Title: Ahhadie
For: HS World Cup Bonus Round 2
Prompt: Alpha!Dave&Dirk / ahhadie: the act of giving something of your self away so that something new can be born
Character/Pairing: Alpha!Dave, Dirk
A/N: I wonder how much time they had before they prepared for the kids. How they even kept their buildings alive.
Summary: Li'l bro. The word doesn't sound quite right, no matter how much Dave tries to prepare.
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He spends his last few months preparing his apartment. Well, soon enough it won't be his anymore—it will bea boy's apartment. A boy's home. It's a little strange to look at his familiar walls and think that someone else will be living here.
How much will stay the same? How much will change?
Dave isn't sure what to keep and what to toss. What the boy will keep and what the boy will toss. The posters, the awards—meaningless in the bleak future the boy has. Meaningless except as a connection to the past, to humans.
It's comforting to think somewhere across the country, Lalonde is doing this too. Looking at her shitty novels and yarn and finding strange holes to hide cryptic messages. Because Lalonde would mess around with her charge. He just knows it.
It takes him three weeks to organize his stuff. Mainly because he spends half of it saying, "I own this?"
Can't let the kid think his bro has shitty taste. Aside from his movies, which get shittier and shittier and still people ignore the irony.
Maybe the kid will know what his bro is up to. Maybe he'll appreciate the irony.
'Bro'. He can't quite picture it. It's hard enough to imagine a kid in this room, sitting in front of the computer, duking it out with the robots he's still trying to build. He might need to outsource the thing, send it to China or India or some other techno fast place with cheap labour and cheaper parts. Even better, put the kid through his paces and have him try to repair it with whatever's left in the apartment.
"Li'l bro," he tries again, this time voicing it. Still sounds strange. Maybe the kid will have the same problem picturing Dave as big bro.
It's not like they'll know each other at all in the first place and he doesn't know why he's still thinking about this.
He puts the last canned goods into the cupboard and stares at it. The only food that would survive long enough are these cans and space food.
The kid is going to grow up unable to appreciate food.
Dave can't quite ignore the feeling of failure at that thought.
Lalonde buzzes his phone—it's time, and Dave quickly sets the timer on the robots. They'll wake up when the boy arrives.
Before he closes the door, he takes a last look at his apartment. The apartment. He waits a second, then puts a pair of shades on the desk. Not as rad as his, but good enough.
A final present. A personal touch.
Maybe a little Dave can live on to meet his li'l bro.