ALFG Chapter 161

#04: IT'S ALRIGHT by MOTHER MOTHER

Three quietly slips out of the room  while Dave comforts his little brother. This isn't his business, this is  private, and so he steps out into the hallway to let them have some  time. He can't feel any disturbance in Dirk's continuity, only on Dave's  – a timeloop to be closed – so this is a fine overlapping stitch into  the tapestry of time.

He sits down and leans back against the  wall, absentmindedly running a thumb over the massive scar on his left  wrist. He coughs weakly, bringing his right hand to his mouth to muffle  the sound, and then blinks at the sight of blood on his palm.

"Ah," he says, as his left wrist stings in alarm. "Yeah, I think I might have overdone it."

Dirk  has no idea how long he and his brother talk for; the sun outside never  sets - this isn't a physical place, after all - so all he has to go on  is the fact that he's exhausted afterwards. Living alone on his own  hasn't given him much opportunity to speak verbally. As verbose as he is  through text, his voice wears out easily when he talks out loud too  much.

Dave listens, at several points looking apologetic at  Dirk's sixteen years of having to grow up on his own. They talk until  Dirk's hoarse and he's run out of tears to cry, and his brother quietly  apologizes and offers some insight, the hand on Dirk's shoulder staying  right where it is the whole time, like the man's making the most of  their temporary time together.

Even after they've moved past the  heavy topics, his brother shares some stories with him from his Earth,  filling in the silence. Dirk sits there silently and pays careful  attention to every single moment; his Bro keeps his glasses off the  whole time he talks, hands waving about in gestures as he speaks.

And then, finally, however long later, when they've both run out of stories to tell each other, they sit in silence.

This  is a memory. This can't last forever. Dave will have to return to his  life, and this will just be a weird memory, and Dirk will have to return  to the present. But they stay there, hesitating, before finally, his  Bro inclines his head and says, "I think you're probably sick of me  talking by now."

"A little," Dirk says, with no real heat to it. His brother laughs.

"I figured," he says. "Just…good luck out there, Dirk."

Dirk pauses. Then he takes a deep breath and nods.

He's  long made his peace with the fact that he was never going to meet his  brother as he was. The fact that he just to happened to meet a god who  could take him through the man's memories and accidentally stumble into  an actual meeting with his brother is a miracle already.

Still.

"You'll do great," his Bro says. "You're still young. You'll do great, I know it."

He lowers his head. The words feel like absolution. "Thanks."

-

Three  is asleep outside when he steps out the room to find him. In his  breakdown earlier, he'd barely noticed the other boy leave, but it was  considerate of him to give Dirk and his brother some privacy.

"Your  friend okay?" his Bro asks, pointing towards a dark stain that Dirk  first thinks is a shadow on his red sweater, but on further inspection  looks like – "Told you I fucking hate blood, man, that looks like it."

Strange. He hadn't remembered Three getting injured their whole trip here. Plus, this wasn't a physical place.

Dirk  approaches the god, shaking his shoulder gently, his shirt warm like  he's feverish, but then again he's got his whole fire thing. "Three."

The god cracks an eye open. "Ah, sorry," he says. "Are you ready to go?"

He's not, but –

He turns to his brother. Dave nods.

"Yeah," Dirk says.

"Okay."  Three rises. He pauses as he spots Dave over Dirk's shoulder and ducks  his head. "Sorry for intruding on your memories, sir."

"All's well that ends well," Dave says. "Honestly, this makes me feel a lot better about what's gonna happen."

Dirk's jaw clenches. His brother pats his shoulder.

"I'll  be fine, kid," he lies through his teeth. "'Sides, if afterlives exist,  who's to say we ain't meeting in one when all this is over?"

If ghosts made it to the new Earth…maybe. One managed it, right? Angeles has a Doom thing going on too.

Surprisingly,  Three smiles briefly at that, though it looks more to himself than  anything. He offers his hand to Dirk, to take them back to the present.

Dave throws them both a salute. "See you on the other side, Dirk."

"See you," Dirk says, quietly.

The memory shifts, and when he blinks, he's back at the library-office.

He just sits there, for a moment, staring off into the quiet room. It's only when Three stands that he remembers he's not alone.

"I'll  give you some time," the god says, ever-considerate. "Don't worry about  the mess, I'll take care of it later, if you wanna go up to your room  after."

He leaves, turning away from Dirk and heading for the  doors. His right hand is faintly smudged with red, near the same side of  his shirt with a stain on it.

Dirk doesn't return to his room.

He  sits in the library until his limbs fall asleep from staying still too  long, and then he paces, careful to avoid the books and scrolls on the  floor. When he tires, he rests on one of the chairs and spaces out at  the carpet, and the cycle repeats.

Overhead, the window shows him  the dimming sky, going from a bright blue to dull orange to pink to  violet to the dark of the night. Still, he remains in the library,  sitting in the silence, alone. His legs ache from walking around so  much, and there's a restlessness he should work through, but he doesn't  want to leave the room to go chop wood or take a walk outside.

He'd met his brother.  Really met  his brother – no offense to the younger Dave he's met and been around,  but…people really aren't interchangeable. The younger boy wasn't the man  who left a legacy of rebellion and died at the hands of the Empress. He  wasn't the man Dirk admired so much, he was just a kid like Dirk; just a  stranger of a little brother who looked up to him because he was a  version of his dead brother-father.

And Dirk…wasn't that guy either.

He  takes in a deep breath, wrenching off his borrowed glasses to set on  the table beside him and puts his face in his hands as he collapses into  a chair. He exhales, letting all of the tension leave his body. He is  alone in this room, on the edge of the universe. This is as isolated as  it gets for his circumstance.

He screams into his hands, the sound  muffled by his palms. And as if he hasn't done so enough today, tears  stream down his face, though they're more out of frustration than  grief.

(If anyone were to ask him, he wouldn't be able to explain  why he feels frustrated, only that he does, and the day has been so, so exhausting.)

When  he's done, he leans back into his seat, legs splayed out with his heels  to the floor, arms lazily flung over the arm rests as he looks skyward  to the high, high,  high ceiling.

With a tiredness he  hasn't felt in forever, Dirk's eyes close, no matter how hard he fights  for them to stay open, and falls asleep.

He wakes up to birdsong,  hours later. There is a single wall clock in the library, right over the  desk where the computer is, and it tells him it's twenty five past  four.

There's a blanket draped over him, golden runes stitched  into the edges of the red fabric. It's warm to the touch as if it's  heated. On the table beside him is a cup of coffee and a few loaves of  bread, fresh enough that he can see steam coming off from them.

There's a note beside it that reads:

Something came up. I need to go to the living world so I might be  away for a while. Please take care of the house and the cat for me.  Call if you need anything.

Well, that spares him the awkwardness of having to face someone who's seen him have a breakdown. Lucky him.

Not so lucky him when he remembers he has to feed the pissy little hellcat.

-

Dirk's  never fed the cat before, so he expects to be bitten and scratched and  mauled to half-death while he turns the whole house inside out trying to  find where the cat food is, but Three's nice enough to leave  instructions taped to the fridge. He feeds the cat and takes the bread  and coffee that's been left for him and just sits in the empty house  afterwards. Three's home isn't massive, but it's not small either, and  it's surrounded on all sides by empty uninhabited land.

If not for  the faint jingling of the housecat's collar, it's easy to imagine  himself back in his apartment in the apocalypse. Alone and isolated,  never able to leave, only able to reach out to others through a screen.  Never within reach of help since his friends were separated by miles of  sea or paradox space.

Christ. He's made the observation before,  but it bears repeating. No wonder Hal is so in love with the Earth  they'd fallen to. At least then, if he yells  fire! someone will probably answer.

He  cleans up just to have something to do, and when he's done, goes back  to the office to continue unstacking the books from the shelves. Three  was planning on arranging them by the Dewey Decimal system, so he starts  writing up a digital database and gets to organizing. By lunch, he  feeds the cat again, takes a nap when the noon drowsiness gets to him,  and goes back down to get dinner.

A wave of deja vu hits him, eerie and uncomfortable. He can hear the ocean right outside.

Dirk  grabs his coat and goes outside, grabbing an umbrella from the rack  since the sky looks cloudy. Three had given him spare keys to the house  months ago for when his excursions extended way past evening and the god  was already asleep, so he locks the house, though he keeps the lights  on for the little cat who's chowing down on his dinner.

It's the  beginning of spring on the island, but the winter chill is still on the  winds. People are walking home with scarves wrapped around them, hats  and mittens to keep out the cold. Dirk draws his coat closer and keeps  walking, aimless, putting one foot in front of the other.

He lets  out a breath as he reaches the part of the road that starts to slope  down. At the very least, here, in Kisaragi, when the quiet gets too much  for him, he can just go outside and take a walk.

He wanders on  until he's past city hall, until he gets to the baywalk, the streetlamps  bright in the dark evening. There's still a lot of people around here,  sitting on benches or on the border, content to look out at the roiling  sea. Dirk finds someplace to perch on and sit down.

In two weeks  it'll be five months since he's come to Kisaragi. Five months since he's  left the hellscape that was New York. Five months since he's had no  idea what's happened to his friends. But when he gets back, it'll be  right when he left anyway, or as reasonably close as it can get. It's  fine. It's  fine. Dirk takes a deep breath. Catastrophizing can  be a sign of having lived through an extended period of stress; he  needs to slow down and think and reframe things.

If Three can  literally let him meet his dead brother who lived centuries in the past  before him, he can send Dirk back at the right time, even if he spends  years here in Kisaragi. If Dirk never reaches peace, they're bound to  find a way to send him back with the massive leeway Kisaragi's weak  relationship to time can give them.

He can have a moment to rest. It's fine. He'd promised his Bro he would let himself rest when he needed to.

When  he goes back to NYC, they're all gonna kick the Heir of Blood's ass,  then the sea bitch who killed his fucking brother, and live their lives.  He has years and years ahead of him, on a stable planet with his  friends, surrounded by miles and miles of possibility.

If he could do anything, what would he do?

That  uneasy feeling returns, making his stomach flip in anxiety. His life  has always been thinking about a set number of years in the future, not  for the rest of his life. But say he did have the rest of his life, however long godtierdom extended, what would he do?

He lets out a breath, coming up blank. Truth be told, he has not been able to envision the future for a long time.

Maybe  this is why Angeles dropped him on Kisaragi. Because he has all the  time in the world to think about the future, and he'll never feel like  he's losing time; he barely is. A big part of what scares people about  the future is feeling like they're waiting for it and it's passing them  by, isn't it? And it's been held to a standstill for him.

He has all the time in the world. Maybe a little beyond that. For god's sake, he was able to meet his brother.

If the whole world was open to him…

The  sky rumbles above him, the first warning of an oncoming storm. He hops  off the border and opens the umbrella, holding it over him as the first  showers begin to rain down. With him being this close to the ocean, it's  too windy to fly, so he walks to put some distance between himself and  the strong breeze.

The rain is quick to pick up the pace, turning  from a light drizzle to a heavy storm. He has the duck under a little  coffee shop with several other people trying to get out of the rain.  There is a television droning on in the background, talking about news  that sounds like it's from the living world, since they're talking about  injuries and casualties and death.

The segment ends and the  anchor starts talking about a rift somewhere above a city called  Hatsune. Dirk frowns and turns to where the TV is mounted up the corner  of the ceiling. On screen, there's the blurry, slightly pixelated tear  in the middle of the afternoon blue sky - there isn't a LIVE sign on the  feed, so this must be recorded footage. Floating in front of the  massive tear is the First Guardian; Three, recognizable with his long  dark hair and red trenchcoat; and another person who must be One, with  snow white hair, a grey vest and pants, and a white dress shirt.

The  tear must be one of the new rifts that were bound to follow the one  Dirk had fallen in through. The three of them don't seem to be doing  anything, so it must be a dormant rift again. That's good.

The  camera zooms in as Three extends a hand, fingers glowing red. The whole  rift is engulfed in the same glow - it flashes, and does nothing. Three  on the screen shakes his head. The First Guardian tilts his head and  then the rift pulses, warps horribly, and then seals together, as best  as it can, though there's still a crack running through the sky.

Satisfied,  the First Guardian disappears in a flash of green light. One and Three  appear to talk, but One leaves for higher sky and Three descends towards  the ground, red coat and dark hair billowing behind him.

The  clock in the coffeeshop whistles, marking midnight. A warbling, off-key  music box begins to play from inside it, the staticky voice of a woman  croaking out from an old radio.

"I – know – you – I walked with you once – u-pon – a-dream…"

-

Dirk ends up with several new projects after a  night of impulsively ordering shit online. He learns that the little  hellcat bites when he's asking for attention and isn't immediately given  it. He goes for a walk or sits in the forest out back to get himself  out of his head when being alone reminds him too much of the end of the  world.

Once or twice, he sees Three's sister by the beach. She's  near transparent, picking up rocks and skipping them over the stormy  ocean, which just causes them to sink right away, but she seems to be  having fun. She always waves when she sees him. Dirk waves back just so  it's not too awkward.

It's a week before Three comes back. He  looks exhausted, expression grim and eyes tired. Dirk stops by the  stairs as he spots him, having descended when he heard the front door  open, and the little hellcat which had been laying on his lap while he  was soldering something had immediately bolted and ran downstairs.

"Hey,  sweetie," Three coos as the infuriating orange little fucker winds  itself around his calves, rubbing his cheeks and his head on his owner's  legs. It instantly rolls onto the floor when Three reaches down to pet  it. The god chuckles, crouches down, picks it up and kisses its  forehead.

Dirk descends the rest of the way while he's preoccupied.

"Hey, how long was I gone?" Three asks as he approaches, letting the cat down.

"A week or so," Dirk says. "How long was it on Ea – the living world?"

"Fifteen hours," he says. "Sorry I was gone for a week."

"I'm not a kid."

"I  know," Three says. "But you're my guest. So, sorry." He yawns, looking  even more tired than he already is. "There's a rift in Hatsune. Someone  fell through today."

"Who?" Dirk asks immediately.

"Damara Megido," Three says.

Damara? If  she's here, there's a huge chance that more people will end up here  too. Maybe Dirk doesn't even have to go back to NYC, everyone can just  find their way here. But –

"Isn't that dangerous for your universe?" he asks.

Three  nods. "It is," he says. "But we'll find a way around it. I suppose we  can't account for rifts that happen from…other points in time." He runs a  hand over his face. "We're going to need something on hand to seal  rifts just in case."

"How did you seal it last?"

"Eliminated  the threat and then patched everything back up with a cross of Time,  Space, and Hope magic," Three says. "But we can't seal anything up if  you and Damara are still here. You'll be stuck here, and either way,  it'll just open again."

Dirk nods.

"It's not your fault."

"I know."

"Good.  Don't go thinking it is." Three stands, dusting off his shirt and coat.  "I'm…turning in for the night, I'll tell you more tomorrow."

He  puts a hand over his mouth to muffle the yawn this time, shuffling over  to the stairs before he remembers halfway that he can fly. The hellcat  bumps its head against Dirk's legs, wanting his attention now that  Three's left.

-

Damara has been transferred to  Kisaragi and is currently staying with One, for her own sake. If the  First Guardian gets itchy about having another liability in the area,  One is at least there to hold him back and reason with him. Thank fuck  the asshole was too busy with the rift to zap Dirk out of existence  while he was alone here.

The rift has been lessened physically by  the first guardian, though not completely sealed up. He's currently  keeping a more watchful eye on Hatsune city in case something else  happens, but in the last couple of hours (days for Dirk), nothing has.  No other rifts have been found in this universe.

"Megido-san is  recovering," Three says, the next day when they're both on the porch out  back, each nursing their own cups of coffee to warm up for the morning.  "You were lucky to fall such a short distance in the sea, and with your  immortality. She's mortal."

"How badly was she hurt?"

"Not  too bad, she put up a barrier around herself and Seven caught her,"  Three says. "One made sure she held on and I healed her. All she needs  is some rest. She should be awake soon."

That's good. While Dirk  still doesn't know Damara all that well, you didn't spend months with  someone on some sunny island without having at least some concern for  their well-being if bad news hit.

"How high's the chance of other people falling in here?" Dirk asks.

"Average," Three says. "Sometimes, when it starts, it doesn't stop. It's why our first guardian tries to nip things in the bud."

"Would it have stopped if he killed me?"

"No," Three says. "It wouldn't have."

He doesn't miss the way the god tenses at that, and then slowly forces himself to relax.

"What were you up to while you had the house?" Three asks, tone soft and gentle, almost deliberately so.

"Might have made a strife partner," Dirk says, pauses, then: "Building one, anyway."

Though he doesn't smile, Three looks amused. "You built a battle bot?"

"Building one."

The god nods. "Just don't set anything here on fire. Use the space out back for strifing."

"It's not bad for my health or something?"

Three  mulls on it for a bit, looking down at his cup. "I was trained from  birth to fight and survive, it's all I'm good for," he says. "And I know  long periods absent of strife often feels…idle. Like there's something  wrong, this itch you can't scratch. Sparring in a controlled environment  is better than letting it all blow up."

"Management instead of letting the ocean in the bottle overflow," Dirk says.

He  nods. "Yeah. My siblings and I spar sometimes. It's why One and I have  such huge open spaces in our houses." He sighs. "Hard to fit in a soft  world when you're made to destroy."

Dirk is six, picking up a  sword and learning to swing it; the apocalypse expects him to make it  out on his own so he will. Dirk is thirteen, creating things in his own  image that only know how to hurt and break. Dirk is sixteen, in a new  world that is out to get him just like the last one. Dirk is seventeen  on an island worlds away, and there is no danger, only warmth and  welcome, and he has no idea what to do.

When he returns to Earth and the danger has passed, will it be like that too?

"If you had all the time in the world, what would you do?" Dirk asks.

Three takes a while to answer.

"All  the things I wanted to do as a child but never got to," Three says. "No  matter how silly or useless or childish or wrong. It's my life, isn't  it?"

"Even if they're not important?"

Three snorts. "Barely  anything in life is," he says. "Spend any time observing and you'll  notice life is all just mundane things stacked up. Every day you wash  the dishes. Every day you feed the cat. Every week you do laundry." He  takes a sip of his coffee. "That's all it is. Sometimes we  do face  important things, but most of it is…small stuff. Why not add a little  bit of happiness to it? Who cares if it's not important? I'm adding  things that bring me joy to that little stack of moments in my life."

"Are you happy?"

Three lets out a breath. "I'd be lying if I said I was," he says. "But I'm getting there. I'm learning too."

Dirk hums. "Are you actually qualified to be a shrink?"

Three looks at him for a long moment, and then smiles. "Absolutely not."

Oh, he fucking knew it. Dirk resists the urge to splash the coffee in his face. Three laughs quietly.

"I'm  not qualified, and I'm a hypocrite. But I am trying my best to follow  my own advice," he says. "It's easier to help people than it is to help  yourself, right?"

"I guess," Dirk says. It is. It's much easier pointing out people's flaws than it is to dig himself out of his own hell.

"Maybe  that's another thing with life. Fucked up people helping each other out  of the graves they dug for themselves," Three says.

"Why  do you  care?" Dirk asks, much more carefully than he'd asked the first time.  "Sure, it could be decency, but it feels like you're going above and  beyond."

He glances at the god's hands. They're not smeared with blood this time.

Three  inhales deeply and lets it out slow. "Stop me if you've heard this all  before," he says. "You are a child who's grown up in a water-logged  planet run by a dictator who conquered and committed the genocide of  your species. You are raised to fight and survive and to only know how  to kill and break; you don't know how to interact with the world in any  other capacity. You try to hold on to the few people you have and you  lose them anyway, through circumstance or through your own faults. You  are good for nothing else. You were born for nothing outside your  purpose. When put elsewhere, you're lost and don't know how to fit in  with everyone."

His expression is sorrowful, as he looks out at the ocean.

"You can be surrounded by a sea of people," he says. "And still be so alone."

Dirk is quiet. Beside him, Three finishes his coffee and sets his cup aside.

"So, what, we're too similar and you can't hurt me?" Dirk asks eventually.

"People usually hate it when they realize a part of themselves in others, you know," Three says. "But, no, Dirk, that's not it."

"Then what?"

"I'm  hoping," Three says, so softly it feels like admitting to a sin. "That  if there is room in the world for you, there is room for someone like  me, too."

Dirk lets the confession settle in his mind, drop to his stomach. His grip on his teacup tightens.

"Don't put that on me, you'll be disappointed," he says.

"I  know. But remember what I said? It's not about being perfect, it's  about people willing to stay," Three says. "You don't have to be. If you  were, I wouldn't recognize you. But you're flawed, and so I do. And  there is room in the world for you, we've just gotta find it."

Dirk  opens his mouth to deflect – but he's too young to live with this much  guilt, or so his brother has said. And if a man long dead is willing  enough to believe in that, if a splinter of himself has started to put  his life together, if someone who's only met the worst of him is willing  to hitch his hope onto his existence –

"If we're talking about  things we've never done when we were kids, I've never seen glaciers.  Never seen much ice, really," Dirk says. "You guys got skating rinks  here?"