it?”

As he speaks, he starts shifting—parts of his body start to flicker, and you can't help the surprised yelp that comes out of you when the hand he's gesturing with suddenly detaches and hovers up to your face, pointing at you.

“As soon as you start actually researching these kinds of things, you start getting more and more granular with the details, because you can't unlearn the things you read—which means that the idea of ”android“ in your brain starts getting more and more caught up in all the limitations set by reality. Right now I'm pretty sure I'm a combination of a hologram projection and some kind of semi-hollow nanomachine covering for a liquid computational unit. Sounds plausible enough for it to maybe be possible, but sci-fi enough that you can't manage to get bogged down in the details.”

“What, so you aren't actually that?”

“Pretty sure I was hyperfine hydraulics around an hour ago,” he says, shrugging.

You whistle low through your teeth.

“D'you know how that works? Is it you calling the shots, or is it more like...” you trail off, remembering what he said about not getting proper wiring.

He seems to note your hesitation, because he floats up a little, resting his head against an invisible surface.

“Not my call. If the other guy's thinking about it enough, stuff starts getting weird.”

You note the weird avoidant tone of his voice when he says the other guy, like just the thought of calling him by name is off-putting.

“So it's more of a genuine brain construct kind of deal,” you say. You wonder how he's even possible. Fully-realized constructs aren't a thing you've come across, even if the stuff old man Harley's capable of is scarily close.

“I guess,” Hal says, letting out a frustrated sigh. “Not like it's doing us any favours, though.”

“What do you mean?”

He furrows his brows, as if you've asked the single most idiotic question you could have come up with. His face softens quickly, though, looking down at something on the floor in lieu of answering. Following his gaze, you realize he's staring at Cal, lying on the floor over by the desk again. You wonder when it got there. For some reason, its face is covered—another second passes before you realize it's tape wrapped around it, giving the impression of a bag pulled tightly over the puppet's head.

“I'm not supposed to be here,” he says after a moment, and his face turns dark again. “Neither is Cal, for that matter. Not like... like this. It's strange. If I don't know what he's doing, what he's thinking, then...”

He flexes his hand.

“I'm scared,” he says, suddenly, quietly. It's low enough that it's hard even for you to hear, much less any nosy kids trying to listen in on the conversation. “Of what might happen.”

“Of what might happen if what?” you ask.

Hal pauses for a moment, and you hear the slow soft whir of the fans kicking up a notch for a few seconds before he answers. When he does, it's a total monotone—a calculated answer, the worst case scenario.

“If he ends up alone.”

He leaves it at that, doesn't say anything more. You don't know what to do—assure him you wouldn't leave Derek behind if it would cost you your life?

You can't do that. You can't make that promise again.

Hal must see the resigned expression on your face, because he drifts away without a word. He stops for a moment behind the sofa, and you see, for a moment, his hand over Dave's head. He pulls it away quickly, though. Another thunk sounds as the latch closes behind Hal again.

You're left with a mug of lukewarm water in your hand. At least you know where the coffee is now.

⏩

Later, when you're trying to figure out how to help Dave out with the loop, you feel the thing in the back of your teeth again.

Blinking, you try to remember what it is that's nagging at you. As you feel for your own timeline, it strikes you—you need to double back at some point.

You sigh, running your hand through your hair.

“Dirk, remind me to go back and kick your uncle's ass.”