ALFG Chapter 173

#16: ALL THINGS END by HOZIER

It takes less than twelve hours for the house to turn  into a warzone. By the end of the day, Dirk has dumped the whole salt  shaker into his older self’s food while his older self has discreetly  sprinkled crushed jalapenos into his, resulting in one person throwing  up several times and the other trying to chug as much milk as he can  straight out the carton. By the end of the week, they’ve looted Three’s  cupboards to give each other food poisoning.

“We need groceries,” Older Dirk says, sometime into the fourth week.

“I’m  not giving you any of my allowance, fuck you,” Dirk says. They haven’t  had anything in the kitchen since yesterday, and he’s been snacking on  whatever he’s managed to harvest from Three’s garden.

He might  have also had a panic attack earlier after the first signs of hunger  pangs, but that’s neither here nor there, and definitely not the point.

“Give me your card.” Older Dirk holds a hand out from where he’s sitting on one of the living room couches.

Dirk, sitting across him, flips him off. “Fuck you.”

“It’s mine too.”

“If it got taken away from you, then not anymore, fuck you.”

His older self clenches his fists, looking about two seconds away from swinging – and then he stands and takes out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Dirk asks.

“I’m calling Three and telling him you wasted all the food in the house.”

Dirk  lunges at him, but the guy’s already time stopped and flashstepped away  to who know the fuck where. He quickly searches around the first floor,  and then rushes up to the second when he can’t find him. Unfortunately,  the man’s already wrapped up the conversation by the time he finds him  in the study.

“Why would you call him?” Dirk asks, teeth gritted.

“Because we’re out of food.”

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

His other self pockets his phone and turns around to face him. “You started it.”

Dirk  narrows his eyes at him. If they didn’t risk breaking things in the  house, he would take another swing at this man, fucky drifting be  damned.

“Calm down,” his older self says, the condescending asshole. “And clean the house up. Three’s visiting.”

That snaps him out of his irritation. “He should be resting.”

“It’s his house. Seven’s teleporting him – he said he should be here in half an hour.”

Ah, shit. And they’d made a mess out of the kitchen.

At  least his older self has enough brains to figure out that the clean-up  would go much faster with him helping. The kitchen cupboards are empty,  but at least they’re presentable, and Dirk doesn’t have to sit and wait  with dread until Three arrives.

The doorbell rings. Both he and his older self flinch and get up at the same time, but the older man beats him to the door.

“Oh,  you’re alive,” Three says – Dirk hears him before he sees him; did his  voice always sound that soft and raspy? “I thought you’d have eaten each  other by now.”

“I’m not stooping to his level,” his older self says.

Three chuckles. Dirk finally gets to the door and pulls it open the rest of the way.

Three  doesn’t look that awful, but he does look tired. His hair’s shorter,  chopped off barely past his shoulders and pulled back with a clip.

“Ah,” Three says, noticing Dirk staring. “Four cut my hair, it was getting too tiring to deal with every day.”

“But you’re fine?” Dirk asks.

Three shrugs. “I’m alive,” he says. “Now, apparently you two have been trying to poison each other?”

“That’s not what I said,” Older Dirk defends.

“You hate your younger self, I’m not an idiot.” Three rolls his eyes. “Let me see what we need, then.”

Outside  of food coloring, baking soda, and yeast, they’re out of everything, so  they end up having to go on a massive supply run. Three tells them what  to get and makes them carry everything, almost smug while he bosses  them around. Dinner is actually pleasant with no attempted murders by an  overabundance of a specific ingredient, and while the Dirks wash the  dishes and put all the groceries away, Three retreats to the study to  check up on a few things.

“I guess I never realized how much of a  mess this place is,” he says, when Dirk and his older self finally catch  up with him there. He’s carefully rolling up maps and setting them back  into their shelves, closing books and bringing them over to their right  sections. “Anyone outside of us would never be able to find anything  here.”

“Is someone else coming over, then?” Older Dirk asks, crossing his arms.

“Seven  has offered. Apparently, Damara’s annoying him too much,” Three says  with a chuckle. “She’s currently decided to shadow Four and Davesprite  instead. If it’s not too much of a hassle, he said he’d love to come  over next week.”

The god looks to Dirk, and then his older self.  On one hand, it would be weird to have someone else in the house for an  extended capacity, but on the other, Three needs to rest. Someone else  taking over his study for a little bit would help.

“Sure,” Dirk says. His older self shrugs.

“Thanks,” Three says. “Could you two help with the higher levels for me?”

Due  to the sheer number of items in the library, they haven’t finished  rearranging the upper levels yet, so Dirk and his older self split the  work between them. His older self takes the eighth to twelfth levels  while Dirk has the seventh down to the fourth. It’s still too many books  to sort out, so it’ll take them past the weekend, but at least it’s  something to do that isn’t getting mad at another version of him.

They  tidy up whatever they can for the evening. Dirk finishes a few shelves  on the fourth level before he takes a break to stretch and sit, finding a  spot on the floor to rest on, leaning back against a shelf.

Damara’s  currently following Davesprite around, and Davesprite is currently  still being babysat by Four (though really, with what he’s heard about  the girl, it might be the other way around). While Dirk has a way to get  back home by being forcibly drifted by his older self or something,  they’re still stuck here.

He hasn’t contacted anyone since he’s  returned to the house, so he has no idea if there are options for them.  He might have to start asking – it’s just been…challenging, having to  share a house with his older self who had apparently forgotten all his  manners and decorum in the past few years. The fucking asshole.

He  yawns. Finally eating something edible in weeks and doing work right  after is tiring him out – and apparently more than he expects as he’s  dozed off before he’s even realized what’s happened. He’s only aware  when his heavy eyes crack open, not even knowing when they’d closed.

He wakes up to the sound of footsteps, blearily lifting his head slightly to look down from the mezzanine.

Below,  Older Dirk approaches Three, asleep by a table with his head cushioned  by his forearms. A few rolled up maps are beside him, so he must have  taken a nap and ended up sleeping deeper than expected. Older Dirk  shakes his shoulder gently.

“Three,” he says, so quietly Dirk  wouldn’t have heard it if the library weren’t dead silent. “Go sleep in  your room, you’ll get a crick in your neck here.”

Three sits up, slowly, yawning. “Oh, fuck. I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.”

“Well, you did, so go sleep in your bed before you wake up feeling funny tomorrow,” Older Dirk says. “Come on.”

He helps Three out of his seat. The god stumbles slightly and yawns again. “Um. The younger – ”

“I’ll find him. Go to bed.”

“Mm.”  Three nods, yawns another time, and then pats Older Dirk’s shoulder in  assent before he heads for the doors, lifting his arms up in a tired  stretch until some of his joints pop.

As soon as the doors close,  Older Dirk turns to where Dirk sits on the mezzanine behind him. Dirk  looks beyond him and towards where Three had left.

He doesn’t look  worse. He’s even standing and walking around, but Three’s been able to  set two floors on fire and pin a man to the floor while sick. The guy  has an incredible threshold for tanking pain and discomfort.

“Is he alright?” Dirk asks, still looking at the doors.

“Why are you asking me?” his older self responds after a long, quiet while.

“You’re supposed to be a future version of me,” Dirk says. “Wouldn’t you know?”

The man doesn’t answer.

#

Seven  stops by the next morning with Three’s cat, just as expected. If Three  was bossy with the Dirks, he’s even bossier with his little brother,  pointing him to chores around the house and occasionally throwing  balled-up tissues at him for fun. It’s the most childish Dirk’s ever  seen him, but at this point, the guy probably deserves to be a little  shit, considering the last few months. Seven yells and flips the bird at  him, but there’s no real anger there, just the sort of irritation that  comes with having siblings.

Having him around also makes  rearranging the study easier, as Three only has to explain which things  go where and he can swiftly, but carefully, direct things around with  his magic. Dirk and his older self still handle the more delicate books  that might not withstand getting moved around by energy, but they’ve  already got the whole ground floor plus five upper levels rearranged by  lunch, and then three more by evening.

“Almost done,” Three says as they close up for the night. “I should have had you do this from the start.”

Seven rolls his eyes at him. “Please, you wouldn’t let me touch your books for years.”

“I’m still not letting you handle the more delicate ones,” Three says.

They  spend the next few days like that, until the library is finally  organized and anybody who steps in can easily find what they’re looking  for without having to consult Three. Dirk’s digital index has been  updated to include locations of materials, for easier navigation. It’s  an improvement from when he’d gotten here more than a year ago.

God,  he’s been here for more than a year. With how hectic things have been,  he’d forgotten his eighteenth birthday had already passed and it’s  almost New Year’s, by Kisaragi’s calendar.

Three also seems to  remember as he takes down said calendar on the living room wall, staring  at it for a moment before guiltily looking to Dirk.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that when you were dying weeks ago,” Dirk says.

“Yeah, but it was your birthday,” he says. “And now it’s only a couple of days before New Year’s.”

“It’s fine.”

“What would you like?” Three asks. “For your birthday, I mean. I’ll try to get it.”

“Nothing.”

“Come on,” Three says. “I know we’re not Earth, but I’ll try to match what you want as closely as possible.”

Dirk  briefly looks to the stairs to the second floor. His older self is  upstairs, in the room he stole from Dirk, and Seven’s already teleported  back to One’s house for the day.

“I don’t know,” Dirk says.

“Think  about it, then,” Three says. “Though if you can, maybe tell me before  New Year’s, because the shopping season is still hell even here.”

While  Dirk’s already technically witnessed two winter holiday seasons, one on  Earth (which he spent in a SHIELD cell, but he heard guards and  employees talk about how much trouble they were having getting their  loved ones anything and how much of a chore some people were to shop  for) and one on Kisaragi as he’d arrived on November last year. Having  spent the first in containment and the second lurking around the house,  though, he’s never had to think about what gift he’d prefer someone get  for him for the holidays. On his planet, he was lucky to get anything at  all, because Roxy and Jake both lived in incredibly isolated places,  and Jane was the only one who had access to the vast, colorful, and  mind-numbing variety that capitalism offered.

He could ask for  information on where to find an available Treasure of Prospit, maybe, so  he’ll at least have some assurance that Three will be fine when he  leaves. The god again doesn’t look worse, but still. Just to be  sure. Unfortunately, he’d have to doom other sessions who might have a  use for the coin if he does that, so he’d have to find one that won’t  miss it, and he’d have to be quick lest he damage that universe  irrevocably.

But he’s not sure the god is too keen on invading other sessions when he’s fought a war to protect his own.

Dirk should settle for a shitty Hallmark card then, or whatever offbrand version they have here on Kisaragi.

He  keeps the thought in mind as he turns in for the night in the new  guestroom Three had set up for him when he’d gotten here. It’s not as  lived-in and personalized as his room (which his older self stole, the  asshole), but at least he has more room here than on the couch. He  won’t accidentally roll over and hit the floor in his sleep.

There  are several messages from Damara in his inbox, though they’re less for  him and more for Seven, and she’s just using him as a messaging service.  Apparently, she’s bored and can’t be assed to go to the store to get  snacks and having a god who can teleport would be handy to have around –  the messages are hours old; since Seven’s back at One’s, she’s probably  yelling at him now. She’s also got a few texts (still to Seven, just  dropped in his inbox) that state that Davesprite is too wary to be fun,  though it’s hilarious listening to him and Four argue about how much  human organs would go on a magical trade.

Speaking of Davesprite…

Dirk looks to the door. He might have an idea of what to ask for.

#

Three  looks amused when he finally tells him, but at least he doesn’t laugh  in Dirk’s face. If anything, he’s looking at him like he does his cat,  which is only mildly insulting instead of humiliating.

“Sure,” Three says. “I can spend a day out with you without your older self.”

Great.  Maybe then they can have an actual conversation; outside of Three  talking to him when the god was bedridden, they haven’t really talked  since Dirk’s accidental drift and since his older self got here.

“Would  you like to help me with errands?” Three offers. Errands means they’ll  get out of the house, and since Other Dirk is cooped up upstairs…

“Sure.”

There’s  going to be another event at One’s for New Year’s, which is expected.  Three says that One still hasn’t cleared him of heavy work (or most  work, really), but walking around is good for him so his muscles don’t  atrophy in bed for weeks. He can do errands as long as he has someone  helping him. They still have to take Three’s sometimes-used car to the  store though, since he shouldn’t be flying around.

“Just don’t get  pulled over,” Three says as he buckles himself in the passenger’s seat,  since Dirk’s driving. He’d asked to be taught a few months into his  stay on the island out of boredom, and he’d nearly crashed the vehicle  into trees several times, prevented only by Three stopping time before  they hit. “You don’t have a license.”

“Why did we never get one again?”

“’Cause we could fly,” Three says with a chuckle.

“We should have.”

Three laughs while he drives them out the garage and into the highway, without hitting anything on accident.

It’s  like a switch back to normalcy, suddenly, back to the earlier months on  Kisaragi when he was learning new things instead of being hounded by  his past and now apparently his future. And wasn’t that weird, that more  than a year later, he actually wishes everything was just like this  every day, mundane and boring. Quiet and simple. He’s alive and he’s got  everything he needs and he’s not in danger. It would be great if all of  his friends were out of harm’s way, and he’s still working towards  that, but this snapshot of his life right here – this should be what it  feels like all the time. Something calm, nothing tumultuous. He’s just  existing.

The parking lot of the department store is packed, but  they manage to find an empty space in one of the far, far corners. He  helps Three out the car and lets the god show him the shopping list;  he’s getting things for friends and family, and judging from how long  the strip of paper is, One’s party is going to be crowded as shit again,  which means Dirk’s definitely not attending.

He tells Three as much.

“That’s  okay. I know crowds can be uncomfortable, I’m not sure I’ll be going  either,” Three says. “Dealing with too many people on top of that is  going to exhaust me in my state.”

That statement proves to only  apply to the party as several minutes into the trip, Three is running  down aisles grabbing things before other people can get to them. Dirk  almost loses him several times, though the god always comes back to him,  a feral look on his face from defeating some 47-year-old woman in the  race to get to a toaster or a dollhouse set first.

“I think you’re supposed to be kind to seniors,” Dirk says, though he lets Three drop the toaster in the cart.

“One is hard to shop for,” the god says. “Do you know how hard it is to get gifts for people who make shit? They can just build something better than what you get them, it’s frustrating. But One’s favorite toaster broke, so.”

It’s  not the best way to be spending the day, but it’s at least entertaining  to watch Three abuse his magic just to get to things first. They manage  to finish up before lunch and drive to a nearby restaurant, favoring a  table in the corner for privacy. Three’s trying to fight off drowsiness  by then, though he manages to get through it to eat and suggest they  visit the bay walk again today. The more time they spend outside, the  less Dirk has to deal with his older self, so he agrees, making sure to  drive slowly on the way to let Three sleep and to burn time.

The  sky is overcast by this time of the year, and the waves are dark and  stormy, but Dirk’s clothes are runed and Three still has enough energy  to keep himself warm with his magic. They stroll down the walkway,  mindful of the strong wings, and find a bench to sit on once they’re  finally tired. It would be nice to watch the moonrise here again.

“I missed talking to you,” Three says.

“We’re still talking.”

“You  know what I mean,” Three says. “In every other capacity I have talked  to you before you came here, it was either during a fight or during  negotiations. I’d never talked to you as just another person before. I  enjoyed it, you know.”

Dirk looks down at the ground.

“You  were always this – like, this almost untouchable figure in my mind. More  an idea than a person, because the strongest image of you I had was  during the war.” Three motions to his head. “And everything was such a  blur of violence that even though I knew you, I didn’t know you.” He laughs softly. “It was so nice talking to you and realizing you were just some guy too.”

“Well, you’re not too bad yourself,” Dirk says, kicking a nearby pebble. “You’ve got to be the most human god I know.”

“You’re one too.”

“You know what I mean,” Dirk says. “You have this line of godhood instead of an imbalance where you’re human but also happen to be a god. You are a god. You feel like one, the way you are. But you’re very…” He makes a so-and-so gesture. “You know.”

“I guess.”

Three is silent for a moment, staring out at the ocean.

“I wish I could save you,” he says, after a bit.

Dirk glances away.

“If  I could make it so whatever happens doesn’t have to, I would,” Three  says. “I wouldn’t even mind never meeting you as long as you were okay.”

Funny that, that was exactly what he was thinking too. Unfortunate how similar they are on some things.

“The only thing I can do is this,” Three says. “And I’m not even a licensed therapist.”

“I’m not a licensed driver.”

Three snickers. “Good job, by the way, didn’t even nearly crash even with the traffic.”

“Thanks.”

It’s Dirk’s turn to stay silent for a bit. Then, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Three says. “A little tired, but I’ll sleep when we get home.”

“No – are you – are you going – ” Dirk pauses. “Are you recovering?”

Three  looks up at the sky, thinking. “Honestly, One says I’m not out of the  woods yet. It remains to be seen,” he says. “The situation’s  complicated. The state of my health doesn’t only depend on the state of  my body – if anything, the state of my body is inconsequential – it  depends on the state of my soul, which is dependent on two people right  now, myself and you.”

Three shrugs.

“So, yeah, I don’t  know,” he says. “But that’s also pretty much how most things are, isn’t  it? Everything in life is up to chance, I think we just get so used to  routine and schedules that we forget that nothing is ensured. We don’t  even know if we’ll survive to the end of the day when we wake up in such  a good mood in the morning.”

“And you’re fine with it?”

“Yeah,” Three says. ‘“Like I said, it’s not really any different from how things are, right?”

“I  suppose,” Dirk says. “If you die, you’re just going to be on Kisaragi,  right? As a ghost. You just can’t go back to the living world anymore.”

Three smiles softly. “You’ll figure it out later.”

“I thought we were going to talk.”

“We are,” Three says. “But preserving the timeline is for your sake too.”

Dirk’s  lips twist to a frown, but he doesn’t press it. Three has his duties.  He could never ask the god to twist the rules for him and put everyone  else in danger.

“…do you want to die?” Dirk asks.

“I don’t know,” Three admits. “But it doesn’t really scare me either. Do you?”

A beat. “I don’t know either.”

“Mm.”  Three nods. “I guess it’s more like I’m resigned to the fact that it  will happen someday. I’m not going to seek it out, but it’s something I  can’t predict,” he says. “But I don’t think I’m suicidal. I don’t think  I’m wallowing in entropy. I liked experiencing new things, it was very  nice getting to know you this past year.”

That was a good way of putting it into words.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Dirk says. “Staying on this boring island for a year.”

“I’m glad, then.” Three smiles. “I hope it made things a little easier.”

#

New  Years’s arrives…slower than expected. Despite the fact that it was only  a handful of days before the island turned over into the new year,  those days still manage to feel like they drag on forever. Dirk and his  older self are unbanned from One’s house so they can at least get dinner  there during the party, and Three joins the festivities, though he’s  staying right at his corner of the room.

Dirk stays on the second  floor, looking down at the celebration – in a few hours, they’ll be  counting down to midnight. While the noise is terrible, he’s never seen  an actual New Year’s countdown, so he’s staying to watch.

At some point, his older self joins him, for once looking strangely somber instead of confrontational.

“What the hell’s up with you?” Dirk asks after a moment.

“One’s unbanned me from Kisaragi,” his older self says.

That has him going silent.

“I’m  still not allowed in the rest of the living world because that’s under  Seven, Three, and M’s jurisdiction,” his older self continues. “But the  afterlife is fully theirs.”

“Oh,” Dirk says.

Then,

“Why’d they do that?”

“I  don’t know,” his older self says. “But they did. I’m allowed here now –  though, obviously, until they figure out interdimensional travel, I  can’t stay for long periods of time.”

Dirk scans the crowd in an attempt to find One. They’re at the same table as their siblings, laughing about something.

“That’s one thing you’ve got going for you, I guess,” Dirk says.

His older self doesn’t respond.

“What?” Dirk asks, because the silence is so obviously judgmental. “What is it this time?”

“You  are so convinced we are different people,” his older self says, “I  remember that. Though I also remember that even then, there was this  thought in the back of my head, that no, we are still the same  thing. It’s not the same are other versions of us. My faults are your  faults; we are just one person across two different points in time.”

“Because you’re not me,” Dirk says. “You’re – ”

His  older self turns to him. Instead of countering his claim, however, the  man just stares, waiting for him to deny that even with the distance of  time, they are one and the same.

“You act different. You move different. You’re just – not me,” Dirk says.

“I  know,” Older Dirk says. “Because you’re in the past. You’re an  incomplete version of who I am now, and I’m an overfilled version of who  you are now.” He turns back to the party below. “But it happens. It’s  what time does. It’s what growing up’s all about.

“You look back one day and you don’t recognize yourself, and you want to go back to when you were younger, freer, better, but  you’re never going to,” he says. “You’re never getting that back.  You’re going to keep changing, and you’re going to keep getting farther  and farther away from how you were. And sometimes that version of you  will live on in people’s memories, but that person won’t exist anymore.”

Dirk glares at him, but he just shrugs.

“That’s  just how it is. It’s like that for everybody,” Older Dirk says. “If  I’ve learned anything, it’s that so many people want things to never  change. They want themselves to stay the same, or their friends, or  their family, or the world. It never will. It’s always changing. Some  people think their idea of someone is always going to stay that way,  perpetually frozen in the anger of a teenager or the brightness of a  child. It won’t. It’s foolish to think that, and if you do, then you’ve  got a lot of growing up to do, still.”

“Who died and made you CEO of shitty speeches?”

Older Dirk tenses.

“…should have worded that better,” Dirk says.

“My point is,” Older Dirk continues, “Is that I don’t recognize you either.”

“‘Cause you’re too much of an asshole?”

“‘Cause you’re so much happier.”

Dirk clamps his mouth shut.

“If you don’t think I miss that, then you’re stupider than I thought,” Older Dirk says. “I don’t recognize you, but I remember you.  I do. I remember being you, and I remember how it felt; I remember  myself at every point in my life before now – but then I look at myself  in the mirror and I can’t believe you were me, and I am you at the  present.”

“You don’t want it?” Dirk asks.

“No.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“God, fucking no.” Older Dirk lets out a huff. “But if I could do it all over again, sure. I would. With everything I know now.”

The man lets out another exhale.

“But life doesn’t work that way,” he says.

“I don’t want to be you either,” Dirk says. “But I don’t want to stay as I am. That’d be dangerous, I think.”

“Yeah, well, surprised it took you that long to realize that’s just how it is,” Older Dirk says.

Dirk  stomps on his boot. The man kicks his shin – they both end up hopping  away from each other to nurse their injuries. Dirk grits his teeth,  quietly seething, and turns his attention back to the party instead.  Below, his friends look like they’re having fun.

“Does it get better?” he asks.

“Shit  happens,” Older Dirk says. “It always does. There’s always going to be  something, and it’s never going to stop as long as we exist. Nothing’s  supposed to go 100% perfect forever and ever; they just are and you do  what you can. But – ” He turns to Dirk. “ – I don’t know the answer to  that either.”

His older self shrugs.

“When you become me, can you find out?”

#

Dirk wakes up to a quiet house.

It’s  always quiet after parties at One’s, with everyone either having left  the night before or still sleeping in. Since it’s the first day of the  new year and everyone at the party (save for Three who’d turned in  around nine o’clock) had stayed up for the countdown, most of them are  going to be out cold until noontime, so Dirk has the house to himself  for the morning.

Mostly, anyway. Three’s annoying little cat hops  on the island as he sits by it with his toast and orange juice; it sits  down and tilts its head expectantly, like it would even deign to eat  bread. The bastard yelled and screamed when his usual brand of cat food  got replaced because the usual was out, he’s not about to eat toast.

When Dirk ignores in favor of food, it walks closer. Asshole.

He  gets up and grabs the container of cat food from one of the lower  cabinets, scooping some up for the little bastard so it leaves him  alone. It does, happily climbing down the island in favor of attending  his food bowl. Dirk has no idea why Three loves this thing so much, but  for the god’s sake, he’ll tolerate the little hellspawn.

Outside  of the interruption, it’s a pretty good morning. It’s not his house, but  he’s been around here enough times that he can make himself at home;  there’s a pretty view of the beach outside; and for once, things are  calm again.

They won’t be forever, of course – as much as he and his older self disagree on some things, the man is right  about the unsure nature of everything. There are still problems on the  horizon, even if they’ve been put on pause. When those are solved, there  will be more, and it will either be small things like misunderstandings  or little fights, or big things like another threat on the level of the  Heir of Blood or someone in a life or death situation. Three’s soul is  still in a fragile state. There is the war for him, in the distance.

And if he could avert all that, he would. He still wants to. If the chance presents itself, he’ll take it.

But  for now, nothing is happening. He has a moment to breathe. And if he  could stay here in this instance, he would – he can’t, but hopefully, in  the future, if he fails and ends up following his older self’s steps  beat for beat…hopefully he can still come back here.

Is he giving up? He doesn’t feel like he’s giving up. It just feels like – like he knows what he wants and it’s this, right  here, just this small second of tranquility. Take it and put it in a  bottle, keep it with him forever, impossible as it sounds. If he can  have his friends safe and have these snippets, even if they’re momentary  and fleeting, he thinks things might be fine.

Overhead, a bell chimes.

When  Dirk looks up, he is no longer in One’s kitchen. Instead, he’s sitting  by a white, round table, with a steaming cup of tea set in a saucer in  front of him. The floor has been replaced with white sand, the bar stool  with a cushioned chair that matches the table; to his left side is a  vast stretch of beach that leads to a bright blue ocean, and to his  right, a small white house with a brown roof.

Across him, Sapphrel Angeles says, “Congratulations.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m  not,” Angeles says. “You figured it out, right? That life isn’t a hard  cut, that’s-a-wrap, once-is-all-you-need thing? It’s continuous, for as  long as you exist, and peace isn’t something you obtain, it’s a skill  you learn.”

“This feels wrong,” Dirk says. He glares down at the tea in front of him, and then to the beach to his left. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t fix anything.”

Angeles stares at him for a moment, head tilting – the expression looks so wrong on  them, as he now realizes just how much they look like One. Like Three.  They’re younger, yes, with a softer face and wavier curls due to their  short hair, but that’s his friends’ face on a stranger.

“What did you want to fix, Dirk?” they ask, softly.

“I don’t – ” Dirk falters. “…do you know? About – ”

“Only  what I’ve been able to get from One,” they say. “From when I died the  first time. The truth is that I didn’t want you to go in blind, but I’m  not a time player. I can’t uproot a whole route and doom two universes  with billions of people with it.”

Dirk’s shoulders drop.

“Nobody  deserves to feel like they’re a lost cause from the very start,”  Angeles says, looking down. “Nobody deserves to feel like they’re a  monster forever.”

“So you set up my forgiveness?”

Angeles shrugs.

He glares, clenching a fist – and then opting to instead grab onto the teacup just so he has something to fidget with.

“Sorry,”  they say. “But in my defense, I don’t get memories from anyone other  than my other selves, or shadows of my other selves. I don’t control  what Three does. I didn’t tell him to forgive you. That was him through  and through – it will be him, through and through.”

They meet his glare, smiling gently, sadly.

“And do you not think you deserve to be forgiven, Dirk Strider?”

“I don’t understand,” he says. “Why people keep fucking doing that.”

“Maybe it’s because they care?” they ask. “Maybe it’s because they put more weight on your presence than your shortcomings.”

“It’s stupid.”

“Would you say the same thing about your friends?” Angeles asks. “You care about them, right?”

He looks away.

Angeles leans forward, bracing their forearms on the table and lacing their fingers together.

“Peace  is not a cure-all,” they say. “Nothing in life is. Peace is acceptance,  and knowledge, and community, and love, and assurance, and so many  things. You’re done on Kisaragi, but you’re not done quite yet.”

He hazards a look back at them, and they smile.

“You  promised their Hal you would apologize to yours,” they say. “You have  friends to save and have long-overdue conversations with. You have to  talk to Dave about something you’ve learned here. There are a lot of conversations you have to have with yourself.

“It’s  not easy. You’re still so young, you have a lot of living to do – but  you can get better at it with practice and help,” Angeles says.

“So you sent me to therapy.”

“I  sent you to an island where none of the people whose opinions mattered  to you were, so you could start anew without fear of failing in their  eyes. I sent you someplace where you wouldn’t feel alone, where there  was someone with the capacity to be patient with you instead of dropping  you when you’re emotionally exhausting just like you feared. I sent you  someplace where time is of no consequence, so you could try again, and  again, and again, as much as you needed to. It’s difficult to grow when  you’re judged for everything and when you feel like you’re on a time  frame, yes? And when you miss it, you feel like you’ve lost all chance  of learning how to be a human being?”

Dirk doesn’t answer, instead  putting his focus back on the teacup, tracing the painted lilies and  roses on it. Death and love, huh.

“Did you think I could do it?” he asks. “Actually – you know. Not be too much of an asshole?”

“I think given the right circumstances, you could, yes,” they say. “So I tried my best to find those circumstances.”

“And you decided that would fix me?”

“No,  no,” Angeles says with a laugh. “If I was that confident about my  assessment of you, I would have helped you myself. But no, Dirk, I  didn’t think it would fix you. I thought it would be room to breathe. For shit to stop just for a moment, so you could think for once.”

He pauses. Nods tersely. “Sure.”

"Don't  be like that,” they joke, snickering. “I could have just sent you to  someone else entirely; there's a lot of people I'm connected to in  existence, you know? Could have been worse.”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re  so mean.” They sigh dramatically. “Did you know your ticket here was  pretty limited edition? This universe is closer to mine than it is to  yours. Iterations of your universe were never supposed to cross over  with iterations of this."

“Do they live?”

“Hm?”

“Three and the others – in the other universes?”

Angeles  pauses. “In some of them. There are still doomed timelines, of course,”  they say. “But in some universes, they do. They’re very resilient.”

He nods again.

“Well – whatever, don’t be so morose – ‘cause you did it!” Angeles cheers. “You actually figured this whole thing out – ”

“By your highly flawed standards.”

“ – and you’re going home!”

Dirk's hold on the teacup tightens. The porcelain cracks.

"Ah," Angeles says. "Was that the wrong word to use?"

Dirk stays silent for a very long time, just glaring at them.

"You're cruel, do you know that?" he says, eventually.

Angeles’ smile drops, their gaze falling to their lap.

“Yeah,” they say. “I know.”

Dirk  stares at them for a moment, knowing full well they can feel the weight  of his irritation, before turning away, back towards the beach.

“What now?” he asks. “And where the fuck are we?”

“My afterlife,” they say. “I have a different one, specifically set up just for me by Nereus Ampora – well, not for me, more  for the Heir of Doom, but you know the whole deal with that.” They wave  a hand nonchalantly like that’s inconsequential everyday news. “I can  send you back to Earth and you can start helping everyone there sort out  the aftermath of the apocalypse. Damara and Davesprite can’t go with  you because I don’t have any connection that directly binds them to  Earth, but there’s someone there – Cronus Ampora – who has the Full Moon  and the lesser lights. He can light up a signal for them to return when  it’s time.”

“And Kisaragi’s whole removal from time would still be in effect?”

“Yes.”  Angeles nods. “On our side of things, we’re going to be gathering  everyone who’s been taken by those ghosts that turned into rifts, as  those are elements of Doom and I’m the closest thing to a godtier Heir  of Doom right now. My lovely, lovely, lovely predecessor is indisposed and so I’m the one on the reins until they return. Or die. I hope they’re dead.”

Dirk unamusedly raises an eyebrow. “Your point?”

“Once  we have everyone, Cronus will set the lights up and we can send them  back,” Angeles continues without missing a beat. “The problem is that  everybody’s kind of scattered all over right now because, as you’ve seen  with Damara, the Heir of Blood is kind of losing his shit. He failed  trying to doom the world.”

“So he’s going to try again, and he  might be even more pissed off,” Dirk finishes the thought for them.  Okay, another apocalypse scenario. He can deal with that, he’s literally  grown up in one.

Angeles nods. “If Cronus fails, everybody might  be stuck here forever. Which isn’t too bad, but they’re going to be kind  of…really far and out of commission,” they say. “This afterlife’s not  like a dream bubble, it’s like what you think of when people say Heaven  or Hell. There’s like a Veil and everything. Gotta cross over and it’s  not achievable through regular physical means.”

Dirk nods again. “And you?”

“I gotta keep the whole thing in check; this afterlife is supposed to contain Sapphrel Angeles and only Sapphrel Angeles. It’s  supposed to be a safezone for my other self – if I don’t stop it from  turning visitors into paste, they’ll…get turned into paste,” they say,  wincing, but after a moment, their expression grows serious. “But on a  more pressing note, the denizen is planning something. It’s angry at a  plan foiled and my other self and their friends are busy right now. If  the denizen successfully placates William, we’ve lost our first line of  defense against it. I need to find the others, and I need to find them  fast.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster if I helped with that, since I’m already connected to this damn place?”

Angeles opens their mouth and lifts a finger, and then closes their mouth and puts it down.

“Actually,  that’s an idea,” they say. “It might be useful to have your sort of  firepower – give me a moment to think so I can tell you where to go – ”

“Can I go home first?”

“Hm?”

“Can I go home first,” Dirk says flatly. “I can’t just disappear from Kisaragi, you fucking idiot.”

Angeles blinks. They chuckle.

“Fair enough,” they say. “Pray when you’re ready.”

Dirk stands and then flips them off. “Thanks for nothing, you piece of shit.”

“Glad you liked the island, bestie!” Angeles says sweetly. They clap their hands together and –

“Dirk!”

Three’s face swims into view, the man’s expression torn with worry, eyes wide in fear. His hands are on Dirk’s shoulders.

Dirk takes a second to get his bearings. “I’m fine.”

“Where’d you go?” Three asks. “Your soul just kind of disappeared there. I could only sense your older self.”

“It was Hal’s asshole of a friend Angeles,” Dirk says. “I can go back to Earth, apparently.”

“Oh,” Three says. Lets him go and stands up properly. “Oh.”

Both of them go quiet.

“You said I could come back here, right?” Dirk asks, eventually.

“Of course,” Three says.

“I’ll  hold you to that then,” he says. “And then I’m going to find the  Treasure of Prospit, and we’re going to see Earth like I told you.”

Three pauses. “Okay.”

Dirk gets to his feet.

He has a long road ahead of him and he’s got work to do.