Major gore warning! ---------------------------------------
He perches on the lip of a mushroom as big as a car. This wiry kid with fancy orange kicks, dark wash jeans folded up at the cuffs and frayed regardless. He taps his toes in time to the teal pulse of the dendrite sky, blood flowing in rivers through the forest all around you. You don't know what this place is, only that you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't exist. And neither should this kid, sitting up there with his shirt all stained and sodden with seeping red blood, headless with his severed head cupped between his palms in his lap. Both of you should be dead as doornails but you're awake despite it.
His lips are blue, but his eyes track over to yours anyway when you step up next to the mushroom. He's two feet above you. You've got a perfect view of his shoes, the soles barely worn, like he's been pacing the same two rooms for his entire life with nowhere else to go. You've got a sword through your chest and a hole through one lung, pints of blood stained dark and warm all down your back and the rear of your beat up jeans.
The head in his lap blinks once, looking you over before he hums and says, "Now this I didn't expect."
Which is funny, because that was exactly what you were thinking. "What are you? My kid double?"
He shrugs, shoulders of his decapitated body shifting. The triangular shades folded over the neck of his bloody shirt catch the teal light of the funky sky. "I'm thinking it's more like the other way around. You're some alt version of me. But I'm some alt version of me anyway, so it's not that important to sort out the details."
You've heard a lot of nonsense since you died and woke up in this nightmare sideshow of shifting realities, but never from your own mouth. "So you're not you."
He rolls his eyes without managing to change his expression, and if he were anyone other than you, you'd think it was because he'd lost function in his face. But that's just how you look without your shades. Expressionless. Building eternity just behind your eyes. "What, you haven't gotten the whole information special concerning how death and multiplicity works out here?"
"I've gotten it, just haven't had the pleasure of meeting a different version of myself before."
He nods, which is awkward because he needs his hands to do it, and it doesn't pull off nearly the calming effect you figure he was going for. "All right, that's fair." Then he frowns just the slights bit, staring at you almost judgmentally. "What are you, fucking thirty?"
"Twenty nine," you say too fast, a tinge of hard tone to it. Not thirty. One year away, but not yet. Or never, considering you're dead. A sword through the chest was a hell of a way to dodge that bullet. "What are you, twelve?"
"Fifteen," he says almost as fast as you had, annoyance under the surface. And that's fair. He doesn't look twelve. None of Dave's baby fat around his face, just the right hint of maturity to his features. God, he looks like you. He is you, but you haven't looked like that since—
Since Dave.
This is the kid you would have been without Dave. You don't know how to feel about that.
"Whatever," he mutters, scooting closer to the edge of his gigantic blood mushroom. He cups his head between his palms and lowers it, resting his elbows lazily on his knees. You can see the spine and gaping trachea in his severed neck. "Dirk prime is still running around alive somewhere in paradox space. I'm from some timeline where Jake pussied out and didn't kiss my severed head in time. Shit sucks, but what are you gonna do?"
"Jake?" There are a thousand questions you could ask, but you decide that's the one that will mess with him the most.
Another awkward shrug. "I like him."
You smile, a tiny thing. You remember Jake Harley, sweeping through Houston like a force of nature, connecting you with Roxanne and Jane and Jane's straitlaced son that looked a little like him. Jake was older than you and attractive in all the ways that caught your attention the most. You imagine a young version of him chatting up a young version of yourself, and all the myriad ways you'd fall for him. "Little too late at this point."
"So what are you?" he asks, changing the subject entirely. "An old version of me where the game went on too long?" Even as he says it you hear the hint of skepticism in his voice. You're something from another universe entirely, and he's not exactly ready to accept that. He can deal with dead versions of himself, dead versions of his friends, but an entire remix of the track? That's outside his control, and you've never liked things that you couldn't find some way to bend to your will.
"If you're talking about SBURB, I've never played it. Got dragged into Dave's session. Died."
"Dave," he whispers, lips blue and far too pliable to move the way they do. "Dave Strider?"
"The same." And you shrug and look off into the stinking bloody forest, rivers of clotted red streaking through the pink-leafed trees under the pulsating teal brain sky. Everything's alive here. It makes you sick to your stomach, but looking at your butchered younger self makes you feel the same. And you'd always had a thing for guro. "Although I figure the Dave you know is about my age and famous as all hell."
"Yes." He squints at you now, then scoots off the lip of the mushroom cap to land heavily on his feet, orange sneakers scuffing in the teal light. He's barely taller than Dave is. He holds his head in his hands and looks you over, his gaze sticking on the ugly wound through your chest that's still gushing blood. It'll probably gush forever just to look fancy. "So this is what I turn into in your alternate future? Famous but still dead in shitty shoes?"
"Don't knock the shoes," you say. He's got a snotty smirk on his face and you realize—a little uncomfortably—that you want to kiss it off. You reach out and clamp a hand over his shoulder, turn him into the woods. "Why don't you show me around instead."
Maybe he gets the hint. Maybe you've spent so long around Dave that you've forgotten not to underestimate a kid as sharp as yourself. Either way, he shrugs and leads the way, looking back once to make sure you're following.
FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY
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He perches on the lip of a mushroom as big as a car. This wiry kid with fancy orange kicks, dark wash jeans folded up at the cuffs and frayed regardless. He taps his toes in time to the teal pulse of the dendrite sky, blood flowing in rivers through the forest all around you. You don't know what this place is, only that you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't exist. And neither should this kid, sitting up there with his shirt all stained and sodden with seeping red blood, headless with his severed head cupped between his palms in his lap. Both of you should be dead as doornails but you're awake despite it.
His lips are blue, but his eyes track over to yours anyway when you step up next to the mushroom. He's two feet above you. You've got a perfect view of his shoes, the soles barely worn, like he's been pacing the same two rooms for his entire life with nowhere else to go. You've got a sword through your chest and a hole through one lung, pints of blood stained dark and warm all down your back and the rear of your beat up jeans.
The head in his lap blinks once, looking you over before he hums and says, "Now this I didn't expect."
Which is funny, because that was exactly what you were thinking. "What are you? My kid double?"
He shrugs, shoulders of his decapitated body shifting. The triangular shades folded over the neck of his bloody shirt catch the teal light of the funky sky. "I'm thinking it's more like the other way around. You're some alt version of me. But I'm some alt version of me anyway, so it's not that important to sort out the details."
You've heard a lot of nonsense since you died and woke up in this nightmare sideshow of shifting realities, but never from your own mouth. "So you're not you."
He rolls his eyes without managing to change his expression, and if he were anyone other than you, you'd think it was because he'd lost function in his face. But that's just how you look without your shades. Expressionless. Building eternity just behind your eyes. "What, you haven't gotten the whole information special concerning how death and multiplicity works out here?"
"I've gotten it, just haven't had the pleasure of meeting a different version of myself before."
He nods, which is awkward because he needs his hands to do it, and it doesn't pull off nearly the calming effect you figure he was going for. "All right, that's fair." Then he frowns just the slights bit, staring at you almost judgmentally. "What are you, fucking thirty?"
"Twenty nine," you say too fast, a tinge of hard tone to it. Not thirty. One year away, but not yet. Or never, considering you're dead. A sword through the chest was a hell of a way to dodge that bullet. "What are you, twelve?"
"Fifteen," he says almost as fast as you had, annoyance under the surface. And that's fair. He doesn't look twelve. None of Dave's baby fat around his face, just the right hint of maturity to his features. God, he looks like you. He is you, but you haven't looked like that since—
Since Dave.
This is the kid you would have been without Dave. You don't know how to feel about that.
"Whatever," he mutters, scooting closer to the edge of his gigantic blood mushroom. He cups his head between his palms and lowers it, resting his elbows lazily on his knees. You can see the spine and gaping trachea in his severed neck. "Dirk prime is still running around alive somewhere in paradox space. I'm from some timeline where Jake pussied out and didn't kiss my severed head in time. Shit sucks, but what are you gonna do?"
"Jake?" There are a thousand questions you could ask, but you decide that's the one that will mess with him the most.
Another awkward shrug. "I like him."
You smile, a tiny thing. You remember Jake Harley, sweeping through Houston like a force of nature, connecting you with Roxanne and Jane and Jane's straitlaced son that looked a little like him. Jake was older than you and attractive in all the ways that caught your attention the most. You imagine a young version of him chatting up a young version of yourself, and all the myriad ways you'd fall for him. "Little too late at this point."
"So what are you?" he asks, changing the subject entirely. "An old version of me where the game went on too long?" Even as he says it you hear the hint of skepticism in his voice. You're something from another universe entirely, and he's not exactly ready to accept that. He can deal with dead versions of himself, dead versions of his friends, but an entire remix of the track? That's outside his control, and you've never liked things that you couldn't find some way to bend to your will.
"If you're talking about SBURB, I've never played it. Got dragged into Dave's session. Died."
"Dave," he whispers, lips blue and far too pliable to move the way they do. "Dave Strider?"
"The same." And you shrug and look off into the stinking bloody forest, rivers of clotted red streaking through the pink-leafed trees under the pulsating teal brain sky. Everything's alive here. It makes you sick to your stomach, but looking at your butchered younger self makes you feel the same. And you'd always had a thing for guro. "Although I figure the Dave you know is about my age and famous as all hell."
"Yes." He squints at you now, then scoots off the lip of the mushroom cap to land heavily on his feet, orange sneakers scuffing in the teal light. He's barely taller than Dave is. He holds his head in his hands and looks you over, his gaze sticking on the ugly wound through your chest that's still gushing blood. It'll probably gush forever just to look fancy. "So this is what I turn into in your alternate future? Famous but still dead in shitty shoes?"
"Don't knock the shoes," you say. He's got a snotty smirk on his face and you realize—a little uncomfortably—that you want to kiss it off. You reach out and clamp a hand over his shoulder, turn him into the woods. "Why don't you show me around instead."
Maybe he gets the hint. Maybe you've spent so long around Dave that you've forgotten not to underestimate a kid as sharp as yourself. Either way, he shrugs and leads the way, looking back once to make sure you're following.