Your name is DAVE STRIDER. You've just had one of the single most harrowing days of your life so far, and that's including the day Bro staked a crow right through the chest with his sword. Your Bro, who's actually your uncle, is nowhere to be found. No, it's not that he's nowhere to be found, it's that he's locked himself up in the crawlspace, and you don't really want to have to go seek him out. Especially not if he's still sulking after that fight he got in. With your dad. Your actual, honest-to-god dad.

Actually, you're going to rewind on this whole train of thought. Your dad has just showed up and one of the twelve-year-olds from the server Egbert made is also his son, i.e. your brother.

Not quite impactful or absurd enough to describe the situation. You can do better than that.

Your name is DAVE STRIDER, and you've just squarely beaten a tween in a racing game while running entirely on autopilot. That's the most you can say about the situation as is.

The tween you're schooling, for his part, takes the loss remarkably well. You suspect it's because he's mainly waiting for Dante to go away again. Hal's hovering behind you and keeping quiet, but Dante's pacing around the room and muttering to himself, and you want to scope things out with him before you just go to your room or whatever.

You really do need to continue that talk the two of you had while they were up there. Dirk might be onto something, but it still left a sour note in your stomach that you can't shake.

⏴

You breathe out, having shut the door behind you. Your hands feel clammy, and you resist the urge to wipe them on your jeans, if only because it'd be an immediate tell that you are barely keeping it together. Jesus fucking Christ. The amount of questions that have been raised by the past—one hour, twenty-seven minutes, and 34 seconds—are too many to keep track of, but if you can't get through at least a few of them, you might as well give up.

Dirk's still sitting on the futon, and Hal's gone off to who-knows-where—there's for sure some shit going down in the crawlspace, but you can't be dealing both with your Bro's shit and your own right now. You are not some kind of shit vendor reselling shit from local farms and marking it up to prices that would only attract those unlucky bastards that think the price is due to the premium-grade quality of shit you're selling. The only shit you are dealing in is your own, and that stuff needs to be dealt with like a body left by the mob: quickly, efficiently, and leaving no trace that it was ever there, without a single stain left from the particularly gruesome encounter.

Fecal matters aside, Dirk looks like he's about to bolt up and run up to you if you don't get it together and sit down. He keeps glancing over to where you're standing while trying not to make it obvious.

You sit down next to him. A thought hits you as you do: considering what Hal said, Dirk might be your Bro's name as well. Weird as hell to think about, since you think you've only heard his name once or twice and you're pretty sure it wasn't that. You had considered going through his mail at some point, but that would have needed weeks of preparation and being ready to face the consequences if he found out. You chickened out in the end.

On the screen, the low-poly model of Bubsy the Bobcat stands entirely still. You wonder if they just didn't have the budget for in-game idle animations.

Grabbing the controller again, you start the game again—the color palette is fucking atrocious, but something about the jank makes it that much funnier. It's like only using the default MS Paint palettes to make a deeply invested piece of art that somehow manages to look absolutely dogshit despite the hours of work put into it—something you know a great deal about.

You're about a second away from explaining the way the apparent sincerity put into something creates a genuine desire to see more of it, even if it's a genuinely failed piece of work, but Dirk musters up the courage to speak first.

“This is absolutely dogshit,” he says, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Nah, man, this is high fucking art. Should display this in the Louvre right next to the Mona Lisa. Shit's got a design philosphy like nothing else.”

“Yeah, because no one in their right mind would make something like this,” he counters, “why is every bit of ground just tiles? Aren't there supposed to be level designs in platformers?”

“Makes you think, right? Visual clarity, easy controls, actual platforming, the kind of stuff you take for granted all gets ripped away from you and you're left in the dark with nothing but the trail of power-ups to lead you on. Shit's practically post-modern.”

Dirk seems to ruminate on what you're saying as he watches the screen. You suppose you need to give him a bit of time before you can present your grand unified theory on the shittiness of art. Start him off with the easy stuff first.

“You should,” Dirk says, out of nowhere, and it seems like he surprises himself with it as well, because he pauses for another half-second before he continues. “You should come with us. After things are fixed here.”

You feel your hand lock up around the controller.

“I know stuff isn't great with—with your Bro,” he barrels onwards, barely stumbling over what to call him, “and even if we'd have to check with him I'm sure Dante wouldn't mind—we could go visit Rose and Roxy and you could meet Roux—if she's doing okay, I mean, she's been doing okay, you've been talking with Rose, right?”

Your blood runs cold. If Dirk knows anything about Bro, he hasn't heard it from you. You'd guess most of your friends have probably put two and two together, especially after this April, but you're not sure to what degree. Still, the only one that would have told anyone about it...

“How much do you know?” you say, instantly on edge.

If she's gone and told Dirk anything without you knowing, you're going to—fuck, you don't know what, but you still feel a sting of betrayal at the thought of her speculating on your home life to someone you barely even know. Anything you've told her, you've told her in confidence.

“Rose just told me you had some fights with your brother,” he says hurriedly, “not that he was—like this.”

The last two words get twisted as he looks around, distaste visible on his face as he glances back to where your Bro and Dante went out.

“Come on,” you say, hackles being raised like the drawbridge over the world's most impregnable fortress, “it's not that bad. He's an asshole, sure, but I ain't some kid getting beat up for looking at him the wrong way or whatever the fuck. Might as well ask you why the fuck your—our dad's bringing you along when he's on the job.”

Dirk bristles at that, shoulders drawing slightly up.

“That's different,” he says, “Dante needs me around. Plus I get to train my powers.”

“Naw, it's the same shit, just without the powers so far. He's just a bit... pushy about it sometimes. Gotta be hard to deal with your li'l bro not reaching his full potential yet. Or nephew, I guess.”

You hope to God Rose didn't tell him about the shit in April. That would be a cannonball bringing utter annihilation to your castle walls.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to have the ammo.

“Dude, that's the kind of weird thing I'm talking about—why didn't he just pretend he was your actual dad or something? Why all the Bro stuff?”

He shoots you a critical look, and you falter for a second—but you quickly rally yourself. He might have a sneakier plan of attack up his sleeve, not that it would count for much. How old is he, 11? 12? For all the start of the conversation surprised you, he shouldn't be that hard to shoo away.

“Fuck knows. Probably would have figured it out once I had Biology in school. Teacher asked me if my dad had albinism too, and you can't exactly say Bro's paler than the driven snow.” You shrug vaguely, hands still on the controller. “Since he wasn't calling himself my dad I figured he wasn't. Maybe he just didn't want to explain to a little kid that sorry dude, your dad left and probably didn't really want anything to do with you anyway. Not the best way to ease any anxieties about that.”

“Yeah, but what about—” he starts out loudly, frustration evident in his voice as he gestures around the room, “what about the loop? Things like this, they don't just happen, they're made to happen—the whole thing is like a, an immune system trying to fight a virus—”

He sounds like someone remembering a lecture and trying to sum up the key points. You feel yourself go stock still. Dirk goes on without noticing a thing.

“—so there's got to be something the immune system is reacting to, and I can't think of anything other than—”

“Fuck if I know,” you say, suddenly, “shit just happened. Apparently Bro realized before I did, freaked him the fuck out when I actually started remembering stuff. That was when Hal popped out, too. Bro's probably the best bet for getting any info on it, but... good luck getting any answers out of him about it. Don't think it's going too well if he's up on the roof with Dante already.”

“The roof? Why would—” he pauses, and you curse your own blabbering for the millionth fucking time as he audibly puts the pieces together in his mind.

“Only place that's secluded enough for an actual fight,” he mumbles into the hand he's covering the lower half of his face with.

You'd tell him no shit, do you really think he's been doing sick stunts in a one-room apartment without getting enough noise complaints to kick him out, but you're slowly feeling all your energy leaking out and into the sofa. Instead, you just stay quiet.

“You knew?” Dirk asks, suddenly. “That he was making Dante go up there for a fight?”

“Does it even fucking matter at this point?” you mumble. Dirk doesn't respond, probably waiting for a real answer. You grit your teeth. “Sure, fuck, fine, I knew and I was just happy he wasn't making me do it.”

The silence stretches out for longer this time, inching into horrified understanding.

“Dave, you can't stay here,” he says, and the way his voice lilts in confusion and wariness and every single tone of voice a teacher has ever asked you about your home life in makes you boil over.

The fuck does he know, huh? How the fuck are you supposed to just leave? Your Bro would kill you, you think, remembering the wild-eyed look on his face as he held you down and—no, you think deliriously, feeling your chest press down on you—he'd kill himself, leave every memory you have stained with red soaking through the fabric, leave you behind to figure out everything by yourself like he always has—he can't die yet, because the idea of not even having him, however shitty he's been at raising you, makes you feel more lost than anything else ever has. So you can't leave. Because he won't leave.

Dirk gingerly reaches out to touch you. You slap his outstretched hand away. He doesn't get it, you think. You have to—

“I have to deal with his bullshit, alright? Someone fucking has to!”

You say it louder than you intend to, and you keep your eyes resolutely locked on the screen. When Dirk speaks next, it's sour.

“We can just—go,” Dirk says, “we don't have to deal with his bullshit. It's his shit to deal with.”

“And just—leave him here? Are you insane? What if he actually—”

You think of Bro, his voice coming through the bathroom door like the screeching of old rusted hinges on a gate. Blood in the sink, bits of—something stuck in the drain, the trail leading back to the bathroom. Holed up in your room listening to him wrecking everything in the apartment, just wanting it to stop and then it did, but the second you caught your breath it started again and you heard something shatter and that same record scratch—you panicked. You're panicking now, you realize distantly. You can't catch your breath, the same weight pressing down on you. In, out. Try not to make a sound. It's better that way.

Dirk hasn't said anything. He's looking at you. Worrying at his lip, unsure of what he can do to help—you think. You don't know.

“If he.”

You can't finish the sentence.

“Not like it's gonna be your fault,” Dirk says, and that knocks you off course so severely that you don't have any space left in your brain for anything other than the great big question of what the fuck, man?

“Dude, I can't just leave him,” you manage, panic dissipating into disbelief, “he's—”

Disbelief mingles with frustration as you try to explain why, but the only thing that comes to mind is the stone-solid fact that's set itself as the foundation of everything you know about him.

“He's my bro.”

“Doesn't mean he's your responsibility,” Dirk says, almost too easily.

“Then why the fuck am I suddenly yours?”

The words come out sour, too fast to realize what you're saying. But you know you're right. You've known each other for—what, a couple of months at most? This is the first time you've met each other. There's no reason he should care about you this much. Bro might be a dick, but at least he's honest about it—meanwhile, this kid's willing to let someone he knows absolutely jack shit about just—what, get grievously injured? Die, even?

You let the fact that you don't know jack shit about your Bro fester in the back of your mind and the pit of your stomach.

Dirk, for what it's worth, doesn't answer. He looks down into his lap, fingers starting to tap restlessly against his hands.

You sit for a bit. It's a lot to take in; you hadn't expected Dirk to brush you aside so quickly. At least there's one part you wouldn't mind.

“I think it'd be cool,” you say, in the end. Dirk perks up visibly, looking over at you like a dog that's just heard the word walkies but is smart enough not to lose its shit immediately.

“Going with you, I mean. I'm still not cool with just leaving Bro here.”

He pauses, but in the end he nods.

“Alright.”

“Cool.”

The two of you sit for a while, not saying anything. As the silence between you stretches from contemplative to awkward, your eyes are drawn towards the stack of games by the T.V.; the repetitive soundtrack of Bubsy 3D is starting to grate on your ears, despite the indubitable cultural value of the game.

“What about some Gran Turismo?”

You barely manage one race before Dante stumbles into the apartment looking like he just went through a blender with a blade made of punching gloves.

⏩

Dante's still pacing around the kitchen. You don't know where he got the post-it notes from, but they're littered all over the walls haphazardly and seemingly without any pattern to them. He keeps writing something on new ones, muttering to himself and rearranging them. It's around half an hour ago that he... went back to beat up Bro? You're guessing that's why Bro ended up looking so fucked up in the first place—a two-on-one might not be fair, but you somehow don't get the impression that bothers Dante much.

Dirk's up on the roof, as far as you know. He'd asked if he could go up there, said he needed some time alone. You don't blame him; you honestly need some time to think things through too. Ironic, you think distantly—you've got nothing but time.

You've only had flashes of the strange red-vision version of your apartment—you have to admit, it's looking a lot tidier than when you first saw it, threads that were bunched up and hanging in big bundles of weird time-yarn now hanging neatly like bead curtains, or tied back into each other. Still, the flashback you got when you touched one of them made you freak out enough that you don't want to mess with them any more than that. You wonder what Dante sees when he fixes this stuff—how can he do it that easily? Do those weird flashes of memory just not affect him?

Speaking of freaky stuff, even just trying to look at Hal while in the space makes your head hurt with how weird the tangle is—it keeps flashing in and out, but the missing pieces aren't missing—they're just not here. Or now? Whatever it is, you're pretty sure it's got something to do with the way your Bro's whole deal is here, too. He hasn't come down since the fight, but when you try to get at that state of mind, something from the direction of the crawlspace makes your head feel like there's pressure pushing your brain down into your spine.

You decide it's best not to do that too much. Beside you on the futon, Hal's been watching you absolutely wreck a CPU in some off-brand fighting game you don't really care about. It's just something to do while you're stuck in waiting mode.

Hal hums, and you can just feel the way he keeps shooting nervous glances at you. Like there's something he doesn't quite know how to say, but neither of you are going to broach the topic, so it's going to stay between you like an elephant that has made its home in the silences between you and your Bro. Who's actually your uncle.

Fuck.

You mess up the timing on a hit, so you don't get the combo rolling before the CPU blocks it and turns it around on you. It ends with you getting your ass handed to you, but it's still only the first round, so you can probably get around to turning it around in your favour.

“So what are you, actually?” you ask, eyes still locked on the screen. “Not in terms of physical reality,” you interrupt him before he can start getting into it, “or whatever you want to get into regarding the weird as hell shit that's going on in the loop, I mean. What are you as like... as a thing. A process? You just popped out of Bro's brain, right? So what were you doing in there in the first place? I know he sucks shit at, I don't know, making dinner and stuff like that, so are you the guy who—takes over when shit needs to get done?”

The robot doesn't answer, which is fair, since the question sucked ass. Another set of inputs, and you land a string of hits that gets the CPU's health bar down to half.

“Are you just Bro's weird guilt-trippy way of getting himself to actually take care of me?”

“Not everything's about you, kid,” he says, but it lacks any kind of sting. Even in Bro's mouth the blank monotone would have been mocking—in Hal's, it's closer to sadness.

“Sure,” you say, “it's not like I've been continuously kept out of the loop since birth or anything. Hell, I'm the guy who made this loop and I'm still being kept out of like a million mini-loops that everyone else is being kept in on without me. It's like being in a fucking amusement part with all these loops that I'm not getting in on. Sitting on the bench eating my ice cream while everyone else gets to go on all the rides. Saddest shit you ever did see.”

A finisher—you've always found it hilarious to declare victory with the weakest move for any given character on the roster, so you make it a point in fighting games to only ever finish your opponent with the shittiest punch or kick or whatever, just to rub it in. It's so ingrained in you now that you don't even realize you're doing it against the computer—which really doesn't care about winning or losing or any of that crap, so really you're just holding yourself back for no real reason.

“Okay, you've made your point,” Hal says, an edge of irritation making its way into his tone. You think he looks down at you for a moment, but you make a point of keeping your eyes locked to the screen. You're not giving him an inch until he actually explains something to you for a change. If your Bro gets to go loose without even having to be questioned about all this shit, you might as well take out your frustration on the next best thing.

“I'm here to take care of him,” he says in the end, sighing. “It's not an easy job, and he sure as hell doesn't make it any easier, but it's what I'm supposed to do.”

He stops for a moment, and some part of you wonders at the total silence. It really is as if he doesn't exist; there's no shifts of the sofa, no breaths that you catch on the edge of your hearing. You'd think the apartment were empty if it weren't for the slight noises coming from the crawlspace.

“It's what I was made to do.”

You glance over at him, and something in you turns at the sheer exhaustion you can see in his face, even as it goes transluscent in bits and pieces. It feels wrong to see your Bro this vulnerable—even if it's just a part of him. You're not sure why, though. You think back to your conversation with Dirk—if Hal was made to take care of Bro, then why would he...

“So you don't actually have any real obligation towards me,” you manage to say, your voice barely even shaking at the end.

Hal goes quiet again. The tension is thick enough that you could cut it with a saw.

“He has a number of goals he wants to achieve,” he says, slowly, “and making sure you aren't dead is key to most of them.”

He pauses again, and he looks at you like he's expecting you to say something. Which. Is a big fucking ask from someone who's just told you the only reason you're alive at all is because some asshole needed you for his... suicide quest? Whatever it is your Bro has planned, you can't think of anything he's prepared you for in particular, other than being constantly watched and judged. When you don't respond, he sighs, filter over his voice making it strangely melodic.

“Regrettably,” he says, in a voice flatter than anything you've heard from him so far, “making sure you like him is not.”

That tracks, honestly. The way he phrases it, though... it puts your teeth on edge, and you can't help but call bullshit on the regrettably stuff. Are you supposed to feel grateful that he—Bro, Hal, whichever of these assholes has been raising you—hasn't outright abandoned you on the side of the road? You mash the buttons, not really caring which ones. You aren't getting anywhere, anyway.

“What, and you can't do anything about that? Really? You'd think the guy making sure he isn't constantly touching hot stoves could do a bit more in the care and compassion department for other people as well. Just some feedback for your next performance review.”

Either you've hit a sore spot, or he's just entirely done with this conversation. Whatever it is, he doesn't respond to that, just looks at the T.V. screen. It's still on, flashing big letters declaring that “YOU WIN!”. You toss away the controller, which clatters onto the floor somewhere. You don't really feel like you've won, just made yourself miserable.

“Just... fuck off, dude,” you say. “You don't have to stay here just to make me feel better or whatever. Just go.”

You don't look over when the weight on the futon shifts. There's a few seconds before he actually seems to leave, but if you acknowledge him, you feel like you're going to be the one that's lost.

Honestly, you don't care if this guy's supposed to be your Bro or not—talking to him makes you more frustrated than with the real deal. Maybe it's because he keeps sounding so fucking guilty about it. At least Bro has the decency to be an unapologetic asshole instead of being one just because he's supposed to.

When you steal a glance back, you see Hal hoisting Li'l Cal over his shoulder like he's a sack of potatoes, and then there's a small blip of light—you just manage to hear the thunk of the crawlspace ladder closing again.

Good fucking riddance, you think bitterly. He can go jerk off with the rest of the freakshow up there. You sit, arms crossed, stewing in your own irritation.

“Doesn't seem like stuff's great between you and—your Bro,” Dante says from the kitchen, and you almost jump out of your seat. When you look back, he's leaning against the counter, arms crossed. You can't see his expression from here, but there's a strange contemplativeness in his voice when he says it.

“It's. Complicated,” you squeak out, and you barely avoid having to get into it—Dirk enters the apartment, hands in his pockets. He looks over at Dante, then over the small sea of post-its.

“How does that even help,” he says, walks over and grabs one off the fridge, “can you even read these?”

“They're called memory aides, kid,” Dante replies, “doesn't matter if I can read 'em or not so long as I've got the ideas down.”

“Sure,” Dirk says, putting it back, “whatever you say.”

Dirk walks over to the futon, and he stops for a little without sitting down, looking at you. You wonder why before you realize he's probably not sure if he should sit down and he doesn't want to ask outright. You nod at him, like a totally cool guy acknowledging another totally cool guy's unspoken request, and he sits the hell down. You'd ask him about what he's thinking, but you can't really find the right words.

“Roof's pretty cool, huh?” you ask instead, and internally cringe at it. Dirk seems not to notice, though.

“Yeah,” he says, “fuckload of birds, though. One of 'em almost stole my glasses. Barely managed to fend it off.”

“Gotta make yourself look big, dude. Or give em something in exchange. Shit, you could probably set up a barter system and get them to bring you new glasses.”

You barely stop yourself from going on a tangent about recruiting hordes of crows in order to steal people's shades right off their faces and resell them online, instead nodding at the screen.

“Wanna do a couple rounds?”

Dirk looks over, casting what you imagine to be a critical glance at the T.V., and nods after a moment of deliberation.

“Could kill some time while Dante's doing his shit.”

His voice is deliberately flat when he says it, but you're 90% sure he's just excited to be playing with you again. You wordlessly hand him the controller.

You could get used to being an older brother. Especially if it means playing against someone who doesn't quite get the game yet.

⏵

“Hey, you,” Dante says eventually, snapping his finger, “Dave.”

You tilt your head. Dirk's in the middle of a fight—you ended up letting him go through story mode just to get some practice in, helping him out with tips on some of the more gimmicky fights.

“'Sup,” you say, turning so you can actually see what Dante's doing.

“I've got a trick to show ya,” he says, grabbing a couple of the shurikens off the walls as he makes his way over to you. “We've gotta scope out the radius of this loop, so we're headed outside, alright?”

“Get your ass off that sofa and come along,” he says, gesturing for you to come with him. You shoot a glance over at Dirk—he's still playing, but you're not doing PvP anymore, so it shouldn't be an issue if you leave for a bit.

“You cool here?”

He pauses the game, looks back at Dante, then just shrugs.

“Sure. Not like you're gonna be gone that long,” he says, unpausing. You wonder why he's so sure, but if it's just checking stuff out, you don't see why you would be out that long.

“Alright, let's go, kid,” Dante says, looking down at you and shoving one hand into his pocket, the other still holding the shurikens. You vault yourself off the futon, following Dante as he turns back towards the door. Just as he's about to open it, he turns back.

“Don't mess shit up too bad while we're gone, alright?”

He yells out the last part to the rest of the apartment, and Dirk sends the two of you a thumbs-up from where he's stationed on the futon.

It's still pretty weird to think you have a little brother now, technically. You send him back a thumbs-up of your own.

He's pretty cool for a twelve-year-old, you think, following Dante out of the apartment, even if you got a bit freaked when you talked. That's mostly on you, though. Other than that, he hasn't spoken nearly as much as he usually does in chat, which you're chalking up to nerves.

That's the problem with having to be in the presence of a real coolkid, you suppose. How do you even handle being near someone this cool without getting your feet frozen off entirely? Seriously, if SBaHJ got mainstream success, you'd need to get a continuous bucket line of hot water just to keep people from having to amputate their legs, that's how many cold feet you'd be dealing with. And the chicks. You'd need specially-designed nets to keep the ladies from swarming you. Just as well to keep it flying under the radar.

“—so every couple of feet we're gonna have to put in a mark,” Dante says, chucking a shuriken right into the opposite wall. The thunk snaps you back to reality, and you suppress the flinch running through you at the sound like a fucking champ. You're cool. You're so goddamn cool.

Oh yeah, you're back in a one-on-one situation with your dad. Your actual fucking dad. Your father. No Dirk to bail you out here.

You may be a bit less cool than previously stated. Dante doesn't seem to notice, though, casting a critical eye over the shuriken stuck in the wall now. He fiddles with the one in his hand, letting out a small hiss when he accidentally presses too hard down on the blade.

“You think we need to get any more? It'll be more obvious if we leave them in, so we wouldn't have to actually walk up to the place where we threw it in to see if the damage is still there.”

He gestures at the shuriken he's planted in the wall, then gingerly wiggles it out.

“But on the other hand,” he says, gently rotating the shuriken in his hand without touching the blade, “it doesn't really make sense if we leave in so few that we can't pinpoint where the loop actually ends.”

“Whatever you say, man. We could go up and find Bro's stash if we need any more,” you say, “not like he keeps it hidden away.”

He shoots you some kind of look at that, but you can't really tell what it's supposed to be, so you just shrug.

“Ain't exactly a guy who cleans up a lot, is what I'm saying.”

“Yeah, I've noticed,” he says, and the weird vague way he says it nags at you. It's like the bathroom situation all over again. If he wanted to know what the fuck Bro was doing raising you, couldn't he just ask? Instead he's been doing this weird tip-toeing around everything, barely acknowledging you when you're literally like three feet away from him, muttering to himself about the loop.

You aren't going to call him out on it, though—that'd just make it weirder. Especially now that he's actually bringing you out to do something about the whole thing.

He ends up leaving it in, pressing it in just a bit harder to make sure it actually stays. You walk for a few more steps, Dante's shoes clacking against the floor, your own sneakers squeaking just a bit too obnoxiously in the silence. Eventually you manage to summon up the courage to speak up.

“So, uh,” you say, trying not to let the eternal fucking jitters under your skin show, “Da—Dante. Is Dad better? Like I know I barely know you, but it's technically right, so I get it if you're fine with it, but also if you aren't, and—”

Dante, who visibly jerked to a halt when you were about to call him dad, holds his hands up. You go quiet, and you really just are going to keep embarrassing yourself because this is the first adult you've met that can probably actually do something without getting Bro involved. You don't want to fuck things up—but he meets the wall of blabber that comes out of your mouth with complete and utter silence.

“Jeez, kid, give a guy some space, yeah? Dante's fine.” He coughs a little, obviously flustered. “No offense, kid, but I've known you for about five hours, twenty-six minutes and forty-one seconds. Kind of still processing the fact that you exist at all.”

You nod. Frankly the thought of calling anyone dad is also a bit fucking daunting. Especially when you don't even know if he'll go along with the plan you and Dirk are hatching—whatever Dirk thinks about him, you doubt he realizes what it looks like when your dad immediately starts avoiding you when he finds out you exist. Maybe he thinks you need space, but still, it feels weird. Doesn't seem like a guy who'd want to keep you around.

Dante's looking back at the last shuriken he threw into the wall, and then turns and keeps walking. You take a few quick steps to make sure you don't fall behind.

“Sure. No pressure,” you say, even if the jitters have gotten a lot more concentrated in your stomach now. What the hell are you even trying to do? Of course you don't know if he's going to go along with it, he doesn't know you. For all he's concerned, you're just some kid he came across while doing his job. It's not like everyone in the CPS personally adopts the kids that can't stay with their families. You know very little about your Bro, but he's expressed enough disdain for the foster system that you're sure he and Dante were adopted.

Speaking of your Bro...

“And, um,” you start again, awkwardly, because you really don't know how to even start approaching this topic, “after everything is like, dealt with or whatever, and we go back to living our totally rad lives and part ways like cool guys who have mutually acknowledged each other as being ice-fucking-cold and tip our metaphorical hats and all that.”

“Yeah?” Dante nudges, casting you a sideways glance. “If you want to stay with us for a bit, that's fine, you know. We've got a mattress somewhere.”

You feel incredibly uncool for how quickly he saw through you.

He stops, throws another shuriken at the opposite wall. You're about halfway to the staircase at this point—you can still see the first one clearly from where you're standing. For a moment, you think he's going to keep going, but instead, he twirls the next shuriken in his hand slowly as he speaks again.

“Not like I'd want to stay in a place I was stuck in against my will. Not if I had the choice.”

Huh. You don't get time to wonder what he means by that before he starts off again.

“Yeah, sure, that'd be pretty cool, I guess. Haven't been to Austin before. Could be alright.”

“How do you—no, wait, you already knew Dirk. Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence, again. There's about a million other questions you want to ask him, and they're all bearing down on you like water in a dam. Still, one thing presses its way towards the front—what'll happen after you go with them to Austin.

You pause, try to find the easiest way to say this. You have no idea what the history between them is, but the thing nagging at the back of your brain won't stop, so you're more than willing to put your foot in your mouth if it shuts up that part of you too. You're so ready to taste your own toes you should be browsing fetish sites about it. No, actually, fuck that. You decide that metaphor is getting left in the fucking dust, cringing at the mental image. Dante's still waiting on you to keep going.

“If I come with you guys and stay with you. Can you. As a guy who's cool about this stuff. And knows my Bro and all that. Or your Bro, I fucking guess, since he's actually my uncle and all that, fuck, how do you even end up with a family like this. Anyway, the point is.”

He grimaces a little as you speak, but in the end he just nods, leaning against the wall with one hand still in his pocket. The other mindlessly spins the shuriken.

“Can you check up on him sometimes? Like, when the loop's been resolved. Just to make sure he doesn't actually. Y'know.”

You mimic the pulling of a noose. You'd hazard it's pretty accurate, you're sticking your tongue out and everything. Dante, on his end, furrows his brows.

“Jesus Christ, Dave, I'm not planning to leaving him to off himself.”

You feel the blush creeping up your face, because you really don't know if he's getting the severity of the situation.

“Dude, when a guy starts throwing himself off the fucking roof the moment he realizes he's in a time loop, I really don't think you should leave him alone until you're like, a million percent sure he isn't going to do it again,” you say, aggravation seeping into your voice with every word.

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Dante says, “guy can't be left to his own devices. Been an issue since forever.”

“Try living with him for your whole life,” you say, just a touch bitterly, “shit, he tried making dinner last loop—didn't know how to chop the veggies. Had to get Hal to help him. Guess that's what splitting yourself into however many pieces gets you.”

There's a complicated expression on Dante's face at that.

“Naw, I'm thinking more like—well. Guess that counts too.”

“Dude didn't even think about telling me shit was getting weird, just went straight for the scorched earth strat.”

He sighs, nods.

“Yeah, that's—wait, hold on,” Dante interrupts himself, suddenly wide-eyed, “what's this about him knowing the loops were happening? What's the deal with that?”

You furrow your brow. Isn't this guy supposed to be the dude who knows this shit? He's been untangling stuff that you barely even realized was getting messed up, you somehow assumed he knew all about the weird stuff with Bro too. The guy had a fight with him, for fuck's sake.

“He's like, the guy who got the memo,” you say, “got it way before my brain decided to catch up, even. He's like the branch manager handing out the memos on all the weird shit going on to us in the cubicles, and by us I mean just me, 'cause everyone else got laid off. And that really sucked ass when I did get it, so it honestly seems like I've been handed the short straw. The shit end of the stick or whatever. The one that gets stuck into the toilet to make sure the shit gets unclogged.”

You shudder at the memory running across your brain like some kind of fucked-up horse frolicking in a field. The initial overwhelming sensation of still feeling Bro's limp body bleeding out onto you when you woke up, and then the panic your brain must have locked away all the times before that—yeah, no thanks, you're not going to relive that more than necessary. Which, ideally, is not at all.

“Fuck, wait—” Dante's hand is over his mouth, mumbling to himself—you only catch a few words of what he's saying, something about continuation of consciousness, but he turns his attention back to you before you can really make sense of it. His expression is just on the undecipherable side of concern, even if he tries to keep his poker face in place. You guess growing up with a guy who barely emotes makes everyone else seem like easy mode.

“He knew before you did?” he ends up asking you, uncrossing his arms and standing straight from where he's been leaning against the wall.

“Uh. Yeah?”

Your voice tilts up at the end, leaving it a question rather than a statement, but it still leaves Dante with a worryingly pensive expression.

“Do you know why? Shit, only reason I knew was because of the whole timesense bullshit. You get that too? Might be a bit early for it to show up—fuck, guess that depends on when you started. Coulda been brewing for a while. Ain't like this is a small loop, either, could feel it from the ground floor. We're just doing the shuriken thing to make sure it ain't expanding. That's the last thing y'want—shit's gonna fuck up the whole fabric of spacetime if it keeps goin', and you don't want Ms. Harley on a case like this. Ain't exactly known for her soft touch, not even with kids—especially not with kids. Y'ever have to treat a 7-year old for broken fingers 'cause their grand-aunt was makin' em practice for huntin' season? Fuck, guess not, you're, what, 14? Still. Don't recommend it.”

As he speaks, you feel really, really out of your depth. He just keeps going, gesturing with the hand holding the shuriken and barely giving you time to think before he fires off the next thing you need to keep track of. You briefly wonder if this is how other people feel when you're talking to them, but at least you try to keep your tangents tangential, not jumping all over the place. He ends up slipping from whatever practiced accent back into something closer to home—closer to how your Bro speaks.

“Noted,” you say, “dunno about the whole timesense thing, just get these weird headaches when I do the whole, y'know, red thing. D'you also get the red thing? Yeah. That. Had a couple tries with stopping shit or whatever before the loop happened, but nothing like that.”

“Okay, good to know,” Dante says, putting his chin in his free hand. He turns, walking down the hallway again, still slowly fidgeting with the shuriken.

“What about the thing with—your Bro?” he asks when he's a bit further down. You hadn't started following him again, too caught up in wondering whether you're ever going to get an actual explanation about shit from anyone in your family. He just threw a bunch of words at you and isn't even bothering to pick them up from whatever weird verbal game of catch this is turning into. You take a couple of steps, keeping quiet.

“Come on, kid,” he says, still without turning to face you. “give me something to work with. Can't get this done without the foundation.”

And now he's just using you to get what he wants out of it. He glances back past you, and throws a shuriken into the wall—he's reached the staircase at this point. This—the longer this is going on, the more it just feels like he's pulling you away from anyone else so he can ask you shit he'd be too self-conscious about to ask in front of his real kid.

“Seriously?” you ask, frustration finally boiling over. “You really think maybe I don't want to think about my Bro taking the straight fucking route out of this mortal fucking plane like he's aiming for first place on the skydiving expedition? You're telling me that maybe the reason this whole thing started just might be because something happened that I got so fucking scared of that it would've been better if it never happened in the first place? You think that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't be so fucking afraid that he's going to—that I keep jumping back, just because I'm so scared he'll do something? Maybe it's normal for your brain not to want to store that!”

Your tone ends breaking at the way you're trying not to shout this, not where people might hear, but at the same time you can't hold back the anger, the sweat on your hands as you think about Bro over you, every fucking excuse to hurt you, snarling at you like an animal on a leash that's finally been let loose. Dante stops dead in his tracks, looks back at you. You're hyperaware of your own breathing, and you lose track for a second—Dante's in front of you now, his expression graver than a funeral.

“Dave,” Dante says as he looks down at you, with his voice heavy as stone, “what were you afraid that he was going to do?”

“What? Fucking, kill himself or something, I don't fucking know,” you say, panicking, and even you can smell the stink of the lie coming out of your mouth.

“Did it start with that?” he asks, closer to interrogation than concern. “Something must've changed if he just suddenly acted on it—why today? Why now? He could've done it ages ago. He hasn't actually gone through with it, not until now. Only thing that I know changed is that the loop started. So what happened?”

“No, it wasn't—he didn't just do it, that was—the loop already started then,” you say, tensing up. You don't like where this is going, and neither does the pit forming in your stomach making your voice shake.

“But something made you scared enough that you had to undo it—make sure it didn't happen.”

Dante's voice is speeding up now, and the way he's looking at you—it scares you, you realize, like scum rising to the surface when the pot boils over, but it's too late for you to shut up now.

“Shit, he wasn't doing anything worse than normal,” you blurt out, “I just fucked up, alright? I actually fucking hurt him, I freaked out because I fucked up and he got pissed, that's all, okay? It's not a big fucking deal, so stop fucking asking!”

The shuriken clatter to the ground.

Dante looks furious. You can see the same way his brow twitches, the way his stance tenses—he's moments away from the same snarl that Bro gets when he's really, truly fucking pissed, the same one you remember from—the first time. The first loop.

You and your stupid fucking mouth that doesn't know when to stop. You've just lost yourself your ticket out of here.

Still, instead of turning it at you, he looks past you—back down the hallway.

Shit. You've really fucked up.

For what it's worth, Dante doesn't run back up to the apartment. At least, not that you can see—he does these weird skips, like scratched tracks on a CD, where one moment he'll be mid-stride and the next thing you know he's a few steps ahead of you. You jog to catch up.

Getting Bro mad is one thing—he's a somewhat known quantity, you can at least guess at what he might do—but Dante is different. You don't know what he'll do, especially not after the way Bro looked after their first fight—you've never seen Bro that beat up. Maybe for obvious reasons—you haven't actually seen him in a fight with another adult, but it still scares you a little, knowing that Dante absolutely could fuck your Bro's shit up beyond repair. Especially since he's absolutely going to use that for his own stupid self-destructive ends, and you don't know that Dante knows he's going to.

He gets up to the apartment a good fair bit before you do—stupid cool time powers—and you run up towards the apartment just in time to see Dante striding up to the futon where Bro's planted and dragging him over and off the back of it by the collar of his shirt. Dirk's nowhere to be seen, you note, but you barely get to wonder why before Dante throws Bro down to the floor—he lands on his back, and you can't help the wince when you hear the air punched out of his lungs.

“Could warn a guy before you,” he chokes, trying to stand up, “do that.” He's still sporting a good few scrapes from the previous fight.

“Ain't exactly in the mood for chatting things out,” Dante says, voice cold like the fucking Antarctic—South Pole type shit, you'd think there was a fourth ice age going on. Or fifth—you don't remember how many there've been. Whatever. The point is that he's standing over your Bro, who's barely keeping himself upright, looking like he's one wrong move away from punching his face in.

“What the fuck are you doing to Dave,” he asks, and it sounds less like a question than it does an accusation. You don't want to think about what the accusation is.

“I'm tryin' ta fix what you fucked up,” Bro says. He gives up on trying to stand up, instead just sitting up in a strange position that's halfway between lying down and cross-legged.

“What, and hurting a kid counts as fixing things?” Dante says, hands balling into fists at his sides.

“Never botherin' t' find out he existed didn't help him any either.”

Bro says it lazily, like it's just a statement of fact. For a moment you wonder how the hell Dante could have known, but instead of asking the obvious question he grits his teeth.

“So what, you think you can just avoid responsibility for the kid 'cause you ain't his real dad?” Dante asks instead, voice twisting around the word real like it's something poisonous.

“Kept him alive well enough. Ain't gonna call myself his dad when I know damn well the real thing's off doing fuck-all somewhere in Austin.”

Your Bro knew. Your Bro knew where your actual dad was and never said anything about it. Of course he didn't. Why the hell would he? He's a suicidal asshole with about as much respect for others as he does himself. Maybe he just kept you around as a joke. That would be pretty fucking ironic, wouldn't it, keeping a kid around even if you don't want him. Sorry, li'l man, your entire life so far has just been a prank I was playing on your dad without him knowing. Pretty fucking funny. Good one, Bro. Your sides are hurting.

It's quiet, but under your deafening heartbeat, you make out a creak that you haven't heard in a long time. Across the room, you see the door to your room peek open. You grit your teeth, the sound standing out to you even through the argument like a shot of adrenaline straight through your spine. Your first thought is that of course Dirk wouldn't know the trick to opening it silently. He just got here today. Your second thought is that you don't remember giving him permission to go into your room—what the hell, dude? Still, it doesn't seem like Dante and your Bro have noticed. Another sound, someone's voice, draws your attention back to the two of them.

Dante's saying something, but you don't catch the first part of it. His voice is harsh in a way that makes your stomach turn.

“—what do you think a dad's supposed to do? Fuck his kid up beyond belief? 'Cause if so, you're doing a pretty fucking good job of being a father.”

He spits out the last part and Bro's mouth snaps shut. Either you zoned out for the bit where he mentioned that Bro could have, you know, called him, or he didn't mention it at all.

You feel sick.

Bro rallies quickly, though.

“That why your kid's named after me? So you didn't have to be one?”

Dante flinches back, reeling back as if just punched. The action is punctuated Dirk slamming the door to your room shut, back against it like he's been pinned there, and Dante's head whips up to look for the source of the noise, spotting Dirk right across from him. Dirk's gaze is fixed on where Bro's still reclining.

“No,” Dirk says, voice coming out unsteady even as he tries to seem unbothered, “I chose it myself.”

Derek pauses for a moment and then hums at this, turning just a little towards Dante. There's a strange tone to his voice when he speaks next, not-quite-sarcasm inching into understanding.

“Sure, kid. And I'm sure daddy dearest had nothing to do with it.”

Dirk doesn't say anything, which seems to confirm it. Dante's breathing quick and unsteady now, and it takes him a moment before he turns to face Bro again, looming over him. Bro's backing away from him slowly, using the floor and the back of the futon to leverage himself into a crouching position. Dante doesn't give him any time to get up by himself, grabbing onto the collar of his ratty T-shirt and pulling him up.

“You shut the fuck up, Derek Strider,” Dante says, hand bunched in your Bro's shirt, and what the hell is that your Bro's actual name, “or I'll shut you up myself.”

“Yeah?” Bro—Derek?—challenges, and you can hear the shitty smirk in his voice, the one he puts on when he wants someone to get mad at him. He doesn't continue, though, instead turning away from Dante and—

“Hey, Dave.”

You startle at the address, and Dante seems surprised, too, turning to the side to see you in the doorway.

“Motherfucker,” he says, running his hand through his hair and glancing back at Dirk before turning back to you, “kid, this isn't—”

“Y'know how I got this scar?” Bro asks, pointing at the pale line running along his neck with his thumb. For a moment, you think Dante's going to throw him back onto the floor by the way he almost reflexively jerks away.

Of course he's going the fucking Joker route. You swallow heavily through the ball of panic in your throat. He's still looking at you without saying anything, and it takes you another moment before you shake your head no—Dante's looking over at you, too, now, and—

Bro throws himself backwards, wrestling himself out of Dante's grip and then lunging at him. Everything skips a perisecond, and Dante's turned around, once again standing over Bro in a mirror image to their positions when you got here.

Still, Bro seems unfazed. He sits up and takes another few heavy breaths before speaking again.

“This guy couldn't find it in him to let me bleed out,” he says, nodding at where Dante's ever-so-slightly out of breath as well.

Dante doesn't move, looking down on Bro. Dirk, still standing by the door, glances over at you, but whatever he wants to say never comes out.

“Guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree,” Bro finishes, and he sounds—he sounds like Hal, you realize with a start. Tired. He lies down on the floor again rather than try to get up.

You don't think you've ever seen him this defeated, not even when he was bleeding out on you.

The realization comes slow, everything he's said rolling over you like the tide receding before the tsunami hits.

He didn't keep you around as a joke. There was a plan. Contingencies in case he died—no, when he died. You were supposed to fix what went wrong the first time.

You were supposed to kill your Bro.

“You know what that kid is?” Bro says from where he's still lying on the floor. The venom in his voice stings, your stomach filling with acid and dread. You hear Dante's breath hitch, and if it weren't for the sound of traffic from the street you'd think time stopped for how quiet it gets.

Bro breaks the silence with ease, his voice rough.

“He's your second biggest mistake.”

It sends a bolt of some unnameable emotion through you. Your hands feel heavy, useless. You're rooted to the spot, even as you will yourself to take the single step in to the apartment.

Of course he thinks that. Why would it be anything else? You don't want him dead. He does. You've proven yourself too weak to be of any use to him. You're less worth than dirt in his eyes. You are less than nothing.

“That's—” Dante grimaces, but he doesn't get to finish the sentence.

“You,” Dirk cuts off whatever Dante's about to say, still standing at the door, “you shut the hell up about my brother.”

His voice is unsteady, but he says it with a protectiveness that makes you feel—grounded. You aren't nothing to him.

You feel a pang in your chest at the thought. You aren't nothing to Rose, either. She was worried enough about you to tell Dirk, after all.

You aren't nothing to Egbert. You were the first one that—that they told, only a few days after their birthday a year ago. They trusted you enough to tell you about how uncomfortable they felt about their dad's whole “my son” schtick, trusted you not to tell the others before they did so themself. You'd felt strangely proud about that.

You aren't nothing to Jade, who kept checking in on you and ended up giving you the biggest reality check of your life during the mess in April—your Bro suddenly started ramping up strifes to the point where you had to take a week off school because you were so exhausted. You ended up ghosting both Egbert and Rose for days, but Jade was too stubborn to leave you be. You don't think you could have snapped out of that state without her angrily messaging you to ask you what the hell you thought you were doing, buster.

You aren't nothing to those people.

Fuck.

More than anything, you realize, you miss your friends.

Your Bro—Derek—turns his head towards Dirk from where he's lying down, expression unreadable.

“You really fuckin' did make a mini-me,” he mumbles, letting a huff of disbelief—or maybe laughter—pass through his nose.

Dirk visibly jerks at that, and for a second you think about the way Dirk spoke when you talked about leaving Bro behind. The callousness on his face when he said it wouldn't be your fault if whatever happened to him... happened. Of course he doesn't want to be compared to a guy he thinks should just disappear.

But even so, it makes you feel... almost offended. He only knows you from the server. He doesn't know shit about you. He doesn't know what you're like, not really—for all he knows, you're as much of an asshole as your Bro, just without the twenty years or so of extra asshole training that he must have gotten schooled in by the world's leading dickheads.

Whatever he says, you were raised by Bro. Born in that deep irony, molded by it, blah blah insert Batman reference here. You don't know what it's like anywhere else, to be anyone other than what he's taught you.

If you end up like him, would that protectiveness disappear entirely from Dirk's voice? Would he even think about why?

You shiver involuntarily.

“I didn't make him—he wasn't grown in some lab, you know,” Dante says coldly, still standing over Bro. “Maybe you just haven't heard of this revolutionary new concept called actually caring for your kid.”

“Shit, you're telling me you made your own replacement goldfish?” Bro's voice grows almost manic as he speaks, smile spreading across his face as he starts laughing at his own jokes. Dante seems frozen as he speaks, but you can't know why. Maybe horror. Maybe he's just given up trying to shut Bro up by now.

“Didn't even try going to the pet store first? Woulda been a lot fuckin' cheaper, for one. You shoulda gone to the pound, dude. Lot easier to get pre-beat dogs than it is to fuck a kid up bad enough just so you can pretend your brother ain't fucking de—”

He keeps talking, words slurring together until he suddenly stops, and you almost think it's because Dante's got him again, but it's something else entirely.

The feeling skips across the surface of your brain, almost nostalgic by now.

The loop resets.

The sun glares at you through the window. Your eyes hurt from the bright light streaming into your room, and even if Houston's always been warm, you can't help but curse the effects global warming has had on your quality of life. It takes another three seconds for you to process the sound coming from the living room.

Someone is getting beat up.

You bolt upwards—none of the options are good, and if it's your Bro, odds are Dante might actually kill him. Throwing on your clothes, you try skipping your way towards the door—you stumble halfway through, because of course you do. You're still a Padawan in whatever kind of hierarchy of time travellers there may be.

“Derek, what the hell are you—” you hear Dante say, and for a moment you're terrified that he's the one getting his shit kicked, but when you open the door you realize it can't be.

For one, it's hard to speak clearly when you're getting kicked so hard you can't even stand up.

Bro's standing over a figure, and with every dull thud of blunt force against meat there's a wheezing sound. Bro's cap has fallen to the floor from its place on the table, and you watch with fascinated horror as the thing gets spun into the corner.

“GET AT 'IM, BOY!” Cal cackles from where he's slung over Bro's shoulders, and though you can't see either of their faces the bright manic smile of the puppet is echoed in the tone of it.

You slip out of the room as soundlessly as you can, meeting Dirk's gaze from where he's standing beside Dante in the kitchen. He inclines his head at you, as if to ask what the fuck is going on, but you're about as confused as he is. Dante, meanwhile, looks vaguely sick, frozen in place as he keeps looking Bro's back. You guess the only reason Dirk hasn't tried anything is because Dante hasn't either.

The sounds from the living room have changed—there's a shuffling, and someone talking. You look back, and you see the figure of—

Who is this?

He's got his back against the desk, hands up in surrender as he tries to get away from Bro, shock-blond hair and pale skin, shirt rumpled and stained with flecks of blood by now. His eyes are covered by shades—not triangle-shaped like your Bro's, just regular shades.

Your immediate thought is that it's Dante, but that can't be it, because Dante is still behind you, looking about as freaked out as you feel. Your third thought is wait, it totally could be, with the time shit going on. Maybe the loop got totally fucked when Dante and Dirk came into the mix.

That theory gets busted as soon as you hear the guy speak. He sounds—desperate, voice pitched higher than Dante's and far more frantic.

“Fucking hell, dude,” the guy says, “just chill out for a second, yeah? I don't like this any more than you do, so let's just—no, wait, where are you—”

Bro swings a leg, aiming straight for the crotch, and the guy curls inwards like a doodle bug, collapsing back onto the floor.

“Motherfucker why does that hurt,” the guy whimpers. “What the fuck, man, don't give me balls just so you can kick me in them, I'm calling in the ref on you, you piece of garbage—”

“Y'know, I was hoping you'd come out at some point,” your Bro says, now kneeling down to lift the guy's head up like he's a delinquent from some anime, “always wanted to see what the inside of your skull looked like.”

Before you can say anything, Bro smashes his head down into the floor.

Okay, whatever the hell Dante's issue is, at least he breaks out of whatever weird trance he's stuck in—there's a skip, and Dante's behind Bro, wrenching him upwards from his crouched position.

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Dante half-yells, and the double takes the opportunity to scramble back, not even bothering to get up. You glance over at Dirk, whose eyes are still trained on the second Dante. You think you hear him muttering something under his breath, but you can't make out what it is. For a moment, you hesitate, wondering if you should stay back.

Fuck it, you think, making your way over to the scuffle. Someone needs to do something, and that might as well be you. Dante's double has his back to you, though, and you just avoid tripping over him when he backs into you at full speed.

“Fuck, what's—” he yelps, looking back at you and immediately falling silent again. He seems confused for a moment, then smiles awkwardly, holding up a hand with two obviously broken fingers. His face is covered in blood.

“Hey, kid,” he says, broken nose making his voice even more nasally. Dante notices the exchange from where he's trying to keep Bro's arms back.

“Hey, Dave,” he says gruffly as he's wrestling to keep Bro under control, Cal pulling at his face, “there's a real handy trick you can—fucker, what's your problem—do if y'get hurt—”

You remember, suddenly, the way Dante had psyched himself up for something back in the apartment after the fight, and then spent a good five minutes or so just breathing heavily. He'd looked a lot better for wear afterwards, so you're guessing it's some kind of way to heal wounds.

“—or someone else,” he continues, nodding at the other Dante, who blinks and turns back to face the fight.

“Wait,” the other Dante says, head swivelling between you and the Dante holding back Bro, “hold on, I ain't g'nna be the kid's test subject, that's—”

“Just—rewind the guy, will you?” Dante says, trying to keep his balance as Bro attempts to topple him. “It might hurt, but it isnt—stop that, you—it isn't any worse than a redo, alright?”

You nod mutely, turning your attention back to the double.

“Hey,” you say, “so... you ready for this or?”

He casts a worried look over at the fight, but as he breathes in sharply he seems to resign himself to his fate.

“Just don't fuck it up, alright?” he says, grimacing. “Don't wanna get stuck as like, some kinda fetus.”

“Dude, I'm pretty sure it'd be harder to do that than not get it rewound enough,” you say, closing your eyes and breathing in. “Could get you stuck in an eternity of getting your face smashed in.”

“Alright, I get the point, just—” he manages to say before the world goes slow and syrupy-red.

You blink, trying to ignore the headache building in the back of your mind. Dante and Bro get shoved to the back too, despite the way just being in the same room as them makes your skull feel heavy.

Looking at this other Dante and the string emerging from him, wrapping itself around him in fragile loops, a strange feeling overcomes you. There's an end leading back to where Bro's standing behind you, but it fades out into nothing before it connects back—the string just floats in the air, like the end of a spiderweb hanging loose, too light to fall. Trying to focus on it with the thrumming of whatever Dante's doing in the background is nearly impossible, but you grit your teeth through it.

You reach out, hesitantly, to the other end—the one connecting back to his chest. You flinch, preparing yourself for something similar to when you've grazed against your own bundles of yarn, but all that meets you is the feeling of a string almost too thin to make out. There's no flash of memory, no sudden overwhelming sensation that pulls you back. It's just string. You pull on it, ever so slightly, and there's just enough give that you end up with a decent length of it between your hands. It feels like—about a couple minutes, you hazard, which is probably enough to deal with the worst of it.

Now, how the hell do you get this undone?

The first thing that comes to mind is just shoving it back in there, like you're just sweeping it under the rug. That probably won't work, though, if tangles here translate back into weird time shit in the real world. Your second idea is closer to—a yoyo, the string spinning back around the core. A measuring tape clicking back into place.

You focus on the idea, the feeling of something snapping back into place, the idea of a bundle of yarn spinning in on itself until you feel the loose string in your hands slip through your fingers. It starts out slow, but as it speeds up, you barely manage to hold on to the end of the length you had cordoned off—fuck, you think, you might actually end up rewinding him far enough that he just disappears.

In a moment of panic, you grab onto the string with your whole fist, and for a second it yanks you with it; you end up in a strange position of bracing yourself with both feet planted squarely on the ground, keeping the string from running any farther back in. You stand stock still for another moment, testing out the slack. The string goes from taut to loose again slowly, like it's waiting for you to let go just so it can pull that trick again. You only let it fall when there's nothing pulling from the other end.

You sit down, take a couple deep breaths. That could have ended a lot worse. Closing your eyes again, you let yourself feel the floor under you, the floorboards under your touch. The world comes back like surfacing from the water.

Across from you, the other Dante yelps, the sudden reexperiencing of a good four minutes or so of getting beat up catching him off-guard, his head flinching backward and his hand jerking out from his body like he's been electrocuted.

“Christ on a fucking bicycle that hurts,” he hisses out, reaching up to feel the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry,” you say, “haven't really tried it before.”

He blinks at you, and through his shades, you can barely make out the deep crimson of his eyes.

“Naw, yeah,” he says, “long as the ol' mug stays intact.”

He looks past you, and you follow his gaze to see Bro sitting on the floor in the corner by the T.V., Cal still hanging off his shoulders. Dante stands between him and you, still breathing heavily.

“Thanks for the help,” the guy says, saluting you with two fingers that were just broken and then unbroken, “'ppreciate it. You too, dude.”

The last part is directed at Dante, who takes a moment before turning back. He grimaces at the sight of his double, but shoots him a matching salute.

“Anytime.”

“Well, yeah,” the other Dante says with a smirk, “sure hope so. You're takin' self-help to a whole other level, you know that?”

Dante lets the grimace etch itself deeper on his face. He glances over at where Bro's sitting, then back to the guy sitting on the floor in front of you.

“Please don't tell me he made a brain punching bag of me.”

Bro scoffs from his place in the corner. He stands up with some difficulty and nearly throws himself onto the futon beside you, positioning his legs obnoxiously up on the makeshift table in front of it. The Dante-double scrambles backwards again, blindly feeling for the leg of the desk and using it to stand up himself. He doesn't say anything. Behind him, Dirk's made his way to your little weird group, stopping up right beside the double.

“Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to make something like that with this much self-awareness?” Bro says, now half-way laying on the futon, voice dripping with contempt.

“A LOT MORE THAN ANYTHING CALLING ITSELF DANTE STRIDER DESERVES, I CAN TELL YA THAT MUCH,” Cal says, crossing his arms over Bro's head and looking directly at Dante. He twitches back.

“That,” Bro continues, ignoring Cal, “is a fuckin' mistake.”

“Yeah? That what you call all of your little brain buddies?” Dante's double says in a slightly shaky voice, gingerly massaging his hand. “Not exactly like you're telling them about the pile of scrap metal in the crawlspace, either.”

He smirks at the way Bro bristles. It's a weird balance he's trying to keep—he's got his back against the wall, almost against the door to your bedroom by now, but he doesn't seem to want to back down at all. You wonder what he's talking about—is it Hal? But you already know about him, so it can't be. Whatever he's talking about, Bro scoffs at him.

“That's none'a their business,” Bro says gruffly, and you can see the way he's itching to resume the fight from a mile away.

“Agree to disagree,” the double shrugs. He doesn't shy away from Bro, even though he's still wincing from the previous beatdown. “Little honesty goes a long way, y'know.”

“Speaking of,” he says, turning back to face you and Dante, “I'm Dante.”

That's.

Okay, yeah, you'd gathered as much, judging by the looks and all, but it's still really weird to actually think about the fact that your Bro's been walking around with an imprint of your actual dad in his mind.

“Though I guess that'll get pretty confusing in the long run,” he continues, grimacing as he looks at the real Dante.

“Yeah, kinda rackin' my brain for something else to call you,” Actual Dante says, “bit more used to dealing with myself than, y'know, whatever you are.”

There's a flash of discomfort across Dante's double's face, but it's gone as quick as it came. It's replaced with a look of contemplation as he hums tunelessly to himself for a moment.

“What about...” he pauses for a moment, apparently in thought, “Shadow.”

He smirks, an air of self-satisfaction radiating off him. You realize, with some degree of horrified disbelief, that it was a pause for dramatic effect.

There is a deeply uncomfortable silence between the four of you. Cal clacks away quietly on the futon, and you have the distinct feeling he's enjoying the sight of Dante's double digging himself deeper, even if Bro refuses to acknowledge his existence now that he isn't beating the guy up.

“Dude, no fucking way I'm calling you Shadow,” you say.

“Come on,” the double says, “it fits. It's a—a reflection type thing or whatever.”

“Like... Shadow the Hedgehog?” Dirk asks, tentatively looking up at him from behind his back.

The double's smile stiffens a bit, turning slightly to look at Dirk over his shoulder.

“If you wanna be a nerd about it, sure,” he says and shrugs, after a slightly longer pause than deniability would allow. “Not like it's also just a totally normal word that'd be an awesome name when you're a version of someone or anything.”

“What are you, 10? That's like, a kid's idea of cool.” You almost say what are you, 12?, but quickly remember that Dirk probably wouldn't like the jab. “It isn't even ironic enough that it's funny, it's just stupid.”

“It's because of Shadow the Hedgehog, isn't it,” Dante says, sighing and rubbing at his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Dude, just because you're supposed to be a twisted version of me or whatever doesn't mean you have to be edgy about it. You can just... have a regular-ass name.”

“You try coming up with something then, wiseass,” the double snaps, flustered. “I'd like to see you change your name and entire sense of self in like a minute. We're the same guy.”

“Naw, dude, I really don't think so,” Dante says, crossing his arms. He looks over at Bro sitting on the futon, still silent, although you can't help but notice the way Cal's turned over to your little semi-huddle, watching with bright orange eyes. “Is this the best you could come up with? Guy can't even figure out an alias on his own.”

Cal laughs at that, loudly.

“AND HE'S A LOT MORE BORING,” the puppet says, “JUST LIES DOWN WHEN HE GETS KICKED!”

“Hey,” the double says to Dante, bristling, “I'm right here, you know, y'don't gotta address your inquiries to him.” You note the way he doesn't say your Bro's name. Neither did Hal, you realize with a start, although you hadn't noticed it at the time.

“Calm down, dude,” Dante retorts, “I'm just saying. Could've put a bit more effort into you than this.”

“The fuck do you mean by that,” the double says, disbelief dripping from his voice, “this is all fuckin' you, man. Not my fault I got stuck working with the material you provided.”

Dante grimaces at that, looking back at Bro. Cal's crawled his way over his head, one arm hanging around his neck for support as Cal peers at the double. He flinches back when his eyes meet the puppets', hitting the edge of the desk.

“HE REALLY IS MORE PATHETIC IN PERSON, ISN'T HE?” Cal says, aiming his question at Dante. “DIDN'T EVEN TAKE ANY CREATIVE LIBERTIES. PLAGIARISM PERSONIFIED. HAHA.”

Dante cringes at the continued onslaught, glancing over at the double—and you decide that you really can't keep doing this.

“Listen, it's all fucking fine and dandy with the whole existential crisis or whatever, but I just wanna figure out a name for this guy, so can we just—figure that out before the philosophy lecture starts? I don't wanna have to bust out a thesaurus every time I wanna talk about that guy,” you say, nodding in the double's direction, “and while I'm sure there's a million copyright issues or whatever in having a bootleg version of someone in your brain I really don't care enough to keep listening to this discussion before figuring out a name for you that isn't Double Dante.”

“Could just shorten that to DD,” says Dirk, piping up.

“No, come on, I ain't calling myself a cup size,” says the double, crossing his arms.

“Fucking—fine, what about just... D?” you ask, exasperated.

That gets a reaction from both Bro and Dante, simultaneous sharp intakes of breath from either side of you.

“Not like it's gonna be less confusing, but at least it's not just Dante 2. Or Doppeldante,” you continue.

“That's. Uh,” Dante says, and the second he opens his mouth Bro whips his head around to glare daggers at him. Cal's crawled his way over to balance on the back of the futon, and he starts cackling wildly.

“GREAT IDEA, KID,” Cal says, polished wood mouth tak-tak-taking as he speaks, “KNEW WE KEPT YOU AROUND FOR A REASON!”

“Fuck that's freaky,” D says under his breath beside you, but it doesn't seem like he's got any comment on the name itself.

“Okay, great,” you say, because at this point you don't even care about what the puppet has to say about it, just that you have a name for the guy, “if there's no objections, 'm callin' that dude D from now on.”

“What? Yeah, sure, fine,” D says before Dante manages to say anything, “D works. Hah, that's pretty funny, right, 'case I actually got—”

“I object,” Dante interrupts, “it's—”

He glances over at Bro, who's sitting hunched over now, tensed up and ready to jump if Dante says the wrong thing.

“—kind of stupid when all of our names start with D?” he finishes weakly, and even if you kind of agree you can tell it isn't the actual reason.

Fuck him, you decide. If he isn't going to tell you the actual reason, and he doesn't have any better suggestions, he can shove it up his ass.

“Not like it's a nickname for any of us,” you shrug, feigning nonchalance. “Could just be a placeholder.”

Dante doesn't push any further, but shoots D a look. D grins sheepishly in response and shrugs.

“Hell, doesn't matter to me,” he says.

“Still wondering what the hell you're doing here at all,” Dante says, sighing, “time travel doubles are one thing, but...”

“Yeah, no, hold on a fucking minute, why the fuck's my dad in your brain,” you ask, looking over at Bro, “did you just make him so he could take care of me or something?”

You gesture at D as you speak. He seems to tense up ever so slightly at that, and some small hope still left in your heart fizzles out like embers thrown into snow that's ten feet deep. You remember Hal, resigned to telling you that he was just there to take care of Derek. Nothing about you. Maybe someone else had to fill that role, someone who wasn't Derek Strider. Someone who'd actually want you around, even if just nominally.

“Did you not want to be my dad that bad?” you say, and it twists itself into something bitter as the syllables make their way through your mouth. Dante's moved back, you notice, and there's a frown etched deep into his face as he looks between D and Bro. “Is he just some fucked up way you could avoid raising me?”

Bro, for what it's worth, seems to actually think before he says anything. Beside you, D seems even more tense, like a rat two milliseconds from scurrying away to some hole in the wall.

“Kid, that's—” he says, voice pitched up as if to plead.

“Naw, he was in there before you showed up,” Bro interrupts, casting a sidelong glance at D, “way before.”

D laughs nervously at that, although it fades out quickly. You turn to face Bro wholly—Cal's wrapped his arms around his neck again, and the puppet's head is resting on his shoulders. Like some strange tableau of parent and infant, the puppet hanging off him like a toddler getting a piggy-back ride.

A strange jealousy runs through you at the sight, although you know that he must have held you at some point. All you can remember of softness is Cal, clinging onto the thing far past the age where you started feeling ashamed of it. It makes you—you don't know what it makes you feel, but you don't want to think about the pain in your chest any more.

“Yeah, okay, sorry for assuming the imprint of my dad in your brain had anything to do with you raising me.” You take a breath, trying not to let the dam break all at once, but when you open your mouth next you immediately know you've failed.

“Or the fact you never told me shit about my real dad, or how we were related, or if we were related—shit, you know what it's like, thinking there's someone out there, the fucking reason you exist, and they just left you behind without any way for you to know what happened? Would it have been that fucking bad to let me think you wanted me around? To have the kid you're raising have a parent?”

You breathe again, heavily, and out of the corner of your eye you see Dante, fist clenched at his side. Behind you, D holds his breath.

“Would it have killed you to say that you were my dad?”

From over Bro's shoulder, you see Cal—not looking at you, but directly at Bro, blinking slowly up at him once, twice. It takes another breath before Bro speaks, and he doesn't look away from the T.V., still turned off.

“I know what it's like havin' someone callin' himself a father 'n never doin' anything t'earn it,” he says, voice heavy like stone. “I know what it's like havin' a man askin' you t' call him yer dad when you hate the real thing so much you want to strangle the fucker.”

Beside you, there's a blip—suddenly, Dante's gone, and it's only when you hear hurried steps away into the kitchen that you realize he's done the same skipping trick again. Looking over, Dirk seems torn between staying at your back or checking up on Dante, but Dante waves him off wordlessly as he steadies himself against the counter. You turn back to Bro, and what comes out next is steam from an engine well on its way past the point of no return.

“So, what, you decide it's just better to not be one at all?”

Even as you say it, you feel the rush of falling over a cliff. Great job, idiot.

“Couldn't've been your dad,” Bro says. Simple. Clean. Methodical.

You blink.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Dave,” he says, in a voice flatter than the clean-pressed shirt of a family father, only just now turning to face you, “I'm gay.”

“What?”

Shit, that does explain. A lot? You guess? At the very least, the whole obsession with machismo is actually a lot more straightforward. Hah. Straight. Still, it doesn't preclude the possibility of him being your dad—fuck knows there's a million ways that could have worked out. You barrel onwards, if only to prove him wrong—the fire in your stomach is still burning, and you're not letting his swerves derail you. You're a steam engine, barreling forward as long as you have the fuel.

“Hey, I don't fucking know, you could have had a one-time-thing with some lady for whatever reason and knocked her up without realizing?”

He peers back at you from the futon, as if to ask if you're serious. Cal's begun to cackle soundlessly, clack-clack-clack, like someone's telling a joke he already knows the ending to. Behind you, D's muttering something, but not loud enough that you can hear it clearly. What you can catch is mostly swearing.

“I ain't got a dick, Dave,” he says at last.

Huh?

You look at him, utterly dumbfounded.

“Huh?” you say, after a moment, because apparently you hadn't actually said that out loud.

“Y'ever hear about this neat little hormone called testosterone?” Bro says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“SHAME YOU CAN'T OVERDOSE ON IT,” Cal says, voice piercing your eardrums as he pinches Bro's face with his strange mitten hands, “WE SHOULD'VE FOUND SOMETHING MORE FUN TO PUT IN THOSE NEEDLES.”

“You're trans?” Dirk says, voice a mix of confusion and disbelief—no, more like he doesn't want it to be true.

“People don't gotta know 'till it matters, do they,” Bro snaps, and then sinks back down into the futon. “And it ain't like it's mattered much so far.”

“Derek,” comes Dante's voice from the kitchen, weirdly distant even as he's speaking loudly enough for his voice to ring clear, “you've had this kid for—for fourteen years. Why the fuck doesn't he know—you—Jesus Christ, Derek, how the hell do you even manage that—”

He runs his hand through his hair, and he hesitates for a moment before standing up straight.

“Hey, listen, I'm sure we can figure shit out—” D starts, but Dante ignores him entirely.

“You aren't getting anywhere without me,” he says, words aimed at Bro. “You've been floundering around, trying to burn this whole thing down without even stopping to think about what the consequences are gonna be if you succeed. And those, whatever they are,” he gestures at D and Cal, “aren't helping.”

D shrinks back, to the point where you spot him in the corner of your eye. Cal says nothing, eyes fixed on Dante.

“Hal might, but just the fact that they've shown up at all is a symptom of the—the sickness you're spreading here. And the only fucking reason I haven't left you here to rot already is because there's a kid involved that doesn't deserve to be. I don't care if he's mine or not, and maybe I'm a shit dad for saying that, but no fucking kid deserves to have to deal with this kind of shit.”

Your eyes are stinging. Trying to swallow down the tears, you look back over at Dante, who's pinching the bridge of his nose, one hand in his pocket. Dirk's beside you, you notice vaguely, but if he's saying anything you can't make it out.

“You've really fucked this one up, Derek,” Dante says, voice heavy with fatigue.

Bro doesn't say anything, face turned straight ahead. For a second, you think he reaches up to—hide his face in his cap, you realize, but the thing's still lying forlornly in the corner. Dante doesn't move any closer, doesn't do anything as he waits for an answer. There is none.

“Dave's leaving with me,” Dante finishes, voice like steel.

Bro casts a long look back over his shoulder at Dante, then at you. You feel yourself go cold at the sight, trying to figure out what he's sizing you up for.

“Y'are?” he asks, and the last remnants of that fire coughs up the energy needed to nod once, resolutely, even as you feel the weight of his gaze on you like lead. You don't think you would have been able to say anything, not with the lump in your throat.

In the end, he just shrugs and turns back, looking at the blank nothing of the T.V. screen.

“Alright. I don't care. You can go with him. Soon as this loop shit's done, you've got your perfect family life,” Bro says, waving his hand dismissively in your general direction. “No need t' bother me about it.”

The relief is... less like relief, and more like someone's just cut your strings. You feel your shoulders sag, suddenly heavy. He huffs out a light laugh, though it's devoid of humor.

“Shit, far as the authorities will know, you're just moving to Dante's other place.”

“Other place?” Dante says, his voice sharp. D breathes in through his teeth, eyes widening in—not surprise, but panic. Bro goes tense for all of a second, and then it's as if he deflates, sinking back down into the futon.

“Shit, that's—” D says, “dude, you cannot, you have to shut the fuck up—”

“Fuck does it matter now?” Bro barks, and then goes a bit more quiet. “The apartment's technically Dante's. He's been sublettin' the place t' his little brother, who's workin' freelance, but that's just so's he's got a legal address. The guy's barely on the map otherwise. Dante 'n his kid Dave have been livin' here for around 13 years or so. Sometimes the mail gets mixed up b'tween his place in Houston 'n Austin, but it always gets sorted out in th' end.”

There is total fucking silence.

“Always wondered why y'hadn't figured it out,” Bro continues, “shit, I thought you had. Didn't y'ever do yer own taxes?”

“That—I thought that was me,” Dante says, bewildered. D barks out a nervous laugh at that. Dante looks over at him, and then back at Bro, his expression stricken with despair. “You let this guy do my taxes?”

“What? No, I ain't stupid, I did 'em.” Bro retorts. Dante seems to breathe out a sigh of relief at that, but catches himself in the act.

“Besides,” he says, leaning back on the futon with his hands behind his head, “I ain't letting a guy who thinks selling bootleg CDs on eBay is good business anywhere near the finances.”