ALFG Chapter 167

#10: GOLDEN BY FALL OUT BOY

The First Guardian blips into existence at the breakfast table unprompted. Everyone flinches in surprise, because how the hell else do you react to that?

Three scoots his chair closer to Dirk’s; he continues eating but every now and then, he glances to where the Guardian is, standing at the head of the table next to an empty seat.

“Are you gonna eat or what?” One asks, hair all over the place and dark circles under their eyes from staying up too late. Beside them, still the size of a teacup, their little glutton of a clown is scarfing down leftovers from last night.

“Another rift opened,” the Guardian says.

Everyone at the table pauses, save for the clown who ignores that and instead shapeshifts its head bigger to completely devour the contents of One’s plate in a single bite.

“Where?” Seven asks.

“Over the ocean,” he says. “Number Four intercepted my investigation.”

Beside Dirk, Three freezes, grip on his spoon tightening. He relaxes, slowly, though it’s clearly forced.

“I have allowed her to do as she pleases so long as she stays on the island,” the Guardian says, and then sighs. “And as such, she has deemed it fit to hide herself and her new playmate.”

One chuckles lowly, which gets them a nasty look. Seven just nods and takes a sip of his juice.

“Man, why are you always so nice to Four and not the rest of us?” One grumbles. When they look back down on their plate, it’s empty, so they stand and get more food with a huff. Hal laughs quietly at them while their little clown licks its hands.

“Four is reasonable,” the Guardian says. “Though I do believe the cloaking is an unnecessary precaution.”

“Probably saw you throw me into the ocean and decided not to take her chances,” Three says.

“You deserved it.” The Guardian sniffs, haughtily turning his chin up. “But no matter. I’m here to remind you that the longer our guests stay here, the more danger we put our universe in.”

“You know he has a Dead Man’s Deal, right?” Seven inclines his head at Dirk’s direction. “That’s not an end we can just snap into existence. I doubt even One could swing that.”

“Were you not given a decent suggestion?” M asks, turning to where Damara is quietly minding her own business beside Seven. As she notices his stare, she looks up, confused, before understanding dawns on her.

Seven and One turn to each other, silent, but their expressions turn grim.

“It has been months by your time,” M says. “Tell your brother.”

“Tell me what?” Three asks.

“Nothing,” One says. “We can fix this the regular way. Dirk has a DMD, we’ll help him complete it. He can do it. He’s been doing exceedingly well already.”

Dirk frowns. Something’s up. Something is absolutely up. He and One aren’t antagonistic, not since their first meeting, but there has been nothing about their interactions that warrants them gassing him up like that.

“What’s the suggestion?” he asks, because fuck if he’s getting dragged into some family drama.

“Nothing,” One says.

Dirk turns to the clown. It pauses mid-chew of a cow bone, gray irises fixing on him.

“Look,” Seven cuts in. His tone and posture are calm, but there’s a certain weight to it that makes everyone bring their attention to him. Awkward as the guy is, there’s some royalty in there. “There are…things that need to approach carefully. And I think we could fuck things up if we start calling people in and out haphazardly.”

Dirk’s frown deepens at that. He glances to where the clown is again, their conversation still fresh in his mind though it’s been hours. It laughs quietly and bites down on the bone it’s eating, teeth easily cutting through it.

“You mean the timeline.”

Oh, son of a bitch.

“If that is a concern, then should we not consult the one whose expertise is time? This is what he is for,” the Guardian says. “Surely, he has noticed what time loops need to be closed.”

Dirk turns his gaze to Three from the safety of his glasses. The god’s face is blank, betraying nothing, and he’s keeping his eyes down at the table, hands resting and unmoving now.

“Three.”

“Guardian,” One says in warning.

NUMBER THREE.

“He doesn’t want to talk about it,” Seven says. His voice is as soft and as calm as ever, but he’s turned his unblinking stare to their First Guardian. “Quiet.”

The First Guardian sneers at him.

“We’re the gods here.” Seven raises a hand at him, gold lightning sparking at his fingertips in warning. “So shut up.”

“Don’t fuck up my dining hall,” One says, before either of them can escalate the situation since the First Guardian is similarly starting to glow green. “Take it outside if you need to fight.”

The First Guardian regards them for a moment.

Then, he’s gone in a flash. Unfortunately, so is Seven as he’s swallowed up by the same radioactive green blink. Almost instantly, the sound of thunder BOOMS outside; One sighs and slumps over on their table.

“Gooooooood, I hate this fucking family,” they groan into the wood.

“At least they took it outside,” Hal says as he pats their shoulder. From the windows behind him, there’s a flashbang of green and gold. The house shakes at the force of whatever’s just happened. The chandelier swings back and forth dangerously. “That could have happened in here.”

“Darling, I adore you, but you’re terrible with comforting people.” One laughs softly as they sit back up.

“He’s gonna be fine, right?” Damara asks, pointing outside where there’s a solid three seconds of just bright green light, followed by another boom and a quake. One of the decorative glass shards from the chandelier falls to the middle of the table and shatters upon impact. “That’s a First Guardian.”

“Seven’s sturdy.” One waves a hand. “He’ll survive. I think.”

“You think?”

One shrugs. “Life is unpredictable.”

Three stands from the table, chair scraping loudly as he gets up and walks out of the room. Everyone quiets, watching him go as he marches into the main hall, posture rigid.

One deflates, hands wringing together in anxiety.

“Well,” Damara says. “Is he gonna be fine, then?”

The god sighs. “I don’t know,” they say, softly, and it’s the most honest they’ve sounded. “The situation’s complicated.”

“Should someone go after him?” Dirk asks.

“Three likes to think alone,” One says. “Give him a moment.”

They look miserable as they say it, even as Hal quietly tries to soothe their obvious anxiety. The little clown by their plate has melted into a pile of goop with only its head having any coherent physical form, but even its eyes are melting straight out of its face. It drags itself towards One’s wrist and sinks into their skin, disappearing.

Dirk looks to the doorway and then to the empty seat beside him.

#

Sometime around eleven, the First Guardian and the local Prince of Space finally stop fighting. The sky now has an aurora rippling high above it from the charged particles resulting from the skirmish, One’s entire garden has been uprooted and tunneled through, and the fence in their backyard is nowhere to be found. The nearby shore is a mess of glass and superheated rock, the sight more at home on some hellplanet or the edge of a volcano instead of the peaceful oasis of Kisaragi.

Somewhere in the house, One is wailing and repeatedly telekinetically ping-ponging their brother and Guardian around the ceiling, walls, and floor for destroying their yard and obliterating a portion of their island. Dirk had left the minute he saw the lights flicker and frost start to form at the windows like it was a scene out of a horror movie.

The guest rooms are all empty since everyone else had left early in the morning. Three’s room is surprisingly unlocked, though he isn’t there. The cooler in the kitchen has been drained and is empty, and he isn’t anywhere else in the house.

Sure, One had said to give him some space, but where the hell is the guy? The mansion might be huge, but there’s only so many places to hide in.

After walking around every part of the building Dirk can think of for the umpteenth time, he settles down on a small bench by the stairs, overlooking the main hall below. It’s a good place to view the entrance from, should someone come in, but with the house back to its usual dead and quiet state, it just feels like he’s viewing liminal space.

He turns around instead so he’s facing away from the entrance and up at a massive painting he’s never bothered to pay attention to in the times he’s visited the mansion. It’s a family portrait of seven children, all of them with the same recognizable faces, though Dirk only knows three of the people here.

The rest of them…

“Don’t think too hard about it, you had nothing to do with them,” Hal says, approaching from down the hall and taking a seat beside him.

Dirk tries to focus on whatever little noise can be heard from the empty house and hears a faint thud. “One’s not done brutalizing the others yet?”

“They loved their garden,” Hal says. “They’re pretty upset.”

Dirk nods. Fair enough, he supposes. The garden is nothing but a hellmouth now, a long, long, long drop that ends with a faint orange glow at what should be the bottom. He has no doubt that if someone were to try to go down there, it’d lead straight to magma.

He looks back towards the painting. Three and his siblings look happier here; the guy’s even smiling, standing next to a girl who has her arms wound around his shoulders.

“Electric Love said you kidnapped his little buddy yesterday,” Hal says. “Did it tell you?”

“Not explicitly,” Dirk says. Thank fuck they’re not dancing around the topic now. Especially considering there’s apparently a solution involving…he doesn’t know, whatever the fuck One and Seven are hiding, he supposes. It just sounds ominous. “But it implied some things. Plus, your — ”

“Yeah, don’t mention that, One is going to fucking kill me.” Hal runs a hand over his face, checking the hallway briefly like they’re about to pop up any moment. “I thought you knew.”

“Nobody mentioned it.”

“I didn’t get briefed either,” Hal admits.

“Did you talk to them about it?”

“I did. They said it slipped their mind, considering Three was dying when they called me,” Hal says with a sigh. “They like to make plans behind people’s backs, it’s a bad habit we’re trying to get rid of.”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

That gets him a snort. “Same with the one you dealt with?”

“Unfortunately.”

Dirk turns his attention back to the painting, studying the details on the clothes, the hair, the eyes. “What the hell happened?” he asks, eventually.

“To?”

Dirk motions around him.

“That’s a lot,” Hal says, chuckling. “And I don’t know enough about Kisaragi to give you a play by play.”

“You know what I mean. What the hell happened that we ended up here?”

Hal takes a deep unnecessary breath, leaning back on his hands as he stares at the painting. “I don’t remember much. It’s a big blur after I got prototyped, since Zahhak and I had two sets of memories colliding. I think there was a fight and everyone got beaten pretty bad. You and the others got sucked into some juju, and then it gets even foggier for me after.” He motions to his temple as he says that. “But I know I got splintered out at some point. I must have, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Dirk had similarly prototyped his version of Hal, but if he was running around…that buff troll guy must have been separated from him. And if the Heir of Doom and their friends could manage that, someone else might have too.

“Clearest memory I have after that is One finding me,” Hal continues. “They said I fell through a rift and landed in their garden. They dug me out and woke me up.”

“And the others?”

“Didn’t see them for a while until someone got the juju and popped it open,” he says. “It’s why my version of Dirk barely knows how to drift. He — ”

“Spent years in a small box.”

Hal nods. “Pretty much. Honestly, I think I might have had it better, if we don’t count being merged into some unholy amalgamation and, uh, apparently highjacking my powers to mass murder ghosts,” he says. “Guy was just kinda there for a while.”

“He’s fine, isn’t he?”

Hal snorts, and then ends up laughing. “Ah, Christ, I forgot how weird you get,” he says. “This makes a lot of sense, actually. You were kind of always weirdly nice to me, even when I didn’t know you. Never understood it. Thought you were just some off-brand version of a Dirk Strider.”

The admission makes Dirk’s stomach drop.

“He’s fine,” Hal says, letting the subject change. “Fine as he can get. Kind of bitter he’s just gotten his Stand, but I mean. He’s alive.”

“Heartbreak Hotel, right?”

“Yep. It’s pretty new, but it’s pretty terrifying. Basically makes people feel so hopeless and lonely they just — ” He makes a slashing motion with his neck. “You’ve heard the song, right?”

“No, actually.”

“Ah, well. Makes sense if you know it.”

They both hum in response, sitting unnaturally still with the lapse in conversation. Hal looks to the corner of the hallway, then to the ceiling. Dirk just stares straight ahead until his eyes water and he’s hyper aware of his breathing from how nervous he is.

“What happens to me, then?” Dirk asks, eventually.

Hal takes a while to answer.

“I’m not sure if I have clearance to answer that,” he says. “I don’t want to endanger the timeline, and that’s not exactly my expertise.” He looks down at the carpet, posture tensing, before he continues. “But something does. And…for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Dirk nods again. “It’s just the way things are, huh?” he says. “Even after everything.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. We’ve had pretty shitty lives,” Hal says. “Maybe nothing matters and we’re both just supposed to keep getting worse and worse. Maybe it stops, eventually. I don’t know. I never do.”

“Jesus, don’t say that with my voice and my face,” Dirk says. “That’s fucking uncanny.”

Hal shrugs. “It’s been easier to deal with things when I can just admit that I know fuck-all,” he says. “And it’s not like being surprised has been so bad.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Shut up,” Hal says, grimacing. After a moment, his expression grows serious, and then fond. “But…yeah, it’s been alright. It was pretty nice having a version of you who just listened to me too, even if I didn’t really understand it back then. I’d say sorry for the shit I’m going to say to you in a few years, but I think it’d be funnier if I don’t.”

“Asshole.”

“Idiot.”

They both fall silent again, but it’s strangely less awkward.

“How do you drift?” Dirk once again breaks the silence first.

“I like to visualize who I want to drift with,” Hal says. “I try to remember everything I associate them with, all the things I know about them. It’s like…stepping into a story or a role, like you’re playing pretend, but you have to know as much as possible about who you’re trying to be.”

“And to travel, you follow it to where you need to go?”

“Yeah.”

Visualizing who he needs to drift with…years ago, maybe — and that was a tough maybe — he could have been able to do that easily with his version of Hal but, did he ever even know the guy? Outside of how much he hated what he represented? How scared he was of him?

And with how different they are now, the thought is practically impossible. What’s Hal done since he’s been to Earth? What does he love, what does he hate, what has he hated before but grown to love and what has he loved before but grown to hate? Who are his friends, what are his aspirations? Does he like the cold now that he can feel it? The warmth of the sun? What does he love touching now that he can touch? Can Dirk even answer a question as simple as that?

But there has to be something, right? There has to be. If he can just go home on his own, then One and Seven don’t have to fall back to whatever plan they know will scare the shit out of Three. A plan Dirk is dead sure involves the version of him he never wants to be.

There has to be something of himself that still remains with Hal.

And how well does he know himself?

“Hey, Dirk?”

Well enough, right? Unfortunately so.

“What are you doing?”

If he can just find that link —

“Dirk, wait —”

#

#

Fire.

Heat sears his skin, burning off the sleeves of his coat within seconds, and he has to draw back from the attack, gritting his teeth. With all the chains whipping about the area, all on fire, it’s nearly impossible to get near his opponent. He flies up to avoid the spinning deathtrap of flaming chains, but as soon as he does, the weapons retract, fire racing across their length to switch them into red ribbons instead. One second Dirk is ascending as fast as he can to avoid them and the next a ribbon has already latched onto his foot. Inconvenient fucking time powers —

The person below spins, kicking a leg out as he does and catching the ribbon with his foot. His movement forces the ribbon to yank Dirk towards him, the speed at which he’s pulled nearly neck-breaking.

What the fuck is happening?

Wasn’t he just somewhere else a while ago? Where is he — no, he was never anywhere else, they exiled him here for his own safety and everyone else’s. Something happened, there was something wrong with him.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts as his body nearly crashes into the person he’s fighting, stopped only by the hand that wraps around his throat, nails digging in hard enough to draw blood. Something in his neck creaks.

He’s slammed onto the ground, vision blacking out for a moment as the back of his skull meets cold rock. Everything blurs, the only thing visible for a few seconds the shine of red, furious eyes, animalistic in their rage. The hold on his neck tightens.

Wait.

“Three?” he rasps out, or tries to. His voice comes out in a wheeze.

Three’s face is covered in blood, forehead furiously bleeding from a wound Dirk can’t make out with his spinning vision. There are cuts all over his face, and there’s blood on the side of his mouth, his teeth bared in aggression.

He looks like he wants to kill him.

Except — that’s not Three. Three is so quiet and unassuming sometimes Dirk even forgets he’s there at all; he coos over his stupid fucking cat and babytalks at him in a ridiculous voice, he feels bad at the thought of ruining a battlebot just because someone worked hard on it, he cries at the memory of his terrible father when a nightmare gets to him.

“Three,” Dirk coughs out, “What — ”

“Shut up,” Three says in warning, hand holding Dirk’s throat in a vice grip heating up dangerously. Dirk thrashes and kicks out at the blinding pain of his skin being seared off, flesh melting under the wrath of the Sun. “That’s not going to fucking work on me.”

“Three!” Dirk yells, though he’s sure he’s not making any coherent sound right now. It hurts. It hurts. “It hurts! Three!”

“I told you to stop talking to me like that!” Three yells. “I don’t fucking know you!”

But he does. He does. What the hell is he talking about, what did Dirk do, what is happening —

#

The creak of a key winding.

Easy.

It’s dark.

You’re alright.

A music box begins to tick - tick - tick - tick

I

know

you

I - walked - with - you - once

u-pon

a - dream

#

“Hey.”

Dirk’s eyes snap open.

He’s fine, nothing is on fire, and his throat is whole. His hands fly up to his neck to feel for burns, but there’s nothing there. There’s no pain, no heat, no flesh melting right off the bone. He lets out a huff in relief, and realizes that his breathing has gone ragged in his panic.

“You’re alright.”

His gaze fixes straight up. Where before Three had looked down at him with hatred and fury, he’s looking at him with exhaustion and sadness. It’s only then Dirk realizes the rest of what’s going on. He’s lying down in the middle of the hallway he and Hal had been in and Three has two fingers pressed to the side of his temple, his left wrist glowing pink. He looks like he’s about to collapse from the strain of using someone else’s magic.

But he’s not trying to kill Dirk.

“You drifted a little too far,” Three says. “How do you feel?”

Dirk says nothing, just staring at him. It’s so easy to forget how dangerous Three is, after being around him for almost a year. He’s the Sun for a reason, he’d told Dirk this himself, had smiled about it like he was fucking unhinged.

Something flickers in Three’s eyes, an emotion Dirk is too tired to parse, but his expression blanks. Draws away. Walls building up.

“Hal,” Three says, drawing his hand back. Dirk realizes Hal’s still here as he steps up from behind the god’s shoulder. “Get One. I think he needs to cool off right now, that memory probably wasn’t the best to experience.”

Hal nods, calling out, “Electric Love,” and the Stand is a pink-and-black blast of electricity that zips down the hall. Three stands and straightens out his clothes, thumb tracing circles on his left wrist, which is starting to discolor. He sways on his feet.

Magical poisoning. He’s not the best with Heart magic, especially not one so corrosive.

Dirk tries to stand, but Three steps away, motioning for him to lie back down.

“Take it easy,” Three says. “I’m sure that wasn’t too pleasant.”

And then he follows Electric Love down the hallway, one hand braced on the wall to keep himself upright while he retreats.

Dirk doesn’t even notice his shades are off until he runs a hand over his face.

#

One waves a hand and mutters something under their breath that makes a full-body chill wrap around him. It pretty much snaps his awareness back to the present, chasing off any phantom pains of his neck being burned. They still tell him to lie down and rest, just to let his body calm down from the panic of what was essentially an out of body experience.

“I’m fine,” he insists when they hand him a glass of iced water. His glasses are back on.

“You know, don’t you?”

He tries not to flinch at the blatant acknowledgement. One sighs at his lack of reaction — yeah, fucking stupid of him to not tamp that down because that might as well be admission in its own right — and sits in the chair next to his bed. Despite his protests, and much to his embarrassment, when he’d tried to stand earlier, his legs had given out under him, as if being slammed to the ground in his vision had translated to his physical body. His godtier healing was still just kicking in.

“Sorry,” One says, putting their face in their hands. “I know it must be difficult.”

“No fucking way you’re trying to make me feel better right now.”

One laughs, which breaks off into something like a sob, and then they sniff, sitting back in their seat. “I’ve had a few years, Strider. I can’t stay petty and childish forever.” They pause for a moment. “You’ll get it eventually.”

“You know, I’m getting real tired of hearing that.”

“I’m not the best judge on what we can talk about, time is sensitive,” they say. “And I have no idea where Three went.”

“He left?”

“I think. Hal says he was headed to his room, but he’s nowhere in the house. I have no idea where he is. I can still feel his presence on the island, though,” they say. “And, to return to matters, we’re gods, we have our duties here. We have to play it safe.”

“So from your point of view, I’m from the past.”

One stiffens, and then nods.

“It’s already happened.”

“I’m sorry,” One says.

Dirk says nothing to that. One makes no move to let the conversation continue.

They both just sit there, Dirk staring at the condensation on the glass, One staring at their hands fiddling with their sleeves.

“Why here?” Dirk asks.

“Hm?”

“You have your own drift thing with Angeles, right?” he asks. “So why here? Of all places. Why — ” He stops as he frowns, grip on the glass tightening in an uncharacteristic display of anger. “Why the hell…”

“I don’t know,” One says. “I don’t really like to tap into other Heir of Dooms’ selves. I don’t want to forget who I am. Sometimes a little bit of Angeles’ memories make their way to me, but I don’t know all of their thoughts.”

“If it were you, why would you send me here?”

“What’s the setting here, are you assuming Angeles knew?”

“They had to have known,” he says. “Otherwise, why would they pick this place?”

“Well, that’s kind of difficult given the bias I have,” One says. “This is my realm, and the casualties involved are all people I care about. If it were me, I wouldn’t have sent you here at all. I would do everything possible to make sure our paths never cross and spare us the heartbreak. So I don’t know how Angeles thinks.”

“Even if you’re the same?”

One laughs.

“That’s a common misconception, I think. We’re bound by our classpects, as certain Heirs are, but we’re not the same people.” They cross one leg over the other and lean on one of the arm rests of their chair. “I have the same face and classpect as Angeles, but we’re wildly different. Angeles loves their parents, one of mine was already dead and I despise my father. Angeles was raised a commoner until they were fifteen, I have always been royalty. They grew up on Earth, I am so far removed from it that I struggle to imagine it. And so on and so on, for every version of us out there. Nothing about our experiences line up. Nothing of what shapes us as we are today is the same.”

They motion to themself from head to toe.

“All of this?” they ask, “The fact that we share something on the surface? Window dressing. It’s exactly that. Surface level similarities, and whoever falls for it, well, fell into the trap.” They place their hand back on their lap. “It’s what makes our plight insulting. We are completely different people, and yet paradox space loves to homogenize us.”

They tilt their head.

“Which, I suppose is curious,” they continue, “Given that in your case, paradox space treats you as different pieces since you splinter.”

“And yet.” Dirk’s grip on the glass tightens enough that a crack appears on the surface. “We’re unfortunately still the same.”

“I’m not one to judge nor make conclusions. I always encourage a little bit of going against the grain.” One shrugs. “You do not have to be if you don’t want to be.”

“Dave’s version of me was terrible,” Dirk says. “From what I remember he’s said, he was a piece of shit too.”

One’s stare goes pitying. That expression on a face like that…

“Stop that,” he says.

“You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be,” One repeats. “It takes a while, but we can get to where we wish.”

“How the fuck can you say that when you’re standing where I’m going?” Dirk asks bitterly. “You’ve lived my future.”

“I know.” One runs a hand through their hair, then leans their cheek in their hand, morosely looking down at the carpet. “But you’re very different from the version of you I’ve interacted with."

"What does it matter if I'm just going to end up hurting people?"

"You weren't unsalvageable," One says. "You weren't born evil. That's an important thing to remember. I need you to understand that we are bound by the narrative of our classpects and that will always be outside of our control. It wants me and mine to be Heirs of Doom, it wants you and yours to be Princes of Heart."

They lean forward, as if to emphasize their point.

"Maybe this world beats all the optimism and faith out of you. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe paradox space is so set on putting you in a box and making you stay there. Maybe so," they say. "But you're alive aren't you? You can think for yourself, you can make your own choices."

They lean back into their seat, smiling.

"So I'll ask you, not your fate or your role or this rat race existence has put us in," One says. "What are you going to do, Dirk Strider?"