ALFG CHAPTER 171

#14: DESERT SONG by MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE

The hallway stretches as far as Dirk can see, disappearing into the darkness ahead. There are no doors or windows in the narrow space, only plain cement walls and a concrete floor. There are no lights overhead, but he can still see the direct space in front of him. When he turns, there is nothing but a plain empty wall behind him.

There’s only one way forward. Dirk stays right where he is.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there. If he doesn’t move, then his older self will be forced to do something, but nothing happens. His legs start to tire after the first hour, and yet still, nothing happens. Eventually, he crouches down, sits, leans against the wall, and accidentally falls asleep, when the hours pile up and still, nothing changes.

When he wakes up, it’s to that same hallway. It’s silent. It’s empty. It’s dark.

There are no monsters ahead for him to fight. The smooth walls stretch high above and he can’t see a ceiling. There’s no disembodied voice speaking to him or taunting him.

There is no threat to eliminate. No taunt to power past or sit through. He’s just here.

It’s boring.

Finally, something does break the silence of the hallway. His stomach growls in hunger; it’s been a while since he’s eaten. His body still reacts like it should here, and though he’s godtier and can survive without food, living for a year without having to worry about nourishment has made him used to a regular schedule of restoring his energy. He puts a hand over his stomach as he sits there, willing it to shut up and calm down, willing the hunger to cease.

It doesn’t.

His stomach burns after a few more minutes, the pain spreading to his sides; it’s not a new feeling. He didn’t grow up in the apocalypse with a steady source of food, and while his brother had kept the house well-stocked, a growing child’s body had needs, and when it demanded nourishment so it could develop properly, it hungered. When Dirk was ill, it hungered. When he was ailing and his body needed to fix itself, it hungered.

But unlike the oceanside where he could filter water and drink it and hope it was enough to sate his body’s demands, there is nothing in this hallway. No water to quench his thirst, no food to fill his stomach. So, he just sits there, as his body slowly drains its stores of fat and energy, its water.

He is godtier. He shouldn’t be affected like this; he should be regenerating every time he rests.

But his body seems to have forgotten that, slowly wasting away like it was mortal. Dirk sits there until he starts shaking and sweating from the pain of the hunger, and with how much he’s sweating, he’s losing water even faster. His throat dries up, his mouth is parched, he starts breathing through his mouth from how dehydrated he is. The world spins, blurs, filters in and out; he sleeps more as his body starts to shut down and try to conserve energy. At some point, he’d felt snapping and popping in his stomach, and he doesn’t know if the pain has stopped or if it’s gotten too much to the point that his mind has stopped feeling it.

And then, he smells something. Food. If anyone were to ask him later, he would not be able to describe the scent, other than it is the idea of good, and his favorite. It’s coming from down the hallway, from the darkness ahead – the thought of this being a part of whatever’s happening to him doesn’t even occur to him, because he needs it, and he needs to survive.

Stripped of all reason, a body often returns to its base instincts.

And so, Dirk starts to crawl forward. He drags himself a foot forward, and (he thinks) it takes over an hour to even move. The hallway stretches on forever –

And yet he finds himself in a large room. He should have been crawling for years, but here he is, at the center of a dark, but spacious hall. There is a door on the floor beneath him, and that’s where the food smell is coming from.

Dirk opens it without hesitation; he is starving.

The room he hops in is dark. The thing that is giving off the smell is moving, but it’s not very fast; animals usually don’t taste that good uncooked, but you do what you can to survive on a waterlogged planet by yourself. Dirk draws his sword with shaking hands and clumsily throws himself at the thing that is moving, gritting his teeth when it escapes him in his fatigue. He grabs onto it when it is close, holding onto it with one hand since the other is holding his weapon, but when it wrenches free once again, he drops the sword and holds onto it with both hands. When it once again tries to wrestle free, he holds onto it with his teeth.

The food tastes good, when his mouth clamps onto it, everything in him screaming finally as it finds what it’s looking for. Something to restore its energy, to heal itself, to soothe its aches.

And then the lights come on.

Stripped of all reason, an animal returns to base instinct.

“Did you enjoy your meal, Prince?”

“Oh, god.”

“Don’t look so disgusted, you were starving, weren’t you? Your body just wanted to be fixed – and look at you, all that hunger is gone, isn’t it? You’re back, you can think again, you’re fine. You were just hungry, so you did what you needed to do – what you wanted to do.”

Dirk freezes as he hears his other self’s voice around him, inside his head, everywhere. He sounds present, in every way imaginable, that if Dirk were to cease all cognitive function, he thinks he would still be able to hear the man’s taunts.

“And all that hunger?”

There is a presence behind him, heavy and oppressive, and he doesn’t need to turn to know his other self is right there.

“That’s going to get a thousand times worse,” his older self says, “That’s going to be unbearable.”

Footsteps; boots clicking as they move to his left, circling around him slowly.

“But the thing is, that hunger isn’t even half of what you’re going to feel. That was only a basic function of your body being tripped off, made to work exactly as it’s designed to. Nothing was wrong, nothing was added, nothing was taken,” his older self continues as he finally comes to a stop at Dirk’s periphery.

But Dirk doesn’t turn to him. Instead, he just stares at his hands, coated in fresh, wet, red. The light catches on it, glistening and laying bare exactly what he’s done. The taste of good and favorite in his mouth has made way for rust and metal, and bile rises up in his throat. It had fixed something in him, his body is no longer in pain, but oh god.

“You were always like that,” someone else says.

Dirk looks up to see a mezzanine overhead that’s suddenly there. The room he’s in looks familiar, and he realizes it’s the library he’s helped out in for the last year.

“For all that you pride yourself to be logical and level-headed, you were always selfish and emotional. Always so irrational, always guided by your heart and not your mind,” Jane says. It’s her voice and her face, but the words she’s saying are so weird coming out of her mouth. She looks down at him impassively, an elbow on the railing and her cheek propped up in one hand. “Nobody really needs to change something in you, Dirk, everything terrible you feared was always inside you.”

“That gluttony and envy,” Roxy says, on the other end of the mezzanine. “Why couldn’t you make other people happy for once, Dirk? Why did it always have to be you? Always, always about you.”

Her expression – his best friend’s expression – scrunches up in disgust.

“It’s always I want this and I want that; didn’t you ever wonder what everyone else felt? If it were just the three of us, I bet we wouldn’t even had that much trouble with the game. We would have gone through it without fighting in the fucking middle of the goddamn apocalypse. But no. You had to make it all about you,” she says. “And you’re going to do it again, to a bunch of strangers who don’t even know you. Jesus Christ, Dirk.” She laughs. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What isn’t?” Jake asks with a shrug, standing in the middle of the mezzanine, right on top of a set of stairs. “He’s always been happy to push people into what he wants, wrenching them to fit into spaces they’re not supposed to. He wants to be true to himself, so other people have to lie for him.”

The boy’s smile is condescending.

“You’re right when you think you’re not better than anybody else. You are worst than most people,” he says. “But you still can’t ever help yourself, can you?”

“Always putting the blame on others,” Hal says. He’s on the ground floor, standing right by one of the desks, leaning on the table. His arms are crossed, and his gaze is downward, his posture amused. “You do quite like to make avatars for your rage, anathema for every single thing you hate about yourself that you can’t quite rip out. I’m the embodiment of everything you hate about yourself, and so you direct all your rage towards me.”

Hal looks up.

“Did you think that making me absolves you of your sins?” he asks. “That just because you hate me, it makes everything that you are suddenly right? Just because you condemn me?” He tilts his head. “Who gave you the right to play god?”

“No, he just took it for himself.” On the other end of the room, sitting on another empty table, is Dave. He kicks his feet back and forth as he looks at Dirk, boredly. “He’s exactly that brand of asshole. He’ll pull the strings in the background because of course he knows what’s best for everybody. He’ll condense everything he can’t stand to look at the mirror and throw it at other people, accuse them of that, because he can’t hold himself accountable for it. Hal’s the worst parts of him; his older self is the devil.”

“But nothing’s really changed,” Jake says. “Not before, not when you got here, not even after all this.”

“God,” Jane says. “And he can’t even die right.”

Roxy barks out a laugh at that. “We still have to deal with him after this? Fucking hell. And he’s going to pretend like he’s gotten all better too. There’s no saving or forgiving you, Dirk.”

His older self steps closer.

“This is what we’ve always been,” the man says. “And this – ”

Dirk’s eyes focus back on his hands again, against his will.

“This is what you will become.” His older self comes to a stop behind him. “We are…how does it go again?”

The corpse on the floor sits up, its ribcage and chest broken open. Right by Dirk’s shaking hands is a half-eaten heart, but the dead body still moves, cold fingers forcing Dirk’s chin up to look at Three’s dead face.

“Same snake, different skin.”

Three wouldn’t say that.

None of his friends would say this. They wouldn’t.

Dirk lunges to pick his sword and swings at his other self, aiming for the neck.

#

“He must be really tired,” Damara remarks as Seven takes a seat beside Three’s bed. One is currently passed out in their room from such extensive magic use yesterday – apparently sustaining someone who is sure to die for hours takes a lot out of them, which is strange, but Hal said it had something to do with them already latently expending magic to maintain Kisaragi at all times – so the task of checking up on Three has fallen to everyone else.

The god is still asleep; his condition hasn’t worsened, but he doesn’t seem to have gotten better either. He still looks as pallid and sickly as he did yesterday, and he’s still sleeping deeply. At the very least, his wound has not reopened.

Strider is also asleep. He’d apparently returned some time yesterday, probably while everyone was having dinner, and gone straight to his room, because when Hal looked for him this morning, he was out cold in his bed. The older version doesn’t seem that worse for wear despite having used his magic to fix Three’s soul yesterday, so he’s helping re-dress their patient’s wound.

The wall below still hasn’t been fixed. Seven’s asked the other Strider (Dave, was it?) to use his magic on it later, but he and the girl he was with are currently arguing downstairs to ‘renegotiate a contract’ or something. All Damara could really catch was the girl spouting buzzwords a mile a minute like she made any goddamn sense – and somehow to the boy, she did, because he was launching them right back at her. Good for him.

It’s already near noon. One’s woken up once to grab food before going right back to resting, but Strider hasn’t yet.

Eh, whatever. Maybe he’s taking a depression nap.

Older Strider checks the state of Three’s soul again. There’s less cracks today, which is good since that means the pieces are melding back nicely. Seven makes sure the wound is clean, and Hal changes his IV. When they’re done, Hal throws out the used bandages and takes the medical equipment back to the infirmary. Seven goes down to see if his sister has eaten her guest yet, and Older Strider stays, keeping vigil.

He doesn’t talk much to Damara, not like regular Strider does, so she doesn’t press for conversation. Besides, there’s a certain way about him; he still hasn’t gotten a replacement for his glasses. He hasn’t even asked. It’s like he’s walking around like that on purpose despite the fact that he’s clearly uncomfortable. Some misguided attempt at penance, clearly, as One has tried to offer him temporary sunglasses only for him to either walk off or change the subject before proceeding to stop talking.

She’s seen that look in his eyes before, she’s seen it on her face. The sheer horror and guilt right after an act of violence when logic caught up, in the space between the action and the spite that led to either running away or doubling down on what’s happened. He looks even more quietly miserable when he interacts with any of the Kisaragi trio, or with Hal. He looks the worst sitting down in a chair next to a dying god.

But it’s not her business so she’s leaving him alone. She follows Seven downstairs instead while he mediates between Four and Dave (or Davesprite, whichever; she hasn’t asked for his name, she’s only been keeping note of what they call him), trying to hash out what appears to be a time-limited trade of his wings for her pendant. The new negotiation has the swap last for 72 hours, and they shake on it before Dave asks Seven to show him where the wall that needs to be fixed is.

He fixes it with considerable ease, which the ghost sister seems to fixate on, eyeing the glow of time magic almost enviously. If the girl’s teeth and general forced-airy demeanor wasn’t so off-putting, Damara would have been tempted to pry, but unlike some people in this household, she has some sense of self-preservation, so she doesn’t. Instead, she just watches the girl sidle up to Dave with her hands behind her back, coyly asking:

“You wouldn’t happen to be interested in another deal, would you?”

The boy only stares her down with suspicion, and she giggles, putting her hands up.

“Okay. Just asking.”

“Four,” Seven says in warning.

“I was offering,” Four says. “Do you know how generous our contract is? He can have access to my powers without praying. I’m the one losing out here. That’s practically a freebie.”

The boy turns to her at that, and though she acts unbothered, the wings on her back shift and winch in tighter.

“Praying?” Dave asks.

“I’m a god,” Four says. “I can still take prayers despite me being retired.”

“So the god in godtier is serious?”

Four sighs. “Follow me,” she says, pointing to the stairs to the second floor. “Let’s head to the library, I can probably explain this better with examples – you know, this knowledge is such a steal.”

“You signed off on our contract.””

“Only because these are gorgeous,” she says, extending the wings, and then flapping them harshly as she surges up to the next floor, flying down the hallway. Seven and Davesprite stagger as the gust of wind she leaves pushes them back. Damara avoids getting knocked down by putting up a barrier and rooting herself where she is telekinetically.

The three of them tiredly go up to follow her, passing by the guest rooms on the way. Damara pauses as she crosses Strider’s door. It’s already midday.

And he’s still asleep.

#

The library in Three’s house isn’t this big. Dirk has lost track of where his other self has gone, trembling calloused hands holding onto his sword as he scans the area to try and find the man.

The others have disappeared and the lights have flickered off, leaving the whole area in shadow with too many desks and shelves and levels for one person to hide in. Dirk’s jaw is bruised from being kicked, it hurts to breathe as he’s been kneed in the gut, and his back hurts from being thrown into a table.

His older self has not once drawn his sword, merely dodging away from Dirk’s strikes in a way so completely foreign to see on him. Dirk has always moved fast – the power and explosiveness behind his sword strikes is in his speed, both with footwork and his swings. They’re brutal in the way a street fight is: learned on the spot and made up on the fly with the only thing in mind being attack, attack, attack. No one has taught him how to wield a sword, he taught himself, and as the drones that attacked him were made of metal, he needed enough power in his movements to be able to compensate for his human fragility. He’s traded dexterity for strength, grace for power.

His older self dodges like he’s dancing: two feet stepping back in quick succession, not fast but instead carefully measured, one right behind the other, before he brings his leg up and nails Dirk right in the face; dodging a swing by stepping to the side just so and grabbing onto Dirk’s shoulder to brace himself, only to bring his knee up into Dirk’s stomach and forcibly making him throw up from how hard the hit is. The guy hasn’t even used any of his magic yet, he’s just moving.

He'd done the same thing while fighting with One the other day (just yesterday? How long ago was it since Dirk got here again?), moving out of the way just enough to not get hit but close enough to land a blow. He evades like someone well aware of a choreographed routine, knowing just where to move so he doesn’t get caught in the crossfire of flailing limbs.

Whatever. So the guy added a new way to fight in his arsenal, so fucking what. He’s still just another piece of shit Dirk has to take down to get out of here; this is easier, when he has something to cut. Something to hit.

“Only you haven’t landed a single blow.”

“Get out of my fucking head!”

Dirk whirls around, leaning into his momentum as he swings his sword in a horizontal strike, right at his older self’s neck. The man drops down and the blade misses; he pulls his fist back and punches Dirk straight in the sternum, winding him instantly.

Dirk staggers back, but does his best to keep his grip on his sword. Shit, his vision’s blurring. Ahead, he can see his other self unsheathe his katana, take it in both hands, and then the man is suddenly in front of him and swinging –

When Dirk comes to, he’s blinking up at the library’s high ceiling. His other self is standing beside him, sword held in one hand at his side.

“You can’t die here,” the man says. “Since we’re in your head.”

He looks down.

“Which means I can kill you as many times as I want,” he says. “Did you really think this was going to be a fair fight?”

The man turns, putting his free hand back onto the handle of his sword. He lifts a foot and crushes it down onto Dirk’s chest to keep him on the floor as he lifts his katana, raised up at his left side. If he swings it in a downward arc, the blade is going to cut straight through Dirk’s neck – how the hell is that thing even so sharp? Dirk hadn’t even felt his earlier decapitation.

“Stay still,” his older self instructs.

Dirk instantly tries to wrench away.

#

In the waking world, One cracks an eye open in their bed.

“Someone just fucking died.”

#

He can’t even get a hit in.

When Dirk is finally fast enough to catch up, his older self stops time and takes his head off. When he’s read enough of the guy’s moves to dodge his strikes, he stops time and takes his head off. When he’s close enough and almost, almost cuts him with his sword, he stops time and takes his head off.

It’s that godawful time magic he’s stolen.

Dirk grits his teeth, hiding behind a shelf in a corner as he tries to catch his breath. The guy has to be feeling magical poisoning, right? It’s not his magic, his body isn’t built for it, so even if it’s non-corrosive, he has to be suffering from it.

But maybe that’s exactly why he’s not taking any damage from it like Three is from Prince of Heart magic. If his older self’s godtier body is made to withstand higher grades of power, then something below that level wouldn’t quickly erode it. Not to mention he’s godtier, he’s supposed to be using magic. God damn it.

Dirk barely knows how to drift and all attempts at blasting his opponent with lightning has ended in dodges or stopped time and another decapitation. All the windows and doors in the library are nonexistent with how much the place has unnaturally extended here. He’s trapped trying to run from a guy he’s woefully inadequate to fight. What the hell is he supposed to do now?

He inhales slowly, counting as he exhales. He has to focus. Being pulled from all-consuming boredom and then hunger and pain and then suddenly this has thrown him off, but they’re just in his head. This is like a dream. It’s not real, his perception of time and events has just been fucked with. He just needs to focus and get the hell out of here.

Other-him is not unbeatable since One had actually fought him decently and made him feel like he had to draw his sword. His blade is out here because he’s playing with Dirk, but when he’d fought One, he clearly felt like he had to use it, before Hal melted his fucking face off. He’s obviously not indestructible, Dirk just needs to get better with this. Three even managed to hold him off if he lasted long enough to get a scar before he got killed.

If the man is still as scared of fire as Dirk is…

Something taps on his right. Dirk immediately swings – and then stops just as his blade is a hair’s width away from skin.

“Three?” he breathes out in surprise.

It’s – no, it’s not Three. For one, the person here is younger, hair even longer than it is normally. He looks less weary, less sleep-deprived, wearing a skintight sleeveless turtleneck and bicep-length fingerless gloves with loose red pants, like he’s off to dance or fight somewhere instead of hang around his house like the librarian he is. His eyes are also completely white like a ghost; Dirk’s stomach drops.

Three puts a finger to his lips in a shush gesture.

“Did you die after all?” Dirk whispers.

The ghost tilts his head, snorting softly. He doesn’t open his mouth, but just like how Dirk could hear his other self everywhere when he talks a certain way, he feels an answer press against his thoughts.

I already died. I live here.

Dirk frowns, confused. “What the hell does that mean?”

We share a soul – we are linked at all times, which is why the time magic he has doesn’t run out like it would if it were a temporary boon; so long as he lets my soul thrive, I am part of him. It is the same on the other end; he is a part of me. He’s in your mind right now using my magic, and so I also have a presence here. Three shrugs. The rest of me is asleep right now, but you prayed, yes? You – He points to his temple. – called, yes?

Dirk has seen Three be linked to his other self before – like during the skating rink, when he looked like he was listening to someone talk. When his eyes flashed pink briefly. If someone needed to pray to talk to a god, Three hadn’t even needed to recite a prayer; the soul-sharing must act like a backdoor to both of their psyches.

What ails you, Prince? Three asks. Forgive me, I’m not in the best shape to be aware of everything that’s happening.

“He’s in my fucking head,” Dirk says, freeing his right hand to grip onto one of Three’s like a lifeline. He’s lost count of how many times he’s died now. “I have no idea how long it’s been – I think he’s using drift, but I’m not sure, I can’t get out.”

Ah. Three nods. And…you were thinking of fire before?

Dirk pauses, letting his friend go to reach up to his neck for a moment. Three’s dressed exactly like how he was in that memory of Dirk’s throat burning, but the god is only looking at him with patience instead of rage, even smiling a little. It’s like the idea of him has been filtered down to only his willingness to help and his gentle demeanor.

And Dirk has to get out, who knows how long it’s been since he got trapped here?

“If he’s still scared of fire as I am – ”

You wish to scare him. The god nods again. Very well, I suppose.

Three stands, rising to his full height and stepping out from behind the shelf. He lifts a finger as if to remind Dirk of something – Please close your eyes, it’s going to get very bright – and then holds his hand out, breathing in deeply.

And then the world explodes.

#

So do two rooms in One’s house.

If Dirk’s other self’s fire was enough to instantly melt the ice that One had used, then Three’s fire is like seeing a star bursting into existence. Dirk closes his eyes but it takes less than a fraction of a millisecond for everything to suddenly go hellishly bright, like someone’s brought the sun down into the pseudo-space of his mind.

His head hurts, a feverish heat suddenly spiking for the briefest of moments, and then a wave of cold hits. When he opens his eyes, he’s lying down on a bed that smells suspiciously of smoke. His sheets are warm to the touch (but still less hot than whatever had fried his head earlier; everything’s cold compared to that now), and the air around him is heated.

Footsteps thunder down the hallway, and he realizes his doorway is open, the hinges melted straight into the frame despite the fact that the rest of the room is untouched (is it?). The inside of his door is also charred and blackened, completely burnt.

Hal stops right by his room as Dirk forces himself to sit up, panic on the android’s features for a second, before it calms into relief at the sight of him awake.

“He’s alive!” Hal yells down the hall. “Check upstairs!”

And then he’s off down the hallway again, followed closely by Four, Davesprite, Seven and Damara. Upstairs…?

Three’s room is upstairs. If he was using magic in his current state –

Dirk almost forgets to grab his temporary glasses on his way out the room, flying down the hallway and to the stairs, bypassing everyone to get there. The third floor hallway is on fire, which makes him falter right over the staircase on his way up. His hesitation gives enough time for a figure to leap out of the flames, white coat billowing behind him.

His older self has his hand on his sword and moves to unsheathe it, to kill Dirk right here in the waking world.

“Get down!”

Hal’s yell is Dirk’s only warning before he’s yanked to the ground and brought down to the stairs, Hal keeping him pressed to the floor so he avoids two bodies suddenly crashing onto the space behind both of them. A golden barrier ripples into view to shield them from debris flying from the impact.

“I swear to god!” One yells somewhere above them. Ice races down the stairs as the brightness of the fire above suddenly dies down. “YOU FUCKERS NEED TO STOP DESTROYING MY HOUSE!”

As the ice takes care of everything blazing, Seven let his energy barrier down. Hal rises and lets Dirk go, allowing him to sit up and turn to where whoever had hit the floor was.

Just a few paces away, right on the landing below them, Three, in his pajamas, is crouched right on top of his other self. The god’s foot is on Other-Dirk’s neck, forcing him to angle his chin up so he can breathe, while his knee is on the other side of the man’s torso so his weight keeps his opponent down. His hand is on Other Dirk’s face, covering an eye, his nose, and his mouth, and the god’s nails are digging into his skin hard enough to draw blood.

“You two have a lot of nerve,” Three rasps out, “Making me wake up feeling like death to do shit like this.”

He turns slowly to look at Dirk, red eyes glaring at him in annoyance. A line of blood is coming from his nose, but nevertheless, the sheer irritation the god radiates makes Dirk freeze up for a moment. The look of anger is so odd on him.

Other-him grabs Three’s hand, the one suffocating him, making Three snap his attention back towards him and dig his nails in deeper. Light emanates from Three’s skin, illuminating bones and muscle as his hand heats up. Dirk can already smell flesh burning.

“Stay down,” Three commands. “Or I’m going to slow time down so you feel every eon of the pain you keep regenerating with my magic.”

Other-him similarly stiffens, and then, very slowly, uncurls his fingers from the god’s wrist. He stays down.

Three clicks his tongue, letting him go and standing. After a moment, Other-Dirk sits up, but cautiously stays on the floor.

“What the fuck – ” Three glances to Dirk, and then back to his older self. “ – did you think you were doing?”

“A little discussion,” Other-Dirk says.

“You’re going to discuss with my fucking foot if you don’t start answering properly.”

Other-Dirk frowns, but wisely takes a moment to push the snark down. “He tried to attack me,” he says. “I was defending myself.”

“You are leagues above him in power right now,” Three sneers. “You’re also older. Act like it.”

The god huffs, stepping away and wiping the blood dripping from his nose. He turns away from Dirk’s older self, stalking off – and then promptly collapses. Dirk begins to rush forward, but as he’s closer, his older self leaps to steady Three before he hits the floor. The god coughs weakly, hands grabbing onto Other-Dirk’s shirt as he lists to the side.

“Easy,” Other-Dirk says.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you could stop being an asshole for five minutes,” Three says. “Next time you try to fight your younger self, I’m going to make a coat rack out of your ribs.”

“Noted. Now get to bed.”

Three makes an irritated noise; he tries to take a step forward, but his legs give out from under him, so Other-Dirk has to loop his arms behind Three’s back and knees and carry him. At the top of the stairs, One sighs, muttering, “Jesus Christ, Three.”

Dirk gets to his feet. As his other self passes by, carrying an already-drowsy Three up the stairs, the man glares down at him. Three grabs a fistful of his shirt in warning – Other-him turns his chin up haughtily as if Dirk were something he found particularly disgusting but ultimately not worth his time.

Asshole.

But he doesn’t attack. He just continues up the stairs, meeting One as they run down to fuss over their little brother who should be recovering right now, not breaking up fights.

“You okay?”

Dirk turns as Hal puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’re asking me that?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hal asks.

Dirk stares at him.

Then he nods. Hal claps his hand on his shoulder to nudge him up the stairs.

“Come on,” he says, “One’s gonna be pissed about the house again, you gotta go act as innocent as you can so they don’t kill you.”