Chapter Text
The sticky note read: A laptop, Love from Dad.
You were ten years old and you had never been so happy about a birthday present in your life.
You installed pesterchum right away.
And then one week and five days later you found him through an adorable girl named Jade. The boy in the red, the ironic cool kid, your best-friend. You'd spend so many nights talking to him about the silliest things, he would send you Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comics, while you taught him how to do magic tricks with a pack of your Dad’s old cards.
Eventually he introduced you to Rose, his female counterpart.
John, Jade, Dave, Rose
The four of you were inseparable together, you and Dave, even more so.
And then you played Sburb.
----
After Sburb you were not the same.
You knew that you wouldn’t adjust back to the routine of everyday life. Suburban life seemed so abnormal to you now, you couldn’t be at home for more than an hour without bursting into tears.
So you left Washington and rented an apartment.
The girls found their own arrangements. But you and Dave lived together, like you had planned to when you were kids.
You noticed the signs about a month in, Dave was never one to make a big deal out of anything.
You remember the first time it happened. It was a boiling hot afternoon, and you and Dave were going out to have a few drinks on the balcony.
----
You saw him kneeling in the grass, cradling something. His shades were lopsided, and his platinum hair was tousled like he’d been clenching it.
“Hey Dave, what are you doing down there? Get your lazy butt up here before I drink your beer for you!”
No reply.
“Hey Dave, is something the matter?”
No reply.
“I’m coming down there, okay?”
No reply.
You scrambled down the stairs, to find the front door already unlocked, swung open, for anyone to stroll in. You went outside and found him in the same position unmoving.
You could see it now, the dead crow, the dire thing he’d been cradling in his arms for god knows how long. Its neck was snapped, and its left leg was bent in an upwards position. You could see a small trail of blood from the road to the front lawn.
One single thought registered in your mind.
He’d carried it back here.
“Dave-“
“He started out like this, the other me. It’s really a mindfuck when you think about it, isn’t it? I always hated crows, they used to come and peck at the window of my bedroom in Bro’s apartment. I kind of miss it actually.”
After Sburb you were not the same, and Dave was not either.
You put a hand on his shoulder, a subtle but gentle reassurance. “You should come back in now, it looks like it might rain.”
An obvious lie, but Dave had been too dazed to realise any different.
----
You have a job at a telemarketing company, it’s not like being a stand-up comedian or working for a major film studio like Paramount or Disney or Fox.
But it is a job, and it allows you to put food on the table.
Dave used to work in the local garage part time, until he was fired for not showing up. He decided he’d rather stay at home in bed.
No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get mad about it.
---
One evening you came home to discover stacks upon stacks of books on physics. Certain books on physics.
The Philosophy of Space and Time, The Direction of Time, How we Measure Time, The Beginning of Time
He was sat on the couch, reading intently. His shades were off, a rare occasion. You could see his red eyes glimmer with promise, as if he had unlocked some impossible secret, discovered some amazing solution, beaten some incredible riddle to make him omniscient, invincible, unstoppable to all of the problems life shouldn’t have been allowed to make someone as brilliant as him endure.
He cautiously turned a page, as if the book in his hands was invaluable to him.
The Concept of Time Travel by Jerald F. Jones
That night you had your first argument since you played Sburb. You would give anything to fly again, you told him, but it was never going to happen again, and he wasn't going to time travel again either.
Sburb is a history that cannot be unwritten.
---
You are running, running so fast but you cannot escape the monsters that are chasing you, you find Dave’s body around the next corner, decrepit and lifeless.
You scream.
Suddenly you jolt up from your bed to a smashing sound in the next room.
The nightmare is over.
You find him there, cowering on the living room floor, clenching his bloody fist. You can’t help but feel like the incident is all your fault. Ever since your argument Dave shut himself off from any notion of time completely. There are no more days, hours, minutes, seconds or nights, just reality.
The nightmare is not over.
So you'll gladly take the blame for this one, and for all the incidents beforehand. You cannot get help, you cannot get Dave help. There is no help for any of the Sburb sufferers. You are plagued with the glorious but limited knowledge of being gods. And like a god, this is your responsibility. And you will sure as hell do everything and anything to help the broken knight in front of you.
He looks up at you, tentatively, with wide, fearful, childlike eyes.
But he doesn’t cry.
Dave Strider never cries in front of you.
A side effect of his brother’s conditioning, that he refuses to let go.
And it breaks your heart.
4:13 AM
Your living room wall is red
Your breathing is unnatural
Your analogue clock is broken
So is Dave Strider
And you are so fucking scared.