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Your name is Karkat Vantas and you still can’t believe this is your life. Earth after the game is still too bright, too warm, too much everything, like someone took the dials on the universe and turned them up all the way. This would bother you more, but you’ve spent the vast majority of your waking hours working at night, working on your new hive, and the moonlight is a lot more forgiving.
It’s not like you really sleep much anyway.
Can Town is coming along nicely from what you can tell. Between those of you who survived being essentially gods and the help of the enthusiastic Carapacians, you’ll have working internet before the sweep is out. Shit, everyone’s even getting along, even with the expected cultural hiccups.
Your life is a weird mish-mash of laughter and tears, a whirlwind of nighttime flights across boundless forests and oceans, building a civilization from the ground up, and then waking up screaming in the middle of the night from nightmares you’ve been having ever since you and your friends first decided to play Sgrub.
And ever present in every day is Dave. Flying with you, helping the Mayor plan out this new and improved Can Town society, holding you tight when you wake up sobbing and clawing at invisible monsters, the names of your dead friends dying on your lips as they’re overwhelmed with agonized wailing. His arms are strong and his heartbeat is steady and he holds you, mumbling freestyle raps about the curve of your horns and the way you look in the moonlight and how he’s gonna be there when you wake up until you fall back into a doze and the dreams come again.
Dave sometimes jokes that the two of you have swapped roles in your relationship, noting all the times on the Meteor when you were there to wake him up from nightmares, when he cried and trusted no-one else for comfort, and funny how now he’s fine and you’re the one who needs comfort. He says it a little too loud and a little too often, laughing too hard at jokes that aren’t funny and staying too quiet in groups. Especially groups that include Dirk.
You don’t press him. You know better, and you also know that you aren’t in any kind of rush. Your matesprit is a Time player, for fuck’s sake, and you’re both immortal. If that isn’t a recipe for actually being together forever, you don’t know what is. There’s no expiration date on this relationship and that’s the way you want it.
As far as you can tell, that’s the way he wants it too.
***
Your name is Dave Strider and you don’t know if you’ll be able to keep it together for much longer.
You wake up with jerking gasps next to Karkat every night and the nightmares you have are secrets that you suffer through alone, stifling your cries and bottling your emotions like you’re trying to brew fine wine until you know you won’t be disturbed and releasing them through the point of a sword, leveling forests somewhere that you think used to be California. Karkat suspects you aren’t okay - of course he does, he knows you better than literally anyone - but says nothing, because he also knows you’ll say something when you’re ready.
(You hope to fucking god that soon you’ll be ready).
The dreams aren’t as bad as they were on the Meteor, and you haven’t got dream bubbles to stumble into ass over ankles, but somehow the construct of your mind (you’re so sick of your own mind) captures the taste of that familiar fear, the shrieking grind of metal against metal, the sweltering Texas heat, and brings them all together in a vivid splash of a life that was once yours, one you greet with anger and defiance mixed with pain and terror.
You confront your imaginary iteration of Bro every night, his pointy anime shades flickering with the reflected light of crackling fires. You feel his disappointment thick in the air, taste it on your tongue as it mixes with the bitter taste of adrenaline.
You’re dead, you say, gripping your sword in your hands until the hilt burns in your palms.
He raises his unbreakable katana and gives you an inscrutable smirk, his features shifting and melting until they become Dirk’s.
Am I?
The Texas rooftop shifts into the crumbled remain of the buildings on LOTAK and you hear the sounds of the battle ringing in your ears. Terezi is behind you, swinging her cane at one of the Jacks while the other charges up his attack. Bro/Dirk swings the katana and you watch as he decapitates himself, his head rolling across the ground until it lands at your feet. It still smiles up at you.
Remember, little bro? You didn’t let me die.
You wake up again, choking back screams and tangled in sheets. Karkat is already awake and outside, working on your hive (he never stops working, never stops coming up with more ways to make it perfect for the two of you, it’s domestic and sappy and ridiculous and you can’t get enough of it). Every time this happens you think about calling out for him, begging him to hold you close until the shrieking sound of metal and the stink of sulphur fade away and all that’s left is him, warm and close and safe and yours.
Instead you lock yourself in the bathroom and cry in the shower. When you emerge your shades hide your puffy eyes. You fly up into the stratosphere and scream into the clouds. You go back to Can Town and help the Mayor with plans for the newly commissioned entertainment district. You smile and kiss your boyfriend and tell him that everything is fine.
You think that if you keep telling him that enough times, maybe it’ll finally come true.
***
Your name is Dirk Strider and you’re pretty sure nobody wants you around. This could easily be paranoia, but you’ve never been one to give in to the irrational. Hal would tell you the data points if he were still Hal and not sharing a weird sprite body with the sweaty musclebound troll who makes you uncomfortable.
You visit Jane and her Dad and the conversation is awkward, stunted, laced with tension and anxiety. You offer to help with the construction of Can Town but you figured out as soon as the final battle with the Jacks was over that Dave still saw you as the last person he wanted to be around in the entirety of paradox space. You spend time with Rose and Kanaya and their happiness is like a cloud that hangs over you, reminding you of just how badly you’ve fucked things up with Jake. Your time spent with him has been close to nonexistent, since he seems to have taken up with the remaining members of the Felt and that keeps him extremely busy. He makes a good leader. You try not to think about how much you miss him.
The others don’t avoid you, per se, but they do tend to make themselves scarce whenever you show up. The only people in the entirety of Can Town who look genuinely happy to see you when you arrive are the Mayor and Davepeta, and both of them are always genuinely happy to see pretty much anyone.
You spend a lot of time doing what you’re best at, which is being alone and using your sword to chase off itinerant fauna. Not that there’s much of that around. A civilization of gods and aliens has few real threats to be concerned with. You’ve started work on a new robot with parts you’ve salvaged, alchemized, or convinced Roxy to appearify for you. You’re pretty sure if you keep tinkering with the old snippets of code you have saved in your computer you’ll be able to re-create something resembling the internet.
You should feel like a useful and productive member of this weird new society.
You feel like all you see are the remains of the friendships you already destroyed.
***
Your name is Davepeta and you are happy literally all the time.
You greet everyone with a smile, thrilled to see them and ready to greet them with a hug or a sarcastic but friendly jape. You make up little raps that consist of ill beats and cat puns. You have at least one feelings jam a day with Arquius, who is still the absolute best moirail despite being part cyborg shades now. Your matesprit is a beautiful human girl with dog ears who you want to hug constantly.
You can’t stop smiling.
You remember what it felt like to be unhappy. Of course you do, you went through some pretty brutal shit in all three of the lives you lived before you became yourself. Dying at the hands of an insane clown. An upbringing fraught with fear and abuse. Getting impaled and thrown out a window. A trauma x3 combo of that magnitude should have created an utter disaster of a sprite when you were created.
Yet here you are, alive and among friends and part human, part troll, part bird, full of happiness that you had never thought possible.
You still can’t stop smiling.
It is beginning to weird you out.
***
Your name is Karkat and get your first visit from a Strider you aren’t currently dating while you’re working on the roof of your hive. It’s been a few weeks since you got started building the new, improved, life-sized version of Can Town and you’re trying out a new shingling technique at the Mayor’s request. Yours and Dave’s hive has become a testing ground for various attempts at architectural innovation, and while they haven’t all been successes (Dave warned you about stairs, he told you dog, but did you listen?), the design you had in mind for watertight roofing seemed to be initially effective.
A shadow falls over you and you turn, expecting to see Dave. You get a different Strider.
“Sup,” Dirk says. His hands are awkwardly shoved in the pockets of his weird fuchsia god-tier breeches.
“Strider,” you nod cautiously. You’ve had minimal interactions with your matesprit’s dancestor, but all of them had been of little consequence. Dirk is tall, serious, and awkward, and you already have one shades-wearing asshole in your life, so working to befriend another has always seemed like a lot of extra work.
“Workin’ on the roof?” Dirk keeps looking at his feet.
“No, I’m programming a supercomputer,” you say sarcastically. “What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Right,” Dirk scratches the back of his head. You set a few more tiles in place and fly over to the larger stack on the edge of the roof to get some more. “Dave around?”
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not his keeper,” you grumble. “If he’s not in the hive then he’s out doing fuck knows what. Time shenanigans again, probably, whatever the fuck he gets up to when he should be helping me work.”
“It’s cool,” Dirk says, holding out a hand. “I… came to talk to you actually.”
“Me?” you blink. “What the fuck for?”
Dirk’s hand falls limply to his side, his shades still firmly oriented towards the ground. “Guess I’m looking to talk to a Blood player. Get some perspective.”
“And I’ve got that in fucking bushels, do I?” you slap the tiles down on the roof a little too hard. The things Dave has told you about his Bro rise unbidden in your memory and you resist the urge to throw one of the tiles at Dirk’s head.
“Look, you can tell me to fuck off if you like, that’s fine,” Dirk sits down on the edge of the roof, still not looking at you. “But everyone I know says you’re the guy to talk to about relationships, and pretty much all of mine are in a state of nuclear winter right now, so my options are somewhere south of limited.”
“So that gets to be my problem?” You know you shouldn’t be so hostile right off the bat, but this guy, even this paradoxical iteration of this guy, is in some way responsible for the nightmares you know Dave still has, even if he pretends he doesn’t. Only a complete uncaring douche would put that aside, and nobody would accuse you of both of those things. Probably just the latter.
Dirk sighs. “I know you’re with Dave,” he says. “So your opinion of me, of any splinter of me, is gonna be pretty fuckin’ grim. I get it. But I need to figure out how to stop destroying every fucking thing I touch, and one of those things is Dave, and if anyone can help, it’s a Knight of fucking Blood. So,” he turns around to look at you, finally, and he’s taken off his shades. His eyes are creamsicle orange and sincere. “Help me. Please.”
You put the tiles down on the roof and stare at Dirk for a long moment. You inadvertently feel your powers whispering within you and as you listen you begin to see a swirling pattern of relationships around Dirk Strider, jagged red lines emanating from him and erupting in turmoil, failed friendships, stunted romances, faded attempts at leadership and camaraderie. You feel them pulse around him like a heartbeat, echoing with something like a scream of anguish and frustration, the desperate existence of a man who does not know when to stop, and pushes everyone so far away that his already tenuous connections to them split and break.
You sigh and cross the roof to sit beside him. He looks surprised.
“All right,” you say. “Start talking.”
***
Your name is Dave Strider and your paradox bro who isn't your Bro is standing in front of you, and he just told you he wanted to talk.
“Talk about what?” your mouth feels dry, your brain screaming that you should grab your sword from your specibus and prepare for a fight, but that would be the opposite of helpful right now.
“You avoiding me,” Dirk says, sitting down on the grass across from you. You’re sitting under a tree near the Can Town library, fucking around on your laptop, which you close at Dirk’s words. “And how that makes me feel.”
“We’re gonna talk about feelings now?” you can’t keep the bitterness out of your voice. “Has that ever been part of the Strider family playbook?”
“Fuck the family playbook,” Dirk shakes his head. “And feelings. Fuck, this was stupid, forget I even said anything.” He gets to his feet, stumbling slightly as he tries to gain his bearings. You feel something tug at you, a sense of familiarity suddenly being overwritten with something utterly new and unlike the ghost of your Bro.
Dirk is Bro at the same time that he isn’t, and that makes you speak up as he turns to leave.
“Wait.”
Dirk turns at the sound of your voice, pauses, his expression shifting into something almost like hope.
“Why do you want to talk to me?”
Dirk swallows before answering, and you know his answer before he speaks.
“Karkat said it would help. If we talk I mean.”
You look at Dirk and keep noticing the differences in him. Before all you could see were similarities between him and your Bro, but now what stands out is the shortness of his hair, the fuchsia pajamas with the pink heart on them, the thin scar along his neck where you decapitated him.
You captchalogue your laptop and lean back against the tree, giving him a nod. He nods back and sits down across from you.
You talk until the sun goes down and the stars begin to twinkle overhead, and when you finally do go home and go to sleep, you do not dream.
You don’t know how much has really been resolved, or if it ever will be, but when you tell Karkat about it you see him smile, and for you, that’s definitely a start.
***
Your name is Dirk Strider and you’re learning to live with the awkward.
You start hanging out with Dave and Karkat more, though not enough to make yourself a nuisance. They invite you over to watch movies, Karkat asks for your help tiling the roof, Dave offers to play a new mix for you. It’s still a little awkward but you keep addressing it, so much so that your new catchphrase seems to be calling attention to the fact that the situation is awkward.
You still can’t really be alone in a room with Dave, so Karkat makes an exceptional buffer, and the three of you together seems to allow you and Dave to begin exploring something resembling a sibling relationship. This seems to involve rap battles and Mario Kart intermingled with Karkat occasionally ranting about having to deal with two Striders now instead of just the one.
The way he smiles when you and Dave actually talk indicates to you that he actually doesn’t mind having you around.
Sometimes it’s just you and Karkat, working on the roof or moving on to different projects. You find out he’s got an interest in coding and start teaching him the basics of the programs you’re using to resurrect the internet. He’s still hostile around you but you’re pretty sure that’s just his default state, and after a while you get used to him answering every question of yours with a vitriolic curse word.
You keep listening to Karkat’s advice and find that he makes an effective buffer in almost every social situation. Talking to Roxy, to Calliope, to Rose, and even to Jake seems to go better when you have the short shouty troll by your side, lightening the tension and dissipating the worst of the awkwardness.
The awkward interaction you aren’t expecting comes when you’re patrolling around the edges of Can Town and you run into Davepeta, who smiles at you and asks to join you on your rounds. After fifteen minutes of calm silence, they turn to you and make an observation.
“You and Dave seem to be getting on purretty well lately.”
“Yeah,” you say. “We’re finally trying to talk about our problems instead of shoving them down and ignoring them until they fester and explode, destroying everything around us.”
Davepeta smiles. “Sweet.” Awkward silence falls between you until Davepeta speaks again, their tone less cheerful than usual. “How did you two start talking about your purroblems?”
You tilt your head to the side, then smile. “Well, first I talked to Karkat.”
***
Your name is Davepeta and you still can’t stop smiling. Fortunately, you are worrying about this a lot less.
You aren’t sure which part of you is more happy to be spending time with Karkat, the piece of you that wants to write him an ironically sappy rap or the part that wants to call him Karkitty. His initial reaction to your visits is surprise, because he’s never been much for people dropping in on him, but he seems to welcome your company.
Sometimes he asks you how much you remember of your life as Nepeta, and you always tell the truth: it’s all in your mind, though it’s mixed with memories and ideas that come from Dave and other, stranger ideas that come from the brainless feathery asshole side of you.
Dave doesn’t mind having you around, though he likes to pick apart your raps and try to give you more tutelage in the Strider school of ironic cultural references. He seems to appreciate the cat puns more than Karkat does, and he’s started using your favourite nickname to address his matesprit, which makes you smile, especially when he finally erupts and yells “MY NAME IS NOT FUCKING KARKITTY.” You and Dave fistbump while Karkat tantrums.
As you said, you are a little less worried about how much you smile, but you think some of that is because of the interactions you’re having with Alpha Dave. Karkat tells you that sometimes he still has nightmares, and that he worries that Dave will be dealing with them forever, that he won’t ever really be happy.
You wonder what it says about the Dave part of you that it took being combined with a troll girl and a bird for him to finally be happy.
You hope that Alpha Dave can be as happy as you someday.
You know it’ll happen, and it’s all because of Karkat and his unending drive to keep his matesprit safe. A small part of you feels a twinge of jealousy somewhere in your mind at the sight of Dave and Karkat together, the memories of a flushed crush held by Nepeta and the longing of a Dave that sacrificed his own destiny for the greater good of paradox space.
The jealousy leaves you when you spend time with Jade, replaced by the warm happiness that seems to permeate your whole existence. She has that effect on all parts of you, even the parts that tend to prefer cats over dogs.
You know Karkat is happier too, especially on the nights that both you and Dirk come over, the four of you crowded onto the couch to watch another bad romantic comedy Karkat has selected. Dirk sits on one end of the couch with Karkat half on his lap, the two of them bickering about the plot of the movie and interspersing it with Dirk’s relationship woes. Dave’s head is in Karkat’s lap, a lazy smile on his face. You sit on the back of the couch, leaning down with your arms around your troll friend’s neck, absentmindedly purring into his hair. One time Jade comes over with you and makes a joke about Karkat collecting various instances of Striders, and he just grunts in agreement and continues to listen to Dirk’s problems, to tousle Dave’s hair, to feel you purr against his head and help him tell stories of the way things were back on Alternia.
You think he’s pretty proud of his collection.
You still wonder about yourself sometimes, about how an amalgam of three different species can be so content. When you’re here with them, your paradox brothers and your dear friend, and your happiness doesn’t seem so weird any more.
No part of you has ever had a family before.
You love being a part of this one.