Work Text:
One of the best things about creating a world was that you never had to work a day in your life, Davesprite reflected. He glided through the open window of his home half built into a cliff face, supported by nearby trees. The outside bore a whimsical resemblance to a tree home. The inside was nothing short of a modern city apartment.
He paused on the loft and plucked up a pile of mail resting just inside the open window. It had probably been delivered by one of Jake’s trained flying bull things. Or one of Dirk’s drone things that kept going rogue. Last he’d heard, a flock of them were living near Kanaya and Rose’s home beside the birthing caverns. They were often found scavenging things and dropping them off like presents for the grubs.
But then, that could have changed in the past… however many weeks he was gone. Davesprite eyed the substantial pile of mail. There was clearly a lot that he’d missed.
With a fistful of mail, he flapped down from the loft and settled in the bed situated in the living room. He didn’t do much entertaining way out here, so it was the only large piece of furniture in the room except for the television, television stand, and a variety of gaming systems, many of which were rarely used.
He set the envelopes on the edge of the bed and burrowed down into it, letting the pillows roll over him, each a colorful patchwork that was either sewn or knitted. He had to give it to Rose and Kanaya. They won the best gift of last year’s Christmas/Hanukah/other midwinter Trollian holiday with their gift of a huge nest shaped bed.
He fidgeted under the comfortable weight of the egg-pillows. Usually this was a very soothing position, he thought in frustration. He’d given in to the urge to wander for weeks, weeks. All he wanted was to relax and act human since obviously he couldn’t be human anymore.
He huffed and reemerged from his nest. Eyeing the stack of mail, he was abruptly filled with self-loathing so intense he could barely stand it. He shouldn’t be alive. He was a relic from a doomed timeline, one that most certainly should not be here. Maybe his unrelenting urge to wander was his punishment for existing in a world he never belonged in. Maybe he would never know peace. Maybe he never should.
After knocking the pile of letters off the edge of his nest in a fit of pique, he took off in a flurry of feathers. He deftly maneuvered out of his loft window and found his home in the sky. Exerting himself more than normal, he climbed up higher and higher until everything below him dropped away to a manageable level. He climbed high enough that even his avian anatomy was protesting. For one wild moment he thought of trying to go higher even though the air was already almost too thin to breathe and function.
Instead, he angled his wings and began to descend, heading wherever his simple little birdbrain wanted to carry him.
Almost an hour later, Davesprite found himself perched on a familiar rooftop. At no time had he made the conscious decision to make this his destination, but upon landing his wanderlust abruptly disappeared, leaving him disoriented and bereft. He waited there for the other shoe to drop. After weeks of travel and months of general discontent, he felt… empty.
He jumped at the crack of tile hitting tile. He twisted over on himself to look behind him on the roof and found Roxy clambering up a ladder, through a well disguised trap door. She didn’t look at all surprised to see him.
“Heya DSpri,” she greeted with a giggle. Davesprite eyed her clothing – a thick coat, mittens, and a scarf – and realized it was the beginning of winter. He didn’t feel the cold like he used to – probably a blessing given his Texan upbringing.
He settled on a casual, “Sup.” As if this was a normal occurrence, him flying halfway across the world to sit on his ectoparent’s roof.
“Hi,” she said again, beaming. She waved and he waved back tentatively. He didn’t have a lot to do with her, but he had sought out Dirk, on occasion. The memory of Bro dying still haunted him sometimes, even if Rose told him it was okay to feel conflicted over it. She told him he was abused.
Sometimes he didn’t want to visit Rose a lot.
“Hey,” Davesprite said.
“I need a player two because Dirk is making dinner,” Roxy said, swaying a bit and blinking more than normal. “He’s already making enough for three, so you might as well come on in.”
Roxy began climbing down, laughing quietly to herself. After a beat of hesitation, Davesprite followed her down, pausing to shut the trapdoor behind him. He followed her down the hall and down the stairs, wondering why she was wearing snow boots. When they arrived in the living room, he found that the large television was idling on the pause screen of a fighting game. There were sounds coming from the kitchen, but they sounded tinny, as if coming from a speaker.
Roxy collapsed on the couch and slumped over on her side. Her eyes fell shut and Davesprite, unsettled, decided to let her be and seek out Dirk instead. He pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen to find him standing before the stove, poking at something in the pan.
Dirk glanced over and then back down at his work, quick enough that most others might have missed it. Davesprite figured it was still weird for him to be around other people after a childhood of complete isolation. He called, “Sup?”
“Dinner, mostly,” Dirk grunted out after a moment. “Can you grab my bottle from the table?”
Davesprite retrieved the glass bottle from the table and gave it to Dirk, who took a few quick swallows of the orange ambrosia. After he set it aside, he asked, “Is Roxy asleep?”
“She sat down on the couch and fell over,” he reported, hovering nearby. His tail curled over on itself in an involuntary sign of anxiety that he knew Dirk would pick up on.
“No, she’s not drinking again. She’s been awake for over two days,” he reported calmly. “There was an issue with the internet all over and she took it upon herself to fix it while I did server maintenance.”
“And that means she’s gotta dress up like an Eskimo? She’s got all kinds of winter clothes on and it looks comfy as fuck, but shit’s gotta be hot,” he said. Dirk’s mouth turned up into a tiny smile at the thought. “And how the fuck did she know I was upstairs?”
“I told her. And she had a dream that it finally snowed and got a little too excited. She wouldn’t listen when I said it hadn’t snowed.,” Dirk said, flipping the fish he had in the pan. Davesprite floated a little closer to watch him cook. Dirk’s culinary skills were generally limited, but everyone agreed that no one could make fish of any kind better than him.
“How did you—” Davesprite cut himself off, trying to force down the compulsion to crow. His efforts were in vain, as a tiny caw and a peek escaped instead. Dirk was a good bro and he generously didn’t mention it. Instead, he waited for his sprite brother to repeat himself. “How did you know?”
“Heart bullshit,” Dirk answered vaguely. He scooped some of the liquid in the pan over the fish and then stepped back, hand coming up to the middle of his chest. Behind it, a gentle dark pink light pulsed once, twice. “I can feel souls. Particularly those I’m close to. Everyone is connected in some way, even if they don’t know it. There are connections in their hearts.”
“Gay,” Davesprite declared decisively. Dirk nodded along and let his hand drop, stepping over to the stove again.
“The gayest,” he agreed. He didn’t mind how his sprite brother hovered nearby, just silently watching him work. He didn’t even comment when Davesprite’s tail slowly crept over to wrap loosely around his ankle. “But I noticed you lurking on the roof and I thought it might be a good idea to direct Roxy towards someone other than me.”
“She passed the fuck out as soon as I got in here,” he reminded his brother.
“I’ll wake her for dinner and then put her to bed,” Dirk said. “She’d been awake too long already. Then we can have a movie night.”
“I have plans,” Davesprite lied. He wasn’t about to let himself become a pity case even if all he wanted in the world was to finally, finally settle down somewhere, if only for a night.
Dirk looked at him and, though he tried to hold strong, he fidgeted under the attention. Dirk looked back down at his pan. He asked, “Dave, could you grab me three plates from that cabinet?”
Oh. That was it. Davesprite flapped over to the top cabinet and took out three plates, setting them on the counter near his brother. Roxy noticed very early that he had an issue with being just another Dave that hadn’t had the opportunity to die yet. His ectomother decided that she wasn’t going to call him Davesprite. He was either going to be Dave or DSpri. Dirk and their other two co-players followed suit.
It was gratifying to be called Dave, even if he wasn’t the Alpha Dave.
“Roxy said she wants to watch one of her TV dramas,” Dirk continued, beginning to plate the fish. “It’s about Carapacians that worship the dark gods. By which, I mean that they worship edgy teen angst versions of all of us. Roxy ships Dark Calliope and Dark Dirk in the little diamond quadrant.”
Dirk turned the heat off and wiped his hands on a dish towel. He asked, “Can you grab the salad from the fridge? It’s in the wooden bowl.”
Davesprite did as he was bid. As soon as he returned to Dirk’s side, his brother plunked a pair of tongs into the bowl and directed, “Just put it in the living room. We’ll suffer through Roxy’s drama and then I’m thinking the Starsky and Hutch movie.”
The sprite flapped into the living room, cheered at the prospect of the masterpiece. He set the large bowl of lettuce on the coffee table and hovered just over Roxy. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the obvious signs of exhaustion. Her eyes were outlined not in makeup, but in sleepless bruise-like circles.
Taking pity on her, he tugged her winter boots off, amazed that she didn’t wake up. She only made a quiet, tired noise. He carefully tugged off her mittens, keeping his talons as far away from her fragile human skin as possible. Dirk entered the room just as he’d managed her coat’s zipper.
“Should I be concerned about you undressing your unconscious ectomom?” he asked, pausing in the doorway. Davesprite blushed a deep orange.
“She looked hot,” he said defensively. Dirk raised a single eyebrow high enough to be seen over his sunglasses.
“I’m not sure you should be calling your own mother ‘hot’,” he said neutrally. “But then, I heard you just have a thing for mothers.”
“Oh my god. I’m going to kill Rose,” Davesprite threatened, blush seeming to intensify.
“I’m just saying. First, you call Jane John’s hot mom, then this. An ectofather has to wonder,” Dirk said, finally entering the room and putting down two plates.
“I wasn’t even the Dave the called her that,” he argued. Dirk raised his sunglasses to give him the most unimpressed look he was capable of.
“Look me in my eyes and tell me you never thought of Jane as John’s hot mom,” Dirk commanded. Davesprite held his gaze through his sunglasses for a moment before looking away shamefully. Dirk slid his glasses back on. “My point.”
“Leave me alone,” he grumbled.
“Help me get the silverware,” Dirk requested, moving back into the kitchen. He didn’t bother looking to see if he followed – he already knew his sprite brother would.
Dirk roused Roxy surprisingly easily. Roxy, after taking a moment to reorient herself, apologized to Davesprite for not following through on her intent to make him her player two. Davesprite shrugged it off and awkwardly segued into Roxy’s dramas, which made her instantly perk up.
For the next ten minutes he received a crash course in the interworkings of the show and then Roxy allowed Dirk to turn on the recorded program. Dirk buried his face in his laptop, tapping away and paying exactly zero attention to the show. Davesprite tried to keep up with what was going on, but quickly grew confused.
During the first commercial break, Roxy turned to Davesprite and asked, “Can I play with your feathers?”
“What?” he asked, flushing in surprise. Roxy giggled a little as he tried to compose himself. He said, “You can’t just go about asking to feel a guy up like that. I’ve got standards.”
“Well, I already took you to dinner,” Roxy joked, gesturing to the empty plates on the coffee table.
“Well, in that case,” he said, eyeing the plates. He was nervous as she tried to find a way to maneuver him so that everyone was comfortable. She and Dirk were on the couch and he’d been perched on the edge of a recliner.
“Just throw a blanket on our laps and let him lay down,” Dirk said, shifting his laptop to the arm of the sofa. Roxy beamed at the idea while Davesprite shifted self-consciously. It was too late, however. Roxy was on board with it.
It took fifteen seconds to locate a blanket and the rest of a that minute to wrestle Davesprite down onto their laps, stomach down. Roxy helpfully made a pillow from her coat for him.. His tail automatically curled around Dirk’s arm embarrassingly enough. Dirk didn’t seem to mind.
But all of the tension in him drained out the moment Roxy dug her fingers into the dense feathery undercoat between his wings. He squawked sharply and positively melted. Roxy’s fingers were ruthless, working through his undercoat and loosening feathers as she went. He peeped quietly every time she plucked a loose feather out. It felt good.
He was so blissed out under her clever fingers that he almost missed his own debut on the soap opera show. He pried his eyes open when he heard Roxy laugh and looked at the screen. There, he was depicted by a Dersite with orange wings full of obviously fake feathers. Caught off guard by the image and in such a relaxed headspace, he laughed until he cried.
Roxy gently took off his sunglasses and swiped tissues under his eyes to keep him from staining her coat a slightly glowing orange. Davesprite almost managed to get himself under control again when Dirk said, “I, for one, enjoy that the evil ones always have a magenta goatee.”
The sprite’s head snapped back up to look and sure enough, all of the evil characters were wearing goatees. Why hadn’t he made the connection before? He buried his head back in the coat, letting Roxy try and wipe his tears of laughter. Eventually he was reduced to nothing but alternating caws and soft screeches.
By the time he reigned himself in, the credits were rolling and Roxy was smiling down at him softly. She dropped a kiss on the top of his head and he flushed.
“I’m tired as fuck, DSpri,” she said, giving his feathers one last thorough ruffle. “I’m going to sleep and I hope you’re still here when I wake up. We’ve got a spare room for you to roost in and we’re always happy for the company.”
She dropped another kiss on him, this time to his temple, and handed back his glasses. He sat up awkwardly to let her get up before he flopped back down in the seat she left behind. She waved and blew them both a kiss before scampering up the stairs.
“So, Starsky and Hutch the movie?” Dirk asked, picking up the remote. Davesprite noticed his tail was still wrapped around Dirk’s arm. Oh well. It didn’t matter.
“Yeah man,” he said, settling down into the plush couch. “We could make popcorn later.”
“There’s already AJ in the fridge,” Dirk said, pulling the movie up. “If we want snacks, we make them now. I’m not getting up for anything when the movie comes on.”
“That’s fair.”