![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Battlefield Terra Prequel
I started writing BT proper, and then Dirk and Dave’s Bro started being all “hey I’m talking to you” and I was like “okay sure I’ll do a drabble quicklike” and BAM six pages of prequel-fic.
3 000 words of Mr. Strider meeting his clonebabies for the first time. Also features Doc Lalonde.
Or: In Which The Characters Prove Exactly Why They Shouldn’t Have Kids Ever, But They Have Them Anyway And It’d Be A Pain To Return Them Now So Hey Why Not.
There were four tiny beds, and two squalling, squashy, red-faced things in each. A couple of them had Hass's tan, but they all had dark hair and were so doughy there was no identifying them by facial features.
Lucky for him the lab was temperature-controlled, which meant that as Romy was going down the row, wrestling clean diapers on the wriggly things, the rest of them were waiting their turn buck naked. Boy and girl, girl and boy; those were the Egbert and Harley sets, not that he had any clue on Earth which was which. So then the two sets left over would be...
"They're not going to bite, you know," Romy drawled without even turning to look at him, as she forced a sausage-like Harleybertian leg in a leg-hole. She was smirking, though, he could tell from her voice. "Or projectile venom. Hell, even vomit wouldn't get that far."
He erased a faint scowl from his face and took a couple of measured steps away from the door. None of them were even vaguely blond. He felt vaguely cheated.
His set was the one with dicks. He'd insisted. (Bad enough they were making him take responsibility for children but like fuck he'd know how to handle a girl. Or -- more important -- how he'd teach someone whose body didn't move or balance the way his did.) He couldn't even tell which one was Baby Him. Neither of them looked anything like what he saw in the mirror.
"They'd totally pee that far though. Little bastards aim really well, too, I don't know how the heck they do it."
Somehow he didn't take a step back, though he knew she'd caught him twitching back, faint enough that anyone who didn't know him well would never have noticed. She snickered.
"Pens in that drawer, wrist tags on the table. Fill yours already."
"Shit, babe, you want me to figure out names myself?" he complained half-heartedly. "Can't they just go by Strider Two and Strider Two Bis? Bis and Secundus? Jun and Ior? Huh, that'd be badass."
"Bzzt! Try again."
"Like I know what to name those, every time I name even a houseplant you bitch me out."
"No kidding I bitch you out, I don't need my cactus named after my stepmother on a big polished brass nameplate, it might surprise you but the old witch can read."
"Shit yeah, I'm surprised. I'd have thought that cactus would have kicked it by then considering how you treat it, maybe it's even better-named than I knew."
"Oh shit, look, a misdirection!" She turned to smirk at him over her shoulder, made-up lips quirking in both fondness and ruthless mockery. "Take that pen before I shove it where the sun don't shine, honeybee."
Well. Writing down stuff gave him an excuse to step away from the baby beds and their wriggly, screechy contents. What next, pick one up? Shyeah right. Anna and Ro-Lal would descend on him like wraith from hell for making them redo his batch and waste nine months of carefully guided growth when he inevitably dropped or otherwise broke it.
"Seriously... You are not to call him Junior. Either of them, but especially your mini-me, it'd be really bad for his emotional development." She was almost singing now, voice going all up and down in pitch, like the words ought to have been about bunnies and daisies and lovely adorable baybees. "We don't want him to be a stunted asshole with negative social skills, right? No we don't, no we don't."
"I love you too," he drawled. The wrist tags were pristinely white, so tiny he could hide one of them whole with a single finger. Crazy.
"I'm vetoing that shit all up and down the turd, lengthwise. There shall be no Burt Strider Junior on my watch."
She was still sing-songing it. He shook his head in fake bafflement. "Okay. I give. A real name, not pre-worn." He couldn't even look at the baby -- which was it, even? -- he just went ahead and named him without looking. "Hm. Dirk."
Lalonde stopped working (Miss Hargbert Bis the Well-Tanned kicked her straight in the palm like a karate champion) and turned to stare at him. "... Dirk? Seriously?"
Burt made a show of considering it. "Fuck yeah. I have never been more serious. Look at this seriousness all up in my face."
"Burt and Dirk? Dirk Strider? Are you trying to get him to follow you into porn?"
Served her right for scarring his mind with babies. For breaking his will enough to consider taking the poor little bastards, even if one of them was technically him and therefore would likely deserve it in very short order. As he wrote in the tag with a flourish he allowed the corner of his lips to curl up, slow and satisfied, reveling in his victory. "Shit, think of the dough we'll rake in for the incest crowd. Real-life trans-generational daddykink twincest. And the other one will be--"
"Dave!" Romy interrupted. "He'll be Dave."
"Hey, hey, my rugrat to name."
She was done repackaging the first four and was up to his -- to the boys now. She picked up one of the two, the grabby-handed one, lifted him up. Burt frowned; she hadn't picked up any of the Bertleys, what the heck. "I claim right of genetic whatchamacallit. Good name, Dave. Solid, no-frills, won't get him beat up in the school yard..." A firm nod, and then she couldn't help herself and chuckled. Okay why was she walking toward him. Why was she walking toward him holding a baby. "...Though now I really want to see what name you'd figure out that sounds like balls."
Why was she not stopping. Okay he'd had 'hold your ground' as a mantra ever since he turned six or thereabouts, he'd always been a stubborn little motherfucker; he wasn't moving. But shit. "S'okay," he said, eyeing the squishy little thing in her arms. Maybe it'd start to projectile pee in a second. Had to be ready to dodge like ninja. "That's the bastard child. He's been tainted already. I'd have to name him something that rhymes with -ssy."
For a second Romy's eyes glinted in evil amusement, and he thought she really was going to shove the Dave-lump at him, and it would be his fault for not knowing when he was beat and it was time to shut his mouth. But a second later she started laughing.
Also punched him in the arm, hard enough he knew he'd have a sizeable bruise later on. "...Okay that was funny, but never make that joke ever again. Not in their hearing at least."
She stood a step away from him, barely. Her arms almost touched his stomach. He looked down.
Dave had weird-colored eyes. Kinda grayish, murkily so, nothing like Burt's light amber-brown. Who amongst the five of them had anything like gray? The closest was Egbert's blue, but even her son's eyes weren't that grayish.
He stuck his hands in his back pockets, so it'd be clear as fuck he wasn't picking him up. Couldn't even hold his head himself, for fuck's sake. Burt'd kill him somehow. "I'm gonna raise them to be such sneaky little bastards you're never sure what they're hearing, where from, how or why," he said, voice dropping quiet in a way he didn't entirely mean it to, that he couldn't help, because yes he was going to raise them oh fuck he was, he'd said he was, "so I can keep it behind my teeth. But honest now, I don't know how I'm gonna deal with the fact that he's half you."
She considered him from under her curly bangs, all mussed from where she'd combed them. His fingers twitched, wanting to comb them back, but she was his best bro and so that shit was just too gay.
He could feel the warmth radiating from her arms. The baby's warmth.
"Best advice? Cautiously."
"Yeeeeah, just about. Maybe a HAZMAT suit, too. Could have been pure wild untamed male like I spat him out from my thigh all formed but no, you went and contaminated him with femaleness."
"Another crack like that and I'm trading poor Davey for my Romy Mark Two. We'll see how you deal then."
Burt knew she couldn't see his eyes through his shades. He knew she couldn't. But she was like a shark, she could scent it from miles away. "I'll name her Puss. I swear to all that's holy I really will."
Romy smiled, the wide one that made dimples come out. Dimples made of pure evil. "Or you could have both of the girls!"
Shit, he was getting flattened by someone who was like half his weight soaking wet. Okay she was also right vicious in a fight, but he had blades on him and she didn't have a gun! And he was still losing the argument. The bratlings had him unfairly off-balance. "They can be called Right and Left and their middle names will both be Tits, do not push me, woman."
"Alright, I'll leave you guys to your sausagefest. Sit here."
She herded him back with the baby until his thighs backed into the chair and he had no choice and sat, obedient and meek and fucking unnerved, and she pointed at the tag until he capitulated and wrote in "Dave Strider" obediently, and then she betrayed him by putting Dave in his lap anyway.
"No moving or he'll fall on his head, and then I'll castrate you. I can do that, I'm a doctor! Scalpels all over the place."
She snapped an ID bracelet around the kid's wrist and danced cheerfully away. Burt sat, the baby on his lap. Little turd didn't want to break eye contact, or whatever he thought he could establish through Burt's shades. His mother's son, that one. Burt leveled an unimpressed (he seriously hoped) look over the rim. "You think you're getting me to blink first? Yeah, we'll just see. I've never lost a staring contest in my life, bitch."
"Bonding time! Encourage your child to drink, you deadbeat primary caregiver."
He lost the contest when he had to look up or get a milk bottle in the nose.
"Oh, fuck you, Romy. Right now I don't even care that you have tits, fuck you anyway, this is how much I hate you."
Dave must have scented the milk like a shark would blood (yeah, Romy's kid, from now on he was blaming Romy for everything Dave did, starting from breathing) because he started making whimpery, unStriderly noises. One of the Strilonde chicks over in the baskets mewled out a long protest; Romy abandoned him with a wave and a "You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl!," the bottle in his hand and Dave snuffling and trying to suckle his tanktop.
"Hey, no, you don't know where that thing's been, hell I don't even know where it's been, I picked it off the floor this morning but I could swear I hadn't seen it for a week before that. Come on, uh, just guessing here but I think I should aim the tit-looking end at entry point, can't be hard -- huh."
Yeah. Like a shark. Apparently figuring out how to feed a baby was mostly letting him figure out how to feed himself. Burt could live with that.
"Not that low an angle, he'll suckle in air and burp for hours."
Shit, Dave was like a Hoover. (His nails were so fucking tiny. For the first time of his life Burt wished he were closer to the queen end of the homogay scale, so he'd know what to do about all the calluses that made the palms of his hands like sandpaper. He couldn't feel the baby's skin through leather gloves, only with his fingertips, and they were rough too, it must scratch and he was so soft and fragile.) Wait, Romy had been saying something... oh yeah. "Uh, burp? What's wrong with that? It's manly as fuck. Never too young to start practicing the national burpthem. Farts can wait until toddlerhood I guess."
Romy wandered back to them and perched her butt on the edge of a metal countertop, Burt Junior in the crook of her arm and a second bottle in hand. Dirk had the same kind of murky gray eyes, dark and beady. He was just as tiny as Dave; quieter, though. "Do you know the word regurgitation? Because that's what'll happen, he'll eject just as much milk as air, and then once you're done cleaning up you get to attempt to put some more milk back in all over again. Not that it won't happen anyway but it's a different degree of magnitude."
"... You're not any fun."
"Babies aren't any fun," Romy whispered confidentially, leaning close and almost flattening Dirk under one of her boobs. Dirk went straight for it; she had to detach him from her doctor's blouse with a finger in his mouth, that he started trying to suckle instead. "Spoiler: if you don't laugh you'll scream. Oh hey, Dirkie, what's wrong with you, since when are you a boobs man, oh you're hungry, yeah, here's the bottle, mmm bottle. No.? No bottle? Dave's going to be done before you at this rate -- aha, I knew it, competition always works. There's a good Burtbaby."
"I'll thank you never to call my legacy anything like Dirkie ever again, or I'll sue for mental trauma, thanks so very much."
He was snarking totally on autopilot. Dave's ridiculously tiny fingers had found his middle finger and were gripping like they planned to tear it right off.
"Lemme guess, the little blights can do nothing but piss and eat and sleep for a couple years, so they're using some kind of cuteness gamma rays to mindfuck reasonable adults into not turning them into lambskin mittens."
"That's the carrot," Romy agreed, nodding slowly. "The stick is the crying. Don't worry, it won't take them very long to break you in."
"Hey, no, fuck that noise, you promised you'd keep them until they were two and I wouldn't have to deal before then."
Romy cackled. "I lied. Optimal parental bonding says you have to be here at meal times and bedtime without fail, and you must feed them and talk to them and baaaathe them. Also you have to carry them skin to skin at least a hour a day!"
"Carry them what. What's that Mr. Ducklips? Quack, quack quack quaaaack? Yeah, man, totally agree."
Romy kicked his leg. Burt wrapped himself up on instinct around Dave, knees rising, upper body curling over the baby. He glowered when he realized; but she was already going back to Dirk, lips curled in discreet but nevertheless smirky satisfaction.
He was pretty damn sure the one hour's naked cuddling thing was more for his benefit than for theirs, because with Anna Egbert and Hass Harley and the nurses (right now all off-duty, which was why he'd come now and not two hours ago when it wasn't the middle of the night) they'd be cuddled and petted enough.
He didn't want to ask, though; no doubt she'd pull out some bullshit research paper from some guy Burt didn't have a way to know was disproved seven ways from Sunday or not to support her thesis.
He didn't want to ask. She might take photos -- strike that, she would take photos, of him laying down shirtless with two babies sprawled face-down on his chest, tucked in the crook of his arm, he could see that coming like he was the Seer of Friend Assholery -- but she'd never show them to anyone else, he could trust her that far. No one else had to know.
Dave was so ridiculously tiny, and Dirk might even be tinier, and they couldn't hold their heads and they were myopic little fucks, they'd stay that way a while because woohoo genetic experiments and which one was it who could see a little into infrared again, and their hair was dark seriously what the hell shit had better grow out and into proper blond or he'd dye it pink, swear he would.
He couldn't wrap his mind around what they were, what they would be in time. He could barely wrap it around what he was, now.
He was...
He was a (not father not a father just fucking not a father) family man now. He had this, this decades-late twin brother, and his brother's brother (who was also half his best bro's son but never mind that, he'd seen worse age gaps,) so, yeah, little brother too, he'd always wanted a little brother (even once he realized it'd be shitty as fuck to bring them into that fucking life he had and stopped asking Santa and his mom and his foster parents for one and gone from foster homes to juvie, yeah, no little brothers in there, no space for one, you're on your fucking own, Strider, you've always been, always will be, who the fuck would depend on you for anything that isn't busting heads in aesthetically pleasant patterns anyway, honestly.)
He'd always wanted a little brother and now he had two. Shit, man.
Bah. His leather jacket would fit two more, he was sure. He could take them driving along the coast, get them asleep that way, only the wind and the evening dim and his bike rumbling between his thigh and his kids in his jacket like he was some kind of rad as hell biker kangaroo mom. No problem when they were so tiny. None at all.
When Dave decided it was time to pee Burt really regretted pushing his shades up just to see him better, like maybe if he stared long enough he'd find actual identifying features under those doughy cheeks. Little fucker had got him right in the eye.
And then of course Dirk started kicking and squeaking like he thought it was the most hilarious thing ever in his whole fucking life, shut your whore mouth baby you're one day old what do you know.
Yeah, they were Striders alright. He took a towel from Romy with a thanks, and only whipped her with it for laughing a very little bit.
3 000 words of Mr. Strider meeting his clonebabies for the first time. Also features Doc Lalonde.
Or: In Which The Characters Prove Exactly Why They Shouldn’t Have Kids Ever, But They Have Them Anyway And It’d Be A Pain To Return Them Now So Hey Why Not.
There were four tiny beds, and two squalling, squashy, red-faced things in each. A couple of them had Hass's tan, but they all had dark hair and were so doughy there was no identifying them by facial features.
Lucky for him the lab was temperature-controlled, which meant that as Romy was going down the row, wrestling clean diapers on the wriggly things, the rest of them were waiting their turn buck naked. Boy and girl, girl and boy; those were the Egbert and Harley sets, not that he had any clue on Earth which was which. So then the two sets left over would be...
"They're not going to bite, you know," Romy drawled without even turning to look at him, as she forced a sausage-like Harleybertian leg in a leg-hole. She was smirking, though, he could tell from her voice. "Or projectile venom. Hell, even vomit wouldn't get that far."
He erased a faint scowl from his face and took a couple of measured steps away from the door. None of them were even vaguely blond. He felt vaguely cheated.
His set was the one with dicks. He'd insisted. (Bad enough they were making him take responsibility for children but like fuck he'd know how to handle a girl. Or -- more important -- how he'd teach someone whose body didn't move or balance the way his did.) He couldn't even tell which one was Baby Him. Neither of them looked anything like what he saw in the mirror.
"They'd totally pee that far though. Little bastards aim really well, too, I don't know how the heck they do it."
Somehow he didn't take a step back, though he knew she'd caught him twitching back, faint enough that anyone who didn't know him well would never have noticed. She snickered.
"Pens in that drawer, wrist tags on the table. Fill yours already."
"Shit, babe, you want me to figure out names myself?" he complained half-heartedly. "Can't they just go by Strider Two and Strider Two Bis? Bis and Secundus? Jun and Ior? Huh, that'd be badass."
"Bzzt! Try again."
"Like I know what to name those, every time I name even a houseplant you bitch me out."
"No kidding I bitch you out, I don't need my cactus named after my stepmother on a big polished brass nameplate, it might surprise you but the old witch can read."
"Shit yeah, I'm surprised. I'd have thought that cactus would have kicked it by then considering how you treat it, maybe it's even better-named than I knew."
"Oh shit, look, a misdirection!" She turned to smirk at him over her shoulder, made-up lips quirking in both fondness and ruthless mockery. "Take that pen before I shove it where the sun don't shine, honeybee."
Well. Writing down stuff gave him an excuse to step away from the baby beds and their wriggly, screechy contents. What next, pick one up? Shyeah right. Anna and Ro-Lal would descend on him like wraith from hell for making them redo his batch and waste nine months of carefully guided growth when he inevitably dropped or otherwise broke it.
"Seriously... You are not to call him Junior. Either of them, but especially your mini-me, it'd be really bad for his emotional development." She was almost singing now, voice going all up and down in pitch, like the words ought to have been about bunnies and daisies and lovely adorable baybees. "We don't want him to be a stunted asshole with negative social skills, right? No we don't, no we don't."
"I love you too," he drawled. The wrist tags were pristinely white, so tiny he could hide one of them whole with a single finger. Crazy.
"I'm vetoing that shit all up and down the turd, lengthwise. There shall be no Burt Strider Junior on my watch."
She was still sing-songing it. He shook his head in fake bafflement. "Okay. I give. A real name, not pre-worn." He couldn't even look at the baby -- which was it, even? -- he just went ahead and named him without looking. "Hm. Dirk."
Lalonde stopped working (Miss Hargbert Bis the Well-Tanned kicked her straight in the palm like a karate champion) and turned to stare at him. "... Dirk? Seriously?"
Burt made a show of considering it. "Fuck yeah. I have never been more serious. Look at this seriousness all up in my face."
"Burt and Dirk? Dirk Strider? Are you trying to get him to follow you into porn?"
Served her right for scarring his mind with babies. For breaking his will enough to consider taking the poor little bastards, even if one of them was technically him and therefore would likely deserve it in very short order. As he wrote in the tag with a flourish he allowed the corner of his lips to curl up, slow and satisfied, reveling in his victory. "Shit, think of the dough we'll rake in for the incest crowd. Real-life trans-generational daddykink twincest. And the other one will be--"
"Dave!" Romy interrupted. "He'll be Dave."
"Hey, hey, my rugrat to name."
She was done repackaging the first four and was up to his -- to the boys now. She picked up one of the two, the grabby-handed one, lifted him up. Burt frowned; she hadn't picked up any of the Bertleys, what the heck. "I claim right of genetic whatchamacallit. Good name, Dave. Solid, no-frills, won't get him beat up in the school yard..." A firm nod, and then she couldn't help herself and chuckled. Okay why was she walking toward him. Why was she walking toward him holding a baby. "...Though now I really want to see what name you'd figure out that sounds like balls."
Why was she not stopping. Okay he'd had 'hold your ground' as a mantra ever since he turned six or thereabouts, he'd always been a stubborn little motherfucker; he wasn't moving. But shit. "S'okay," he said, eyeing the squishy little thing in her arms. Maybe it'd start to projectile pee in a second. Had to be ready to dodge like ninja. "That's the bastard child. He's been tainted already. I'd have to name him something that rhymes with -ssy."
For a second Romy's eyes glinted in evil amusement, and he thought she really was going to shove the Dave-lump at him, and it would be his fault for not knowing when he was beat and it was time to shut his mouth. But a second later she started laughing.
Also punched him in the arm, hard enough he knew he'd have a sizeable bruise later on. "...Okay that was funny, but never make that joke ever again. Not in their hearing at least."
She stood a step away from him, barely. Her arms almost touched his stomach. He looked down.
Dave had weird-colored eyes. Kinda grayish, murkily so, nothing like Burt's light amber-brown. Who amongst the five of them had anything like gray? The closest was Egbert's blue, but even her son's eyes weren't that grayish.
He stuck his hands in his back pockets, so it'd be clear as fuck he wasn't picking him up. Couldn't even hold his head himself, for fuck's sake. Burt'd kill him somehow. "I'm gonna raise them to be such sneaky little bastards you're never sure what they're hearing, where from, how or why," he said, voice dropping quiet in a way he didn't entirely mean it to, that he couldn't help, because yes he was going to raise them oh fuck he was, he'd said he was, "so I can keep it behind my teeth. But honest now, I don't know how I'm gonna deal with the fact that he's half you."
She considered him from under her curly bangs, all mussed from where she'd combed them. His fingers twitched, wanting to comb them back, but she was his best bro and so that shit was just too gay.
He could feel the warmth radiating from her arms. The baby's warmth.
"Best advice? Cautiously."
"Yeeeeah, just about. Maybe a HAZMAT suit, too. Could have been pure wild untamed male like I spat him out from my thigh all formed but no, you went and contaminated him with femaleness."
"Another crack like that and I'm trading poor Davey for my Romy Mark Two. We'll see how you deal then."
Burt knew she couldn't see his eyes through his shades. He knew she couldn't. But she was like a shark, she could scent it from miles away. "I'll name her Puss. I swear to all that's holy I really will."
Romy smiled, the wide one that made dimples come out. Dimples made of pure evil. "Or you could have both of the girls!"
Shit, he was getting flattened by someone who was like half his weight soaking wet. Okay she was also right vicious in a fight, but he had blades on him and she didn't have a gun! And he was still losing the argument. The bratlings had him unfairly off-balance. "They can be called Right and Left and their middle names will both be Tits, do not push me, woman."
"Alright, I'll leave you guys to your sausagefest. Sit here."
She herded him back with the baby until his thighs backed into the chair and he had no choice and sat, obedient and meek and fucking unnerved, and she pointed at the tag until he capitulated and wrote in "Dave Strider" obediently, and then she betrayed him by putting Dave in his lap anyway.
"No moving or he'll fall on his head, and then I'll castrate you. I can do that, I'm a doctor! Scalpels all over the place."
She snapped an ID bracelet around the kid's wrist and danced cheerfully away. Burt sat, the baby on his lap. Little turd didn't want to break eye contact, or whatever he thought he could establish through Burt's shades. His mother's son, that one. Burt leveled an unimpressed (he seriously hoped) look over the rim. "You think you're getting me to blink first? Yeah, we'll just see. I've never lost a staring contest in my life, bitch."
"Bonding time! Encourage your child to drink, you deadbeat primary caregiver."
He lost the contest when he had to look up or get a milk bottle in the nose.
"Oh, fuck you, Romy. Right now I don't even care that you have tits, fuck you anyway, this is how much I hate you."
Dave must have scented the milk like a shark would blood (yeah, Romy's kid, from now on he was blaming Romy for everything Dave did, starting from breathing) because he started making whimpery, unStriderly noises. One of the Strilonde chicks over in the baskets mewled out a long protest; Romy abandoned him with a wave and a "You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl!," the bottle in his hand and Dave snuffling and trying to suckle his tanktop.
"Hey, no, you don't know where that thing's been, hell I don't even know where it's been, I picked it off the floor this morning but I could swear I hadn't seen it for a week before that. Come on, uh, just guessing here but I think I should aim the tit-looking end at entry point, can't be hard -- huh."
Yeah. Like a shark. Apparently figuring out how to feed a baby was mostly letting him figure out how to feed himself. Burt could live with that.
"Not that low an angle, he'll suckle in air and burp for hours."
Shit, Dave was like a Hoover. (His nails were so fucking tiny. For the first time of his life Burt wished he were closer to the queen end of the homogay scale, so he'd know what to do about all the calluses that made the palms of his hands like sandpaper. He couldn't feel the baby's skin through leather gloves, only with his fingertips, and they were rough too, it must scratch and he was so soft and fragile.) Wait, Romy had been saying something... oh yeah. "Uh, burp? What's wrong with that? It's manly as fuck. Never too young to start practicing the national burpthem. Farts can wait until toddlerhood I guess."
Romy wandered back to them and perched her butt on the edge of a metal countertop, Burt Junior in the crook of her arm and a second bottle in hand. Dirk had the same kind of murky gray eyes, dark and beady. He was just as tiny as Dave; quieter, though. "Do you know the word regurgitation? Because that's what'll happen, he'll eject just as much milk as air, and then once you're done cleaning up you get to attempt to put some more milk back in all over again. Not that it won't happen anyway but it's a different degree of magnitude."
"... You're not any fun."
"Babies aren't any fun," Romy whispered confidentially, leaning close and almost flattening Dirk under one of her boobs. Dirk went straight for it; she had to detach him from her doctor's blouse with a finger in his mouth, that he started trying to suckle instead. "Spoiler: if you don't laugh you'll scream. Oh hey, Dirkie, what's wrong with you, since when are you a boobs man, oh you're hungry, yeah, here's the bottle, mmm bottle. No.? No bottle? Dave's going to be done before you at this rate -- aha, I knew it, competition always works. There's a good Burtbaby."
"I'll thank you never to call my legacy anything like Dirkie ever again, or I'll sue for mental trauma, thanks so very much."
He was snarking totally on autopilot. Dave's ridiculously tiny fingers had found his middle finger and were gripping like they planned to tear it right off.
"Lemme guess, the little blights can do nothing but piss and eat and sleep for a couple years, so they're using some kind of cuteness gamma rays to mindfuck reasonable adults into not turning them into lambskin mittens."
"That's the carrot," Romy agreed, nodding slowly. "The stick is the crying. Don't worry, it won't take them very long to break you in."
"Hey, no, fuck that noise, you promised you'd keep them until they were two and I wouldn't have to deal before then."
Romy cackled. "I lied. Optimal parental bonding says you have to be here at meal times and bedtime without fail, and you must feed them and talk to them and baaaathe them. Also you have to carry them skin to skin at least a hour a day!"
"Carry them what. What's that Mr. Ducklips? Quack, quack quack quaaaack? Yeah, man, totally agree."
Romy kicked his leg. Burt wrapped himself up on instinct around Dave, knees rising, upper body curling over the baby. He glowered when he realized; but she was already going back to Dirk, lips curled in discreet but nevertheless smirky satisfaction.
He was pretty damn sure the one hour's naked cuddling thing was more for his benefit than for theirs, because with Anna Egbert and Hass Harley and the nurses (right now all off-duty, which was why he'd come now and not two hours ago when it wasn't the middle of the night) they'd be cuddled and petted enough.
He didn't want to ask, though; no doubt she'd pull out some bullshit research paper from some guy Burt didn't have a way to know was disproved seven ways from Sunday or not to support her thesis.
He didn't want to ask. She might take photos -- strike that, she would take photos, of him laying down shirtless with two babies sprawled face-down on his chest, tucked in the crook of his arm, he could see that coming like he was the Seer of Friend Assholery -- but she'd never show them to anyone else, he could trust her that far. No one else had to know.
Dave was so ridiculously tiny, and Dirk might even be tinier, and they couldn't hold their heads and they were myopic little fucks, they'd stay that way a while because woohoo genetic experiments and which one was it who could see a little into infrared again, and their hair was dark seriously what the hell shit had better grow out and into proper blond or he'd dye it pink, swear he would.
He couldn't wrap his mind around what they were, what they would be in time. He could barely wrap it around what he was, now.
He was...
He was a (not father not a father just fucking not a father) family man now. He had this, this decades-late twin brother, and his brother's brother (who was also half his best bro's son but never mind that, he'd seen worse age gaps,) so, yeah, little brother too, he'd always wanted a little brother (even once he realized it'd be shitty as fuck to bring them into that fucking life he had and stopped asking Santa and his mom and his foster parents for one and gone from foster homes to juvie, yeah, no little brothers in there, no space for one, you're on your fucking own, Strider, you've always been, always will be, who the fuck would depend on you for anything that isn't busting heads in aesthetically pleasant patterns anyway, honestly.)
He'd always wanted a little brother and now he had two. Shit, man.
Bah. His leather jacket would fit two more, he was sure. He could take them driving along the coast, get them asleep that way, only the wind and the evening dim and his bike rumbling between his thigh and his kids in his jacket like he was some kind of rad as hell biker kangaroo mom. No problem when they were so tiny. None at all.
When Dave decided it was time to pee Burt really regretted pushing his shades up just to see him better, like maybe if he stared long enough he'd find actual identifying features under those doughy cheeks. Little fucker had got him right in the eye.
And then of course Dirk started kicking and squeaking like he thought it was the most hilarious thing ever in his whole fucking life, shut your whore mouth baby you're one day old what do you know.
Yeah, they were Striders alright. He took a towel from Romy with a thanks, and only whipped her with it for laughing a very little bit.
no subject
parentscaregivers anyway.no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Also, this: "Lemme guess, the little blights can do nothing but piss and eat and sleep for a couple years, so they're using some kind of cuteness gamma rays to mindfuck reasonable adults into not turning them into lambskin mittens."
That is TRUTH. Cuteness is totally a defense mechanism to fool adults into reproducing and then not eating the resulting young. ...And it is damned effective. *goes squishy again over the fic*
no subject
Pffff it even works by fic proxy! AWESOME. XDDD
no subject
no subject
♥♥♥
Re: ♥♥♥
no subject
Oh god, that would just be terrifying for me. How'd you come up with the guardians' names? Or is that fanon?
For some reason, when you said none of them had blonde hair, and that their eyes were grey, I equated it with how the trolls grow. What the heck, brain.
no subject
oh god the troll thing XDDD that's a link I hadn't made but lmao. Nah, it's just normal baby's eye color changing eventually thing. I don't know if albino red eyes turn from gray or if they're red from the start since humans don't usually get red eyes, but Dave isn't an albino anyway, the eye color is genetically induced. Same with their dark hair, it'll fall and grow back blond soonish.
no subject
no subject
no subject
What with him being a pornstar, I can see how he would associate sex with...not so pleasant things like love. From his halting, choked off inner dialogue it sounds like he doesn't think he's worthy/clean enough to love people. *huggles*
no subject
He gets along with and likes the other kids just fine, and has a lot of fun training them, they're all smart and have unlikely levels of physical coordination/speed/strength which makes his job both easier and more of a fun challenge, which is yay. He sees himself like a sort of honorary uncle, but most of the time he doesn't allow them to buddy up because training them so they survive is more important. He regards the two Lalondes with pride mixed with unease, because dude they're badass and terrifyingly dangerous and he's hella proud of them but at the same time they're girls and he has these silly "can't fully relate" ideas. Especially whenever Rose does something that reminds him of his own mom, it doesn't even need to be anything bad, but... issues. IIIIIssues. Weird enough he gets along with Jade just fine. :X
no subject
First: BURT THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU DO WITH BABIES. (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004667) Judging from that particular update I've been assuming that the flashstep is a genetic Strider thing, rather than being taught. How does it work in your version? Maybe speed as a result of genetic alteration? Would Rose have it too since she's part Strider?
Speaking of which, since Romy named Dave, I imagine Burt stole naming rights to Roxy and gave her the most porn-star 4-letter Ro- name he could. X3
Did Dirk (or any of the kids but Dirk's the most likely) ever stumble across porn of Bro on the internet?
Been wondering this for a bit, what's the living situation with the adults? You mentioned that Burt shares the showers with the boys, so he probably lives in the same section, or at least swings by to use their gym. (Headcanon is they have a sweet gym.)
no subject
I'm scaling down the badassness to more vaguely human abilities. Burt is extremely quick to move for a baseline human, though that doesn't necessarily translate into an ability to race. He's fast on his feet in a straight line, but not olympic 200 meter-dash level.
Dave would pretty much break the world record if he was allowed to compete (the genetic enhancements make it illegal though. XD) Dirk and Roxy are tied for second fastest; Doc Lalonde was basing herself on Burt's particular muscular/nerve system setup to improve on all the clones and in Roxy it really showed, even though technically she's not related to Burt. She's been reworked using his floorplan if you will. Rose is last but mostly because she thinks before she acts. XD;; It's a bad habit she can never get rid of, alas.
(btw, in a battle royale between the four derse kids, the last man standing is always a battle between roxy and rose. XD Roxy throws herself into it with wild abandon and she's REALLY GOOD at hand to hand, once she's under your guard you're basically fucked, and Rose tends to wait until the others have eliminated each other since they so rarely manage to agree to gang up on her first and take her out; dave never wants to band with dirk since that's admitting a weakness, even if he has to lose for it. Sometimes dirk and roxy team up to get dave and rose out of the way, and then inevitably roxy backstabs him with an evil laugh and wins. XD he always knows it's coming and he can never predict quite when and how.)
This roxy-naming headcanon is a very good headcanon, I am going to take it home and call it George. Yes. Yesss.
Burt is not actually a porn actor! that was a joke since his name sounds like a porn alias. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's appeared in amateur porn. Actually considering the issues i've given him it is very likely he did. Oh my god Dirk would have his brain so beautifully broken -- "oh hey this is fucking hot, hits all my buttons hmm yeah, you OH HELL I KNOW THAT TATTOO." (then again burt has scars and tattoos in a lot of places so it's hard to see his body naked and not recognize him XD), though I bet that if Burt's done porn that he has told his kids about it. (Dirk's the only one of them who looks for male on male porn for non-trolling purposes, btw. Dave looks at it when it pops up but it doesn't ping him. I bet Jade's taken a couple of looks but she prefers drawn porn to real actors, and furry to human anyway. XD)
Burt indeed lives upstairs. There is indeed a sweet as hell gym, it takes up the whole top floor (the kids' common room is on floor 1 and their bedrooms on floor 2; mom and dad live on the same floors but it's mostly separated spaces like two different apartments). (yes. Burt lives in the gym. There's a little office off to a side with a glass-windowed door and he has a bed crammed in there and he's totes fine with it.) There's even a swimming pool and a jacuzzi of all things, but you can only use them after you've trained like hell, yup, totally. All the gym & health stuff takes up all the space the kids could have had for separate bedrooms. Whoops. XD (most of them don't really want separate bedrooms anyway, they're used to sharing and they don't really use the bedroom for anything but to sleep, but the introverts especially would not mind having a private space; sharing the common room gets old at times.)
no subject
After a few weeks/months, Karkat starts grumping about how he's losing muscle mass, so John remembers "Oh yeah, we have a totally sweet gym," and things are fine for about a week, but Karkat can't really do anything but treadmill and push-ups and stuff because a bunch of gym things can be construed as too aggressive. Cue accidental-on-purpose chin-up competition, which sparks general competition between the guys and Karkat as to who can do things the best, which inevitably leads to wrestling, but only after they're more comfortable with each other and some boundaries have been established. When he punches Jake in the face Karkat freaks out worse than everybody else because AAAGH don't wanna go back to the labs! But Jake just shrugs it off and is disappointed because Dirk won't let them finish.
Sad one, John and Karkat are having an argument and John unthinkingly throws it in his face that he's never going to see Gamzee/Sollux/anyone he knows again. Karkat gets depressed and tries to kill himself, John wallows in self-blame for a little, then decides not thinking got him into it, so he'll do some serious thinking for a while. Nobody knows what they were fighting about, and now Karkat's strapped to a medic bed again and John's not talking to people, just being quiet and grim. It eventually goes away, but in the meantime it's scary because the optimistic, friendly guy vanished and the guy who shuts up and does what needs doing is at the forefront, which isn't a side of him they see off the battlefield. Especially unnerving for the parents and nosy higher-ups, because they don't even have the luxury of seeing him on the battlefield like that and have to take the other kids' word that yes, he gets like that when we're curb-stomping aliens, so yeah it's weird that he's got his game face on right after his alien captive almost killed himself because of what John said to him, surely he wasn't trying to get Karkat to off himself? Surely not?
On a different note:
"Morning Karkat."
"Morning Dad."
Collective spit-take, Dad just raises an eyebrow and asks Karkat if he knows what that word means.
Really random pervy one! Comes after they get Karkat a tracking collar or something so he doesn't need 24/7 bodyguard. Like, immediately after, when he realized that hey, for the first time in months he's got some space and alone time to himself, just gonna pop off to the bathroom real quick while most of the kids are out/occupied. John's off enjoying his own freedom and visiting Warhammer, so it's up to Jake to notice that hey, he's been locked in there for a REALLY long while now, maybe check and see that he's okay, because he' making some really weird noises and holy crap is that blood splashing on the floor? Bust down the door, oh stars and garters it is blood, he's ripped his stomach out in a desperate suicide attempt, well not today buddy because Jake to the rescue! Jane! Get in here, we need medical attention! Hauls him out of the stall kicking and screaming and clawing, which gets his attention well enough to see no, stomach's intact, but pants are half-off. Um. Heh heh. Nevermind Jane! They later try to get him to fill out an incident report to explain why he started screaming for a medic and came out covered in claw marks, but he pleads section six of the guy code. Karkat refuses to speak to anyone or turn a color that isn't solid red for three days, and never masturbates again.
Attempts to include Karkat in the group by getting him to help with chores run into a similar roadblock. NO HE WILL NOT MOP WITH YOU IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, WHAT KIND OF GIRL DO YOU THINK HE IS?
And John randomly talking out loud in the middle of their conversations is always ripe for humor.
"Karkat, please stop checking out Dirk's backside when I'm mind-melded with you. ...Karkat, please stop checking out Mr. Strider's backside when I'm mind-melded with you.
... ...Karkat, for the love of all that pure and decent in the world, please stop checking out Mr. Strider's frontside when I'm mind-melded with you."
no subject
After a few weeks/months, Karkat starts grumping about how he's losing muscle mass, so John remembers "Oh yeah, we have a totally sweet gym," and things are fine for about a week, but Karkat can't really do anything but treadmill and push-ups and stuff because a bunch of gym things can be construed as too aggressive.
Why are you reading my notes over my shoulder. D: Wrestling and punching isn't in mine (at the moment anyway XD not in that context, it might happen elsewhere XD) but prrrt yess.
Oh the sad one! ;__; nyuuu so sad. ;^; Gameface!John is hot as hell though, I commend you on your good taste. *_*
... What did I say about the notes! Karkat is totally going to think Dadbert's name is Dad. Jane and John both call him that and he hasn't caught what else other kids use! I dunno if he'll call him that to his face though. Hmm.
OH MY GOD THE PERVY ONE XDDDDDDDDDD i love youuuuu *dies* *DIES* Jake would totally do it too. XDDD
Pfff mopping. Though I was kinda thinking everyone does a bucket joke so maybe I wouldn't. Hmm. Then again at some point karkat is going to get shoved into a cupboard and it's likely it's used to stock cleaning stuff. HMMM. XD
XDD oh god, that'd be hilarious. Everyone else: whaaaaat.
John: uh yeah karkat likes boys i didn't tell you so?
karkat: ...... what do you mean i like boys are you saying none of the others do?
john: ... uh. dirk does but he's the exception. #>__># see that's why i'm totally not hitting on you!!
cue human sexuality lesson...
karkat: *STILL doesn't believe john isn't hitting on him once they're done because that's the stupidest thing he's ever heard and also rose tried to tell him about pansexuality like it was something of a rare concept HUMANS ARE FUCKED UP AND ASSBACKWARD OKAY and also exhibit one, john is SO hitting on him, shamelessly, all over the place, i rest my case.*
no subject
It'd be weird for Karkat to see gameface!John. Might be more fuel for the romance-fantasy fires, seeing the contrast between the doofy friendly guy who occasionally turns bossy, and the serious hardcore fighter. Gives perspective on exactly how kind and pitying he's being.
The alternate was Karkat getting drugged in a kidnapping attempt and Dadbert busting him out in a calm, professional way, which gets ruined a little when Karkat looks at him all fuzzy and half-conscious and goes "Dad?" I like the idea of Karkat interacting with the adults without the kids there for some reason. Interesting dynamics.
From Karkat's POV, they promised him they wouldn't be hovering so much, and then the minute he gets to do something fun and stress-relieving by himself Jake busts in and starts dragging him out into a public area while yelling for a girl to come see. XD Not the least bit funny for him, but at least he doesn't get in trouble for clawing Jake up?
It's not a joke if there's serious implications behind it, even if he gets blown off. But the closet sounds funny, wonder how he'd see that.
And they'll eventually get into anatomy too. I keep thinking that after a few more showers John's gonna break down and ask to see the pictures they took when Karkat was being examined, just so he knows what the heck's going on down there without having to ask Karkat for a peep show.
Also: "Um, we might need to rearrange the living arrangements. Because...well, you know that scene from Alien, when the baby grub comes bursting out of the guy's chest? It turns out, that's a lot closer to human reproduction than it is to alien's! And, uh, I don't know how to say this, but...I explained human breeding to him, and now Karkat refuses to be in the same room as any girls. Ever. ...in case they spontaneously give birth! Snnnrkpffffttthahahahahahaha, I know, I'm sorry, I could have explained it better, but he's really worried! Ahahaha, he's curled up under the bed making whimpering noises and he won't come out to the common room because Jane's here!"
Nowhere near funny, but I keep thinking that they'll get so used to wearing the headbands that they'll fall asleep with them on. My theory based off what you've said so far is that the troll's horns give everyone, if not actual psychic gifts, at least an "open channel." Unfortunately this is what causes their horrific nightmares, because they pick up the static the horrorterrors broadcast to the universe at large by their mere presence. Psychics can subconsciously shield themselves, and every troll can at least block it out a tiny bit, but wearing the headbands leaves another open channel to John's mind, and he has no experience or shields, which leads to dreams like this. (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004748) Basically by the end John winds up sitting upright screaming for a solid minute before he even wakes up. Freaks out everyone including Karkat, who isn't used to such terrified psychic feedback to what are pretty standard nightmares.
no subject
mmmyes. *__*
The alternate was Karkat getting drugged in a kidnapping attempt and Dadbert busting him out in a calm, professional way, which gets ruined a little when Karkat looks at him all fuzzy and half-conscious and goes "Dad?" I like the idea of Karkat interacting with the adults without the kids there for some reason. Interesting dynamics.
... wow yes. I. Yes. I might have to throw this one at my plotbunny hutch and see what happens. Though so far it's all John POV and he'd steal the show from the dad/karkat bondingtiems. Hrrrrrm. >:(
I keep thinking that after a few more showers John's gonna break down and ask to see the pictures they took when Karkat was being examined, just so he knows what the heck's going on down there without having to ask Karkat for a peep show.
Ahahahaha. I keep thinking he'd eventually cotton on that the pics *exist* and Rose has seen them (probably others too) but if he does take a look it' be a gross breach of privacy but HNG SO CURIOUS. (he doesn't even think about why it's okay for rose to look at them clinically and all "i just want to see the biology aspect" but not okay for him. XDD)
ooh I also like the nightmare idea. I've had a couple nightmare idea things but this one is also shiny. *paws at it* it merges and boosts some of my vague ideathings that were still pretty shapeless, so yay. See, you telling me all about your bunnies is a good thing! >__> Now let's see how much of those OOOH NEAT bits make it into the fic proper though, I swear I always end up discarding about 70% of my ideas or they just don't fit or I go with a divergent version that makes them no longer applicable or they ended up redundant. But just having them is prrrrrrrrrrt.
But wait, there's more!
You could do it from Burt's POV, no way would Dadbert be strolling past security and hacking coded doors to rescue an alien without him. Unless he's the one making the distraction. But it'd be almost better to see it from Burt's POV than Dadbert's or Karkat's. XD
On that topic, for some reason I started shipping Bro/Karkat a little. Partly as an extension of Dirk/Karkat, partly because their combined issues would make PWP possible. Also, at some point Karkat's going to realize that he can 1. Die a virgin, or 2. Become an alien's bitch. And since John's pretty much got dibs, he'll have to move fast if he wants anybody else to be his first.
Of course the only reason he's got dibs (outside of the possessiveness and all) is the fact that he's wearing John's symbol, which has all KINDS of comedy gold implied. "Drat, didn't do laundry. Hey, can I borrow a couple of your shirts for me and Karkat? I swear I'll wash them." Cue meltdown when he tosses one to Karkat, because the eight of them obviously have some sort of orgy going on and it's none of Karkat's business and he doesn't even know why he's surprised that John's displaying it so readily, but seriously? You're extending their possession of YOU onto ME? Or am I a belated hatch-day gift?! And the levels of anger/fear/annoyance/turned-on-ness change based on if it's Dave's, Dirk's, or Jake's shirt. XD
If Karkat doesn't adequately explain the meaning behind the symbols and just gets a request granted to put his 69 on some clothes, it could end up like this. (http://www.zerochan.net/887375) "Hey Karkat, Dirk's watching you today while I run some errands in the jungle, and I'm stealing back my sweatshirt for a day since you won' need it. ...what?"
As for the pictures, once he knows they exist and gets over seeing/not seeing them, he'll go "Turnabout is fair play, we know what he looks like so it's only fair," and give Karkat an anatomy book. (And Dirk and Roxy would give him porn.)
And! Last for for now, I think that was everything but:
"Hey, why doesn't Karkat pick the next movie?"
"[Insert alien muttering I'm too lazy to make up]...[Insert alien equivalent of shrieking WTF?!?!?!]"
"What, what is it?! ...oh Hitch? Do you want to watch Hitch?"
And Karkat just makes confused noises while he makes John put it on, then spends then next couple hours berating the film. Everyone cracks up because he's just so into it and Jade's got recording gear out because this is linguistic gold, he will not shut up.
Re: But wait, there's more!
for some reason I started shipping Bro/Karkat a little.
Ahaha me too. It doesn't help that there's a generous amount of Mr. Strider in this chapter I'm writing atm, but even outside BT I'm all "it would be AWESOME" and I can't figure out exactly why.
Oh the symbol shenanigans XDDDDDDDDDDDD *rolls on your ideas and lmaos*
Karkat totally needs to watch some human movies at some point. He'll pretend they're mostly so he can immerse himself in the language and culture but really it's so he can rant about how the shipping is mostly horribly wrong. XD And hahaha yes on Jade XDD
no subject
that is all.
mostly because I'm sitting behind my monitor going EEEEEEno subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I keep finding all the things and saying "Oh this reminds me of Asuka! I should show her!" But then I get paranoid about spamming with stuff you've already seen.
no subject
no subject
(And then angst because Bro need his space and freedom so he's gonna take the kiddies and hit the open road, but then they won't have a mother figure and hey all these books yap about how it's so important to kids' mental health, bad enough they're stuck with him as a fath--an OLDER MALE ROLE MODEL, if there's no balance according to the books they're gonna be all sorts of messed up and probably have daddy fetishes and hit girls and burp at the table, and then Romy calms him down and they bro-hug it out. Because Romy/Burt bromance is the best bromance.)