vatheon | Hush Little Birdie Don't Say a Word

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Hush Little Birdie Don't Say a Word

Who: Davesprite and Dirk Strider
Where: Alpha House
When: End of curse, late morning
Style: w/e you want
Status: Closed

Davesprite's memories on the past week were a little fuzzy. Considering he was only half conscious, that was to be expected. He honestly didn't want to get up and greet the new day. The bed was warm, the pillow soft, and it was nice to stretch out his wings while lying on his stomach. Best way to doze in his unbiased opinion.

Well, okay, one of his wings felt weird. He shifted it, and it continued to feel like it was resting against something odd. It didn't take long for crow boy to give up and try dozing a little longer. Whatever the time was, it was too fucking early.

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Dirk wasn't unused to sleeping in the same bed as another person, thanks to Roxy. He's also plenty used to his bedmate doing weird things like using him as a pillow or kicking him in their sleep. It's mainly why he didn't react when he felt something nudging against his back.

Not reacting didn't mean not noticing, though, especially drowsing half-awake the way he was. It took a few moments for him to realize that whatever was touching him, it didn't feel like Roxy's arm. At that point he'd rolled over and pushed himself to a half-sitting position, only to get a good long look at bright orange feathers.

"Uh..."

Dirk shooting up all of a sudden was what got Davesprite to actually open his eyes. He looked over at his teen bro and for a second he couldn't comprehend what his eyes were telling his brain. Once it hit him where he was, the most cliche, stupid, and anime moment of his entire life happened.

"Fuck!"

He fell off the bed.

Bad enough he'd been five for a whole week, but Dirk had to see that. Not to mention deal with his five-year-old insecurities about being in a new place and in a half-crow body. He'd latched onto him for two reasons: Dirk was a Strider and he looked like a kid version of his big bro. Add it all together and Davesprite was mortifyingly embarrassed.

This was going to continue being completely and utterly awkward, but then Davesprite went and fell off the bed. It's hard to maintain tension after something like that. So instead of freaking out just yet (and taking time to grab his sunglasses, wow, having this conversation without any shades would suck thoroughly) he leans over to the edge of the bed.

"Holy shit, Dave. You okay?" It says something about his state of mind that he uses that name- that's how Dave introduced himself this week, after all. What else would he call him?

If Dirk was looking, then he might have seen a flicker of pain when he said 'Dave.' Davesprite was quick to put his own shades back on, however.

"Embarrassed to hell and back, but fine. And I'm not Dave." He gave up being 'Dave' a year ago. As far as Davesprite was concerned, that part of him had died along with the timeline he had originally come from. He was just a sprite, now.

"Davesprite. Sorry." He notices, certainly, but for now, he doesn't comment. There's a time and a place, and this definitely isn't it. The knowledge gets filed away in his head, though. He might just have to do something about that later on.

Dirk sits up fully and runs a hand through his hair, then again when he realizes that his hair isn't even styled. At least they both know they were in bed together for a really innocent reason. "Fucking curses."

Davesprite was pretty sure if they had been in the same bed for reasons that weren't anywhere near innocent, then he'd probably quit Vatheon forever.

He got his butt off the floor, and almost dusted himself off, but decided against it. No need to really let on how embarrassed he was to Dirk of all people.

"My sentiments exactly. I'm gonna have a helluva time here." The sprite hesitated for a moment. "Sorry for crashing unexpectedly in your bed like that."

If they were sleeping in the same bed for less than innocent reasons, Dirk would probably quit life forever.

Lying around in bed is kind of awkward, though, so Dirk shifts over so that he's sitting around on the edge. It's a really good thing he never got pjs that fit six-year-old him, otherwise this would be a million times worse.

"They're not all this ridiculous. Some are worse, but there have been some better ones, too." Dirk shrugs. "It's fine. 'S not like you punched me in the face in your sleep, or something."

Luckily for Davesprite, he never had to worry about PJ's ever again.

"Oh, goody." He snorted. "If I did fall asleep, I used too be a clingy son of a bitch. Not so much anymore 'cause it's more comfortable to sleep on my stomach."

Trying to imagine Dave or Davesprite being clingy is an exercise in brain breaking. Dirk just ignores it for the moment in favor of the practicalities of Davesprite's wings. "Is there even any comfortable way to sleep with those things?"

His spritely brother didn't even notice.

"Other than on your stomach? The back's fine, if I'm willing to put up with numb wings in the morning. If I'm really fucking tired, then I don't even care if I'm comfortable. I'll just fall asleep."

Davesprite hesitated a moment and then shrugged.

"And putting something over my eyes helped."

"As long as it works, I guess. And covering your eyes makes sense." He's not sure how comfortable Davesprite feels about bird instincts, so he won't talk much about the reasons for it. Instead, he tugs at his hair, for lack of something else to do with his hands. He wants to primp, but doing that while Davesprite is here would be embarrassing.

He could take a hint, though.

"I'd love to go over all the fascinating shit I get for being part bird, but that'd probably be better if we're like. More presentable. Do you wanna meet up somewhere else to have bird talks?" Or even regular talks with Davesprite, he wouldn't mind either. He just wasn't saying that out loud.

"No one will mind if you stick around. Who knows, maybe we can find something worth eating for breakfast around here, I think Jane woke up. Just give me a minute to get dressed and shit." It will take longer than a minute, but at least it won't take an hour, since he's not planning on making Davesprite wait while he takes a shower.

He looked a little uncomfortable.

"If it's all the same with you, I'd rather do that without your friends hearing all about my bird habits. That's usually a pretty bad first impression."

Really, it was more that he wasn't sure how they'd handle a bird version of Dirk's brother. He didn't really want to see their reactions all at once.

Edited 2013-01-24 22:52 (UTC)

"What, like they haven't already seen you as a kid?" Dirk says, but he nods and concedes the point. He wouldn't want to broadcast that around his Bro's friends, either, were he in Davesprite's situation. "Offer for food's still open, though."

"I'm not about to turn down free food. Mind if I camped out in the living room, then?"

Really, who would turn down free food?

"Go ahead. Help yourself if you get bored waiting."

Dirk consciously doesn't move from his spot on the bed until Davesprite leaves the room. Once that's done, he grabs some actual clothes out of the closet- one of his black tank tops and jeans, because why not and he's not about to dress up in the fancy clothes Roxy sticks in his closet. Then he takes a while to get his hair in order, and takes even more time just standing around in his room feeling like a dumbass over everything he did during the week of the curse. Only then does he finally leave his room.

Davesprite wasn't about to eat without Dirk. That was rude. So, he pretty much curled up on the couch and waited patiently for Dirk to get done. When the dude finally made an appearance, he sat up and turned to face him from the couch.

"Where'd you wanna go after breakfast?" Better to ask now than later, in his opinion.

Dirk shrugs and heads into the kitchen, rooting around in the fridge in an attempt to find anything edible. His first instinct is to say "not the island," but that's not that specific.

"There's a ghost pirate ship in one of the quadrants," he says finally.

Okay, he was expecting quite a few places. Places like the mall, the arcade, the manga shop, things like that. So when Dirk said that, he couldn't help staring at him for a little.

"There's a ghost pirate ship. Really?" Excuse his slight incredulity, Dirk. That was a bit too much.

"Yeah. Story is it crashed into the bubble a while ago, but that was before I got here." Besides, it's abandoned, except for the ghosts. And as interesting as the mall and things are, Dirk's first inclination when finding things to do outside of his house is always to search some underwater ruins.

"I shouldn't be surprised that was a thing that happened," he replied dryly. Well, it wasn't like Davesprite had any plans for that day, and exploring a ghost ship with ~~his brother~~ Dirk sounded like a good idea.

"Whatcha got to eat?"

Exploring a haunted ship with his brother is a perfectly good way for Davesprite to spend a day, especially after a ridiculous curse.

Dirk glances out of the fridge. "Looks like Jane did make pancakes, though we'll have to microwave them first."

He shrugged.

"I'm not picky. Micro-nuking it is if it means pancakes."

Dirk nods and puts the plate in the microwave, then starts shuffling through the shelves, searching around the junk food to grab things like maple syrup and apple juice.

The dude was making it extremely hard to keep him an arms-length away at all times. Though, in all honesty, Davesprite probably shouldn't have expected any less from mini Bro.

He was probably brooding, but pancakes would be a wonderful distraction, at the very least.

Exactly as should be expected. At least he isn't flashstepping everywhere, that would make it even more difficult to ignore. But everything's finally ready, so they can actually sit down and eat now.

After a moment of silently eating, Davesprite figured that he at least owed an explanation to Dirk about some things. Like his existence in the first place. The sprite had been here for a while, and that likely wasn't about to change any time soon.

"So, what do you wanna know first?"

Dirk sets aside his own food for a moment, to stare at Dave from behind his shades. That's a pretty open-ended question there, and he takes a moment to organize his thoughts before he asks.

"Might as well start from where we were before. You said covering your eyes helps with sleeping, right?"

He nodded.

"Shades don't, but a blindfold will. Or even just draping a towel over my head if I don't get it off fast enough. Takes a couple minutes for me to actually sleep, but I get eerily quiet during that time."

"So just about like bird instincts." It's one of the few things Dirk had been able to test for himself, thanks to the birds that flocked around his own apartment. "What about the wings? I assume there are plenty of instincts attached to those."

He nodded. At the second question, he shifted and blushed a little.

"Oh, yeah. Those are harder to control and most of the time I can't do a fucking thing about 'em. Like turning into a feathery puffball if something I seriously don't like happens." Davesprite hesitated for a moment and decided to give him a bit of warning.

"Also, if you were thinking about touching the feathers? I wouldn't if I were you, unless you take sick enjoyment out of making me sexually frustrated."

"Most people aren't good at that, either." It goes unsaid that Striders are the exception, but surely with his shades Davesprite has just as good a poker face as any other Strider.

A Strider poker face that Dirk was currently keeping carefully on his face. "I wasn't planning on it, but I'll note the warning," he says carefully.

"I can name at least two already." Davesprite certainly had a good poker face. Most Strider habits were hard to break, after all.

It happened multiple times on the ship and he didn't want a repeat of those times with Dirk. That would be awful.

"The only other good thing that doesn't concern flying has to be that now I can mimic people's voices with scary accuracy." He shrugged. "Makes sense, I guess, since some of the crows liked to talk back to me in Houston before the game ever happened."

Those times had been fucking scary when he first heard it.

"Interesting. Mind giving me a demonstration?" Dirk isn't familiar with that particular bird talent himself, considering there weren't that many places for the birds to learn how to imitate humans.

"Sure, as long as you don't make me do it all day. It starts hurting after a while, unfortunately," Davesprite replied in Dirk's own voice.

"It helps if I've heard the voice before."

Well, it's weird to hear his voice coming out of someone else's mouth, but Dirk nods. It's a pretty impressive skill. And he can think of plenty of useful applications for it, if Davesprite ever decides to play pranks.

"I don't doubt it." Dirk says, idly taking a bite of his food. "By the way, you can fly, can't you?"

He took a sip of apple juice before replying.

"Yup. I can also be summoned by a pendant, and kept in there if someone wanted me in there. I can get out, but that takes a bit of time, depending on whether I got hurt and the severity of the injuries."

"I won't even bother asking to see that one." Dirk says. It sounds too much like control, if you ask him, and for all that sometimes he wishes the AR'd had less autonomy, he tried not to exert control over him that often, because taking ability away from someone like that left a bad taste in his mouth.

Davesprite shrugged.

"I keep it on me anyway. It...helped, at one point."

"Oh? How?" That sounds like a story, and Dirk's interested in finding out more about Davesprite's rather unique situation.

He hesitated, pretty clearly uncomfortable on the topic. However, he knew he couldn't avoid it forever. Not with Dirk. If it was anyone else, Davesprite would be harder to pull it from.

But Dirk needed to know, in some ways.

"I got severely injured in a fight against an immortal god dog psychopath. He chopped a wing clean off and slashed my stomach. Had to flee into the pendant to regain enough strength to get Alpha Dave a specific sword after all was said and done." Davesprite hesitated again before continuing.

"I wasn't fighting alone. I was fighting with Bro, and he...was not as lucky."

'Not as lucky' isn't hard to understand. Not when Davesprite talked about his losing a wing and getting injured so severely. It doesn't even need the description of immortal god dog psychopath.

What's harder is figuring out what to say about that. He's not Bro, but he's an alternate universe version of Bro, and he's so much like him that he knows it hurts, Dave hugged him when they first met, and it almost feels like he's standing in two shadows- his alternate self's, and his universe's Dave.

"... Getting hurt doesn't mean you fought badly, you know." He finally says.

"Almost had the bastard, but then we had the bad luck of Bec getting prototyped right before finishing him."

Davesprite couldn't help a short, self-deprecating laugh.

"Some days I wonder about that."

Wondered whether he had been a liability to Bro. Wondered if he could have done something different. Wondered if he should've been there in the first place.

"Shit happens that you can't plan for." Dirk said, voice hard. It's something he's had driven through his own head rather harshly recently, and for all that sometimes he can't make himself believe it, he knows when it's true. "And there are some things you can't prepare for no matter what you do."

"That's for fucking sure." Well, Dirk didn't berate him or anything of the sort, so that was a good sign. It helped a bit and took another baby step on the road to healing.

"What else do you wanna ask?"

Dirk's silent for a moment, considering. Finally, he shrugs and points at Davesprite's pancakes. "You gonna finish those, bro?"

They were about half eaten, and he was feeling pretty full.

"Nah, you can have 'em if you want 'em."

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Hush Little Birdie Don't Say a Word

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