This fic was originally written for asteroidstuck. tumblr. com. It is ongoing, and features a species swapped Karkat living in John's place in the universe-He's there ever so briefly that his existence is almost negligible. It was also written and published before Di. Stri. Became Dirk Strider, as such, he's erpresented with thename 'Dick'. Please don't let that colour your opinion.
Prologue: All the pretty little ponies.
My first memory, in the beta session, was being, perhaps one? I was tiny, I knew that much. Jane was so TALL, and old, and familiar. I knew who she was immediately. Her thirty year old son was at her side. She was seventy something. Wrinkled, hunched, maybe a little overweight. She'd crooned like a proud grandma, scooped me up and declared I was going home with her and forget the dog-gone foster home. She'd placed sunglasses on my ever-watering, pained eyes, scooped me up, kissed my head, and told me everything would be alright.
"Janie's got you, little Strider." she giggled. She outright giggled at me. "I've got to be loads better than Dave, right?"
I remember the look my face had contorted to, and the horror I'd felt that I'd let my face do that. I was too small to tell her that her voice was irritating in that tone. Too small to ask 'Where's Jake' or 'where's Lalonde' and 'I want my equipment.'
Her grin stayed with me.
"hee hee, hoo hoo. You know, Jakey will be pleased as plum-punch that we found you, Dickey." she giggled in that annoying, but strangely reassuring way, and carried me away. "Saul, this is Richard, Richard, this is saul."
"Mother, he's an infant. He can't possibly understand you." Saul frowned, and I looked at him. I hated him already. He was the same Saul that had raised Jane in our session, and I had no doubt that he'd protect the kid well enough when his time came, but I hated him.
"of course he can. Don't be a dumby, Saul. He's plenty smart, the smartest kid I ever did know."
"That's-"
"Don't sass me, Saul.
Jane gave me the best childhood she possibly could, for the seven years she had me. I developed hero worship for her. She was…well…she was a good prankster, best mom. I don't know. Whatever. Seven years, then she started to get sick. Saul banished Lalonde to her mansion, and shipped me out to the foster care system in Texas. I hated that man.
I hated him more when he sent me a letter, well, a cheerful card, on my twelvth birthday with a simple message:
DICK-
JANE'S IN THE HOSPITAL.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
-SAUL
That's just... I would throttle that man, if we didn't need him.
I was seventeen when the kid crashed to earth, right into my part-time job. Serendipitous, I guess. The tiny little guy was perched on a dead horse. I didn't want to think about the implications. I just knew he was there, and I had to take care of him. I'd applied for emancipation when I turned sixteen, and it'd been granted to me two months before the kid crashed. Perfect, right?
"Alright little dude." I tried not to coo at him. There was something irrevocably un-cool about cooing. Nana, no, Jane. She was Jane. Jane had cooed at me, now I was cooing at the kid. Little strider. Little Dave Jake Strider. It sounded right, to me. "Little dude, we're going to take the horse you so graciously brought to your gate-crashing that is the party-life of Dick Strider. I guess it's not a gate crashing, is it, when you expect the person?" Jane insisted that they'd be fully aware soon enough. Well, I could hope.
I captcha'd the horse and took the kid home.
I did my best, the boy cried and cried and no matter what I did(Diaper? No. Food? No. Water? No. How about a funny face? No. Ok, I'm holding you and THAT isn't even working. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, DAVE.) I couldn't get him to stop crying. I took him to the emergency room, they said he was fine.
"I need…I need Janey…or…" I sighed, bouncing Dave gently, all the curtains pulled. All the windows tinted, sunblock on him. It wasn't working. I tried everything.
Apparently one of the neighbours got fed up with the kids sobbing or something, because social workers showed up.
They took my little man away, accused me of being a bad parent. I couldn't disagree on that, but I was doing my damnedest wasn't I? I had to go to court. They were making me go to court.
I called the one responsible adult I knew that hadn't tried to break me when I was coming up.
"Saul?"
"Strider. How goes it?"
"They took my kid."
"They as in…?"
"UGH Social services! They're going to put him in the system! What do I do? What did Janey do to get me?"
"If social services took him you probably deserved it, Strider."
"Saul don't. I didn't DO anything though! I'm not some ne'er do well. Jane brought me up better than that."
"The law says differently, Strider."
"FUCK If Lalonde would pay for my plane ticket I'd fly up there with the singular purpose of introducing my fist and your nose in the most PAINFUL way possible. Son of my friend or not, I will end you if you keep it up."
"It's talk like that that got Dave taken from you."
"No. it's talk like that that wasn't happening for three months since I got him. I've been saintly. The Vatican itself would have invited me to visit with the pope so he could congratulate me for the massive amount of patience I've been exhibiting. You may not have had the time to take care of kids at twenty nine but I'm willing to step up to bat at seventeen. Who's the bigger man in this position, Solomon Egbert?" he snapped, growling into the phone.
"And Strider has lost the last of his cool."
"Saul, just tell me what I need to do to get him back. Just…Walk me through the exact reverse of what you did to have me committed." he rubbed his forehead, tempted to just start smacking his head into the desk in front of him.
"Let's talk about the state of your living arrangements."
"Not the time."
"It effects how they view you, Dick."
"I don't even have energy to turn that into innuendo. Do you see how stressed out I am over this? Do you know I haven't gotten a nights sleep in about three months?"
"Your house, Dick."
"UGH Ok. It's a house, right? It's got a room, a kitchen, a living room, a couple of closets, and a bathroom. Fridge, freezer, oven, microwave, blender, mixing tables I bought SPECIFICALLY for him, about a year ago. Television, video games, computer, robotics pa-"
"Robotics. Exposed circuitry, wiring and sharp metal edges."
"Fuck you Saul. Yes. Exposed shit."
"Remove that. Take parenting classes, give the kid the room. Jesus, it's not hard, Strider."
"Fine. Fine. Now will you come down here and double check when I clear up all the robotics crap and put in some kid-safe what-evers?"
"You sound desperate."
"You try having your little brother snatched out of your hands by uncaring, unseeing, seething, blood thirsty morons out to make everyone in the universe appear to be a bad parent."
"Alright. Alright, I get it. I'll give you a month."
A month came, the month passed, and Saul never showed up. I was pissed, but I put my strider face on.
The court date came, and I made his way into the room with a deep breath, and a controlled expression, looking evenly at the social worker, giving her a slight, curt nod.
The ruling came. Complete and utter bullshit. I couldn't have Dave back until after my eighteenth birthday. DECEMBER. I had to wait for December to regain my charge, my ecto-brother.
I took parenting classes. I opened a little shop downstairs, computer repair, with Lalonde's co-sign (you don't know what favour I had to trade her to get that.) and I waited. I waited and forced myself to pretend I didn't have anxiety over the situation.
FINALLY December came, and I stepped into the court room. Custody was returned to me. I couldn't relax yet. I couldn't relax until I had Dave back.
He was outside the court room, red eyes squinting in the onslaught of sunlight boring it's way through the windows. My hand reached to my pocket and I pulled a pair of tiny sunglasses, placing them back on his face where they belonged.
"Hey there little dude." His face turned toward me, and his mouth opened, like he wanted to scream, or cry, make some kind of noise, but nothing came. Anxiety wound up into me again. "What did you DO to him?" I stared at the social worker, and the foster-care woman who held my albino brother, accusation seeping into my words as I took Dave from them like he was precious glass.
"He just stopped screaming one day…"
"And you morons didn't QUESTION it? He's screamed and cried every day since he was born. He wouldn't just stop on a whim, and he wouldn't just stay quiet." I was hoping the screaming meant he wasn't going to have to pick up sign language. I hoped he'd speak. I hoped I'd hear his voice. I'd hoped I'd be able to hold a vocal conversation with him.
"We thought there wasn't anything wrong with him. We thought he'd just settled down, like any other colicky baby."
I glared at her, flicked my glasses down, stripped off my shirt and draped it over Dave. If these fools were going to act as though his SCREAMING and sudden stop was perfectly normal, they wouldn't have thought anything of putting sunscreen or sun glasses on the poor kid. I hadn't planned on making his life hell until he was at least eight. You don't torture a defenceless infant. Even I knew that, and I was possibly the shittiest guardian of all four of us-strike that. That was still Lalonde.
"Fuck off, the lot of you. We don't need a babysitter. I got this." I strode out. Striders gonna stride. Dave would appreciate the pun when he was older. "I learned a lullaby for you, little dude. The teachers at those damned classes said it was important. What do you think?" I asked, walking out of the court building, down the block to the (admittedly shitty) car I'd bought.
Once he was in the seat, I crawled into the driver's seat, looking at the nearly one-year-old, reaching back to brush his hair straight, the way he'd liked it when I was a kid, then pulled the blanket covered handle up, protecting him from the light.
"this is just for a while, little dude, just until I can tint the windows." I waited, hopefully, for a sound. An acknowledgement. Something.
When nothing came, so I started the car, carefully, pulled into traffic, carefully, and followed the flow(obeying all the laws and rules) and got to the apartment through the mid-day traffic without shouting long strings of obscenities at the other drivers.
Admirable.
Good parent.
Best bro.
Have I overused that meme yet?
I climbed every flight of stairs up to our shitty apartment(carefully redecorated, child-proofed and very fatherly. Very. Fatherly. )
I set the carrier on the floor and pulled the blanket back, faced with the tear-streaked face of my little dude. I felt like the worst parent ever as I unsnapped him from the seat, lifting him up.
"Shoosh shoosh" I whispered, patting his back comfortingly. "Only lullabies now." I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.
"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, gooo to sleeep-y little bay-bee. When you wake, you shall have, all the pretty little ponies." he'd appreciate the irony, one day, maybe. "Blacks, and bays, dappled and grays, coach and six white horses, gooo to sleeep-y little bay-beee." my fingers brushed through his hair, and I watched his face. I was going to have to do that forever, now. I'd have to study his expressions and learn what he needed that way. It was going to be so much different than the last session. I was the sensei, he was the student.
"Twinkle twinkle, little star, how I wonder, what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky." he stirred, I frowned. "You're right. It's more like a citrine or an emerald…" Did they know what was going on, when they were infants?
"When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon… then you show your little light." the song turned to a whisper, a soft hum. He was sleeping… "Twinkle, twinkle, through the night…Then the travl'r in the dark thanks you for your tiny spark. He could not see which way to go, if you did not twinkle so.—Yeah, you're pretty much giving me a meaning here…" my lips quirked in a smile. "In the dark-blue sky you keep, and often through my curtains peek—oh god little dude, never do that. That's just freaky, Dave. For you never shut your eye-no, you're shutting your eyes as often as you can, dude. You're getting your shut eye if I have to get you a sleep-mask… and you'd damned well better be asleep when the sun rises because we're not nocturnal here…As your bright and tiny spark, lights the travl'r in the dark thanks you for your tiny spark, though I know not what you are-ok that line's just not true, we're going to have to re-write this piece of shit… Though I know not what you are, twinkle twinkle, little star."
I remembered Jane singing it to me after my first nightmare. It was comforting, for me, at least. I don't know about him, but it was making me feel a bit more peaceful…
After my nineteenth, and Dave's second, six weeks of coding whenever Dave was sleeping, I was putting my plan into action, finally. I hunted down Jake's screen name, wracking my brain to see if I could remember those little details.
I'm a genius. I'm too smart to forget the fine details.
"Fuck. Fuck yes." I sighed in relief, looking at the dark green text on my screen. It was time to see if he could effect the universe.
Five came fast. I took the kid to school, he came home from school demanding why kids were cruel. I put him to bed with a lullaby, letting him have his sunshine and rainbows. When he fell asleep, I attacked the computer with vehemence. I talked to Alpha-Dave. I told him that kids were cruel, I told him that I didn't want him to be upset about it. I asked him to try to remember.
He told me to take a chill pill and put the strider face back on.
I told him to go fuck himself and switched to Jake.
It didn't work. The time still came when I had to stop helping.
I watched as Dave tossed the shades I'd given the boy years ago.
It wouldn't be long now, and Dave would be in the Game.
The game that had stolen my best friend from him, leaving him stranded with Jane, and Roan, and that asshole, Saul.
The asshole who'd abandoned him to the foster care system when I was seven, when Jane started to get too weak to take care of Dick and Roan.
Saul was raising the Ectobaby that came from Jane and Jake, and I wished, more than anything, that I could have had him instead of Saul. I'd raise both of them, Dave and Kaat, prepare them for the game, make them both strong enough to beat it once and for all.
It couldn't be like that though. They had to let them come together on their own. Exchange their sentimental gifts. Make the bonds that would keep them strong in the Game, the same bonds that held the four of my friends together in their session.
I hadn't spoken to Jake since Dave was two. I'd spent every free moment immersed in the computer, making sure the connection stayed open, obsessively monitoring my friends in the other universe, slipping hints to himself, hoping that I could change it so none of the kids would have to fight this time, praying that I could just stop the whole session all together and go back to trying not to laugh at Jane's dumb jokes, cringing at Lalonde's come-ons, pining for Jake in the worst, most stoic of ways.
Failing that, I prayed that maybe I could bring Jake and Jane back. I'd even take them as eighty or ninety year olds. Anything that wouldn't leave him alone. Lalonde had left him behind, too. Burrying herself in her work, and hassling her kid, and her alcoholism.
All I could do now was train Dave and hope I got it right. I didn't even have time to open the old connection and see if Jake was back from the game. If I COULD come back from the game. My memories perished at the end of the game, and started again, where they'd left off, when I was taken up from the orphanage, picked up by the kind, smiling older woman and her bright blue eyes.
"I miss you guys. I'll take care of them… I promise. I'll do you proud."
The asteroid came. My anxiety kicked in. Dave couldn't die before the game got started.
My blade sliced through it. If I'd been relaxed it would have felt like I was trying to cut through steel with a butter knife.
It split in two.
The game ran on. The slimey black creature-the final boss, attempted to kill Jake's look-alike(it was the nose, the jaw, the shape of the ears, the bright-fucking-red hair. I'd seen the kid.). Kaat. Kaat, who is little dude's best friend. John who is to Dave as Jake had been to me. Well, I assume. I could always ask later, right?
I step in front of his blade, I engage in battle, and little dude…
Little dude is there… Let's see what he can do…
Twinkle, Twinkle, little star,
How I wonder where you are
Up above the world so high
Like an ruby in the sky
When the blazing sun is gone,
When it nothing, shines upon
Then you shine your little light
Twinkle, twinkle through the night
Then the travl'r in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark
He could not see which way to go
If you did not twinkle so
In the dark blue sky you keep
And often through it's curtains peek
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky
As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the travl'rs in the dark
Though I know not how you are
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.