[fic- 002]

[hellacious]

It’s the first time you dream about someone else fighting Jack with you, an orange-tinged blade parrying his when yours has been knocked aside, lending force to your strikes when it seems like it might not be enough. You see, out of the corner of your eye, a pale orange glow- flickering slightly in time with a slice, a parry but never truly wavering. You finally get a good look when he (you know it’s a he like you know it’s someone you trust) catches Jack’s sword with a surprisingly strong parry, allowing you to come around and slice down from behind him.

It’s Dave.

Or at least, it looks like Dave, but it can’t be, not really- your little brother doesn’t glow, and he’s definitely not orange and he sure as fuck doesn’t have wings and house his sword in his chest in that disturbingly familiar way. You absorb it all in the blink it takes for Jack to knock the not-Dave’s sword aside and slash backward at you, and you share a look with—

'Davesprite', your mind supplies, and with that name comes the knowledge of everything that he is, was, and could have been.

-with Davesprite, and in like a true Strider he understands and executes with a finesse you’ve never seen out of your Dave.

And you know that you hate the fact that he survived long enough to get that good only to die and be prototyped.

Crazy fucking game mechanics and paradox clones and absolutely batshit timefuckery.

The dream skips like a record- they do that sometimes, skipping back and forth between points in the fight and you can only keep track by your injuries- and all you see is a sword descending and red spurting and that faint, faint orange glow still somewhere in the corner of your vision.

Another skip- shorter, it seems, all darkening flickers and searing pain that you’d never admit to feeling.

"M’sorry Sis- I couldn’t—"

You look at him and realizes that sprite or not, Dave is still Dave and still your charge, your brother, your genetic son, and for once, wake up without clutching your chest for the wound you usually feels there, phantom pain that hasn’t even happened yet.



-- analogueEqualizer [AE] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

AE : yo Dave I’m not makin’ it back before sunup
AE : might as well order yourself some fucking takeout and getcha grub goin’
TG : holy shit sis
TG : im all about to flip spectacularly off the goddamn handle in a spectacular display of my acrobatic talents here thinking some fucking creeper perv got your handle and started fucking with me
TG : sup with your font
AE : felt like a change
AE : after all there’s some little biter running around with a bitch’s font color already
AE : shit just ain’t cool little man
AE : not even ironically
TG : sis you are seriously fucking wounding a motherfucker here
TG : calling me a biter and shit
TG : mine is darker and you know it
AE : whatever you say little bro
AE : just don’t forget my fucking crab rangoons this time alright
AE : peace

-- analogueEqualizer [AE] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

TG : shit wait
TG : you didnt tell me what you wanted
TG : gogdammit sis