Work Text:
Your name is Dirk Strider and if there's one thing you dislike—other than the myriad of things you are known to make cringe faces at—is not having all the information that would be vital about the situation in front of you.
Which, in other words, means that the other myriad of neuroses you keep tight-tied beneath your wrist are undergoing electrolysis as they pulse through your bloodstream, because you're standing at the top of a building with no plan, no fence, and as per someone else's invitation.
Yet you're in the middle of fuckass nowhere, staring at the boy in front of you like your life depends on the next movement of his fingers, as soon as he fidgets with that lighter to combustion and probably lights the entire place on fire, and since you don't have your powers anymore, killing you both in the process.
The boy in question is Dave, of course.
After all, he's the only one that'd make you agree to such a senseless ordeal.
And you are very normal about all of this.
You continue staring at him and examining his movements along the terrace.
At this rate, your heart is what will undergo combustion.
Aside from the imminent hazard, he's holding some odd stick that he's previously retrieved from a long box, resembling the pockey you've seen on TV, except it's apparently doused with gunpowder.
All under your careful watch, and now he flaunts it around the lighter with as much confidence as you're currently bereft. And you have an inkling that you actually have no idea what he's planning even in the far too obvious guesstimate.
If he's planning on blowing up the two of you, although Dave did not seem to one to share your, let's say, self-elimination tendencies, at least you'd like to know whether it's coming.
So you have to ask.
You just have to ask; admit defeat this one time that you have no fucking idea what's happening in front of you or why.
It's just Dave, after all.
Dave Strider. Your ectobiology father-adoptive son-brother-something whom you've totally not idolized for literal years and now you pretend you have stopped doing that altogether. And now, there he is, as an anthropomorphic ectobiological time-warp recreation of your deceased so-called bro when he was about sixteen years old.
Years ago, you would've bent yourself over backwards for him to know only the best possible impression of yourself out of sheer elation, or something of that sort—anything a little more gratuitous than a teenage crush on your ectobiological brother. So, after what you think was a sly motion, in which you push your awesome shades further upward the bridge of your nose, you decide to ask:
"Are you sure about," you say, and make a convenient pause for emphasis, "this?"
That was not quite what you had in mind.
And Dave stares at you in a way you can't quite decipher—as most things about him. It's partly the glasses, but you wouldn't be a Prince of Heart if some shades could stop or hinder your judgment. It's interesting, isn't it? Whatever lies behind those shades, freckles and muddled hair that make him look almost like an apparition in the waning moonlight. Something that should not belong where you're standing, amidst the grass, sat on the floor, ass probably getting in the way of every ant's nightly feast.
You become a foreigner in space-time whenever presented with your bro's likeness at such distance. You shouldn't be here, but you are, and worst of all, you want to.
"Yeah, were there no fireworks on your planet?"
As you watch the muted image of his lips making those words, your mind trails back to the desolate blues and metal of the edifice in question. Metallic pipes, various armatosts, et al.
"Mostly water, actually," you say, and you hope it came out as monotone as you intended.
It's not quite something you want to get into. At least not right now. Different elements, and all.
Sure, you can explain about your petulant self-isolation Prince of Heart bullshit and other idiocies some other time, not that you have any plans for it, but worst comes to worst—
"Well, I introduce you to one of the best, dope-ass inventions," Dave interrupts; and pauses, for emphasis, "a firecracker."
You pinch your brows to barely turn a furrow.
You have half of an answer prepared, and the other half is lost in the chance to stare at the perfect facsimile of the idol you've adored for ages being dangled right in front of you. And you don't even get to choose.
He lights the stick on his left hand.
And his hands are gentle against the violent light.
You can't even think of suppressing the whoa that bursts from your mouth right as the thing begins to violently crackle, sending sparks everywhere, and let there be light, damn it—because your attention is dragged, just like the light refraction, towards the boy in front of you; with half his face illuminated by that fire hazard—reflecting off his shades like a mockery you're well familiar with. And the corners of his mouth twitch, just a little.
You're too busy admiring your stupid boy-crush to realize that said boy-crush is offering you the fire hazard on a stick.
"If you swing it around it makes shapes."
Is the eyestrain supposed to be enticing?
You don't even have a response anymore. It's too late. Your hand is already reaching in between the two of you and your fingers pinch the lower edge of the firecracker.
You stare at the sparkling flame, muted by your shades, the light tangling itself into showing Dave's silhouette at the corner of your eye.
Fire was an interesting thing. Fire was a very interesting thing.