#sorry my absolute annoyance with the latter is kinda boiling over i just want him to lose that title and go away for a long time again

[unintentionaloracle]

Roman Reigns could shill a questionable "hydration drink" and run a podcast but The US Title Holder could never help carry a 3 1/2 to 4 year epic storyline, even while part timing.

[corvid-knight]

One More Brother

The Striders acquire one more member, and D attends a funeral.

This goes with Being A Brother Is Hard As Hell and takes place after How To Deal With Murder!

(Read it on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820532)

When Bro calls you, you're in the middle of a consultation with one of the voice actors, and you let it ring through to voicemail. Of course you do; he calls you a lot, and ninety percent of the time it's something that can wait. Most of the other ten percent is shit that can wait too, come to think of it; he just overreacts to it.

The second time it rings, you also let it go to voicemail.

When your cell starts ringing only a few seconds after it stopped the last time, you sigh and get to your feet, glancing at the slightly-confused guy you'd been explaining his character to. "Excuse me for a sec, I think I've got some family shit going on..."

He nods and gives you an understanding look, and you step out into the hall.

"Bro, what—"

"You need to come home.

"I can't just ditch this shit—"

"I'm not fucking joking, D. Get your ass back here."

He sounds as calm as he always does on the phone; you absolutely hate that he's not giving you any verbal cues to work off of. This could be him getting pissed over something you did and forgot about, this could be him wanting backup on some little thing with Dirk, this could be Dirk having finally managed to get ahold of one of the weapons from Bro's extensive collection (you really hope it's not that one...wait, he wants you to come home, not to the hospital, so it must not be), it could be about fucking anything. His tone doesn't give anything away.

"Why am I coming home, exactly?"

There's the sound of him exhaling heavily close to the phone, and—you think—the sound of a baby fussing. Which is weird as fuck, if that's what you actually heard; Dirk's eight years old, at least six years past the sounds you can just barely hear.

"We got another brother," he says finally. "And you need to be at a fucking funeral in an hour and a half, unless you want me to be the one to go."

"Whose?"

"Your parents'." Yours, not ours, even though the latter's the more accurate term. It's also a term he hasn't used since they dropped him off to live with you. "Hurry up and get home."

"Bro—" The phone beeps halfway through the word; he hung up. "...shit."

For a second, you just lean against the wall, tucking your phone back into your shirt pocket and closing your eyes. Today's definitely going to be a shitshow, you think.

It takes some fast talking to get you out of the rest of the shit you're supposed to do today, but not quite as much as you expected. You guess that that's a combination of two things: number one, everyone expects "artists" to be temperamental, even if you're usually pretty fucking good at showing up and putting in the work for your screenplays. More so than anybody else, it seems, since half your job is bullying everyone else into actually getting the damn job done.

Number two, the phrase "my parents just died" is nothing short of magical. The fact that you can't seem to dredge up any emotions other than annoyance for having them fuck up your life again (which you're very careful to hide; the bereaved son isn't supposed to be irritated about the state he's just been shoved into) and dread for the upcoming experience of having to attend a gathering of people who knew them and only know of you.

Thankfully, dread can apparently be mistaken for grief, if that's what people want to see, and you walk out with the understanding that you may be back tomorrow, but if you end up taking a long weekend, no one's going to say anything. You'll definitely be back tomorrow, but they don't need to know that right now.

That takes fifteen minutes.

The drive back to the apartment takes half an hour.

Bro meets you at the door, shoving a folder overstuffed with papers at you. "Clothes're on the bed. There's shit in there you need to sign, the attorney'll be at the funeral."

"Yeah." You take the folder, but your attention's totally caught up by the baby your brother's holding against his shoulder. And it's an actual baby, not a toddler like Dirk was when you got him; this kid's so little your breath catches in your throat, his face buried in Bro's neck so you can only see a fluff of hair so fine and light that it looks white. "Let me see him, man."

"You're already going to be late by the time you finish getting ready." But when you set the folder down and hold out your arms, he hands the baby over willingly enough, stepping back and crossing his arms. Oh, he's pissed over some aspect of this—more likely at having your parents dragged back into his life than at the kid, though.

The baby whines at the change between Dirk and you, opening his eyes and crinkling his nose at you. Red eyes, like yours, and his hair really is a white that you're willing to bet won't darken with age—recessive genes hit him too, didn't they? Instead of crying, he blinks and reaches to try to swipe your shades off your face.

You tilt your head back to keep them in place and realize there's a lump in your throat. You're going to cry over how small and perfect this kid is.

"Gonna be late," Bro says again, and holds out his arms for the baby.

"I don't give a shit." You do hand him back, reluctantly. "If I'm late, I'm late. Screw it, right?"

"If it was me, I'd say that." He shrugs, adjusting the kid until said kid stops whining to come back to you. "But you know if I went I'd end up in jail for assault; no fuckin' way I can last more than a couple minutes in a room full of people who agree with those assholes."

"Which is why I'm the one going."

"Yeah, exactly. So you better fucking go, 'less you want them to be whispering about the shitty kinda person you are the whole time."

You can't help but laugh at that, as you head for your bedroom. "Hey, they'll do that anyway."

Fifteen minutes to make yourself presentable. Longer than you really want to take, but not as much time as you probably should. Then again, unless anyone you're going to meet has seen you at opening night for one of your films, they don't know that this isn't your best look of all time.

Bro absolutely refuses to let you drive. He gives you the choice of letting him drive you—not fucking happening, since it'd mean either taking the baby in the car without a carseat, or leaving him home for Dirk to watch—or taking an Uber. You go with the former, not that you really have a choice since Bro has your car keys.

So, the drive takes forty-five minutes instead of the half hour you would've shaved it down to. The downside of that is that it makes you inarguably late; the upside is that it gives you time to read through and sign the paperwork Bro gave you. Roughly a quarter of it's stuff you've signed twice before—custody documents, shit that confirms that you're Dave Strider's legal guardian now. The rest is shit that seems to be asking you to renounce any claim you might've had to your parents' estate.

Since you have no fucking claim to anything of theirs anymore, and don't want one, you sign those with absolutely no hesitation.

The last page is a list of shit you do get out of this.

The baby—Dave. A fucking furnished house, which you intend to put on the market more or less immediately. No way are you ever setting foot in there again. A safety deposit box, contents not listed here.

You're almost afraid to wonder what's in there.

You get everything filled out, and when the short guy with a worried expression and a horrible suit heads for you, you find a smile for him and hand over the folder. While he's going through the contents to check that you signed where you were supposed to, you slip your shades off and do your damnedest to disappear into the crowd of people already here.

It's not technically a funeral but something between a wake and a reception; your parents will be cremated. There's two closed coffins surrounded with too fucking many flowers at one end of the large room. You don't intend to go anywhere near them. There's tables with food and alcohol, probably the most expensive kinds of both that anyone could round up.

A drink sounds really damn good right now, but you don't intend to have one. The reasoning is partly that even if you end up just a little drunk, it'll look worse than you want it to, and partly your purely, stubbornly vindictive refusal to take anything of theirs.

Persephone in Hades comes to mind. Eat the fruit, get trapped here for-fucking-ever. Then again, from the looks you're getting, you're the devil here.

You stifle a sigh and make yourself a bet on how long it'll tke the looks and whispers to become something else.

Surprisingly, it's more than an hour. You get uncomfortable smiles and "we're so sorry for your loss" and "such a shame" and "it's such a pity about their son" until you want to put your fist through a wall.

That last one is what makes your blood boil, really; you don't give a fuck about your parents, haven't for more than a decade, but they're sorry for the baby, sorry for Dave, and that's so fucked up. He's too young to remember any of this shit, not that they're sorry because he might be traumatized by losing his parents. No, they're sorry for him because you'll be the one raising him, his brother who doesn't have a girlfriend at thirty and probably never will, his brother who didn't force the other two sons to come to say goodbye to the people they got their genes from, his brother, instead of a nice normal couple who don't give a fuck about their kids.

Never mind that Bro hates them. Never mind that Dirk barely remembers when he called the people raising him mom and dad instead of Bro and D. Never mind that you love your brothers more than your parents ever loved you or them. These assholes pity the kids and judge you and don't bother to hide it, and you're starting to debate whether you're going to have to have that drink after all.

Then the woman with the half-full glass walks up to you, and you realize that it's a good thing you didn't make up your mind on the drink yet.

"Can I help you?" you ask her, taking a step back as she gets further into your personal space than you're okay with. There's absolutely no chance that she actually wants something concrete from you, but you're not the fucking source of entertainment here. You're going to be polite. This is the reason you're here and Bro isn't: because you can be polite, even when you're gritting your teeth so hard your jaw hurts.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," she hisses, actually hisses, at you. She's at least a foot and a half shorter than you and twice your age, and even though she has to look up to scowl at you she takes another step forward.

"Ma'am, how about we assume I'm ashamed and you back off me a little?" She's too fucking close and you want to push her away. Instead, you keep your hands at your sides and retreat the eight inches or so that you can, until your back hits the wall.

"Your parents would be so ashamed of you—"

"My parents disowned me when I was fourteen years old and contacted me twice since then, both times to tell me I needed to raise one of my younger brothers because they didn't give a shit about the kids." You state the facts calmly and don't outwardly wince when she does the precise opposite of stepping back. "I'm not sure what you know about them, but you sure as hell don't know anything about me, so I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about."

"Language!"

"Ma'am, if you get any closer to me you're about to hear some actual fucking language."

The hope there was that she'll get insulted enough to storm off in a huff, maybe complain about you to some of the other old fuckers here. What actually happens is that her eyes go wide and furious, she takes a single step back, and you barely have time to close your eyes before the contents of her glass splatter across your face.

Alcohol burns your eyes and nose, and you have to bite back another obscenity. You very deliberately wipe first one eye, then the other with the heel of your hand, keeping your movements slow and precise, shaking off droplets of...cognac. At least that's what it tastes like.

Waste of good liquor.

When you open your eyes, she's still standing there looking at you like you're the antichrist.

You give her the most polite grin you can muster, flip her off with both hands, and very carefully don't brush against her as you head for the side of the room with the food—and more importantly, the alcohol.

To your credit, you successfully resist the impulse to just get drunk. Two drinks—whiskey instead of cognac, expensively smooth over the burn of alcohol—carry you through another half hour or so, and when that's gone by you walk out and call an Uber. And yes, you earn more dirty looks while you're standing outside the building waiting for it to arrive, but you're so fucking done with the people in there that it's not funny.

The sympathetic look that the driver gives you as you get in the car sets you off. You manage to get your seatbelt buckled, despite the fact that your hands're shaking; as she pulls onto the highway you double over in your seat and cry, hard. It's almost purely out of anger and frustration, with your parents and yourself, but it must look enough like grief that the woman in the driver's seat doesn't ask if you're okay.

Then again, it could be that she just isn't paid enough to ask. Or that she thinks you're just a sad drunk. You do smell like one, thanks to that bitch.

Anyway, having your ten-minute meltdown on the ride home is good, because it means by the time you open the door to the apartment you've gotten yourself to a state where it looks like you didn't have a meltdown at all.

The apartment is very quiet. You find Dirk sitting on the floor in front of the couch, his headphones on and his attention completely fixed on the laptop in front of him. Your laptop, actually. Bro's asleep on the couch with the baby nestled next to him, safe from falling off.

Dirk looks up and untangles himself from the headphones when you crouch down next to him. "Hey, D."

"Hey yourself. What're you doing with my computer, buddy?"

"Making it work better." From another eight-year-old that might seem like wishful thinking, but you believe your little bro. "I already did mine, and Bro was mad so I didn't wanna mess with his."

"He's not mad at you, man." As Dirk closes the laptop you hold out your arms, and he reaches for you with no hesitation. If he's this eager for comfort, Bro must've snapped at him at least. "Some shit went down that stressed him out, is all."

"Still mad," Dirk mumbles, pressing his face into your neck for a moment. " 's still scary."

That hurts a little.

"You don't have to be scared of Bro, Dirk."

"...yeah. I know." He shrugs against your arms, and pulls back enough to look up at you curiously. "Did he mean it when he said Dave was my bro too?"

"Hell yeah he did. Now you're the big bro; is that cool or what?"

The worst thing you could expect from Dirk is a puzzled look and maybe a suggestion of what this could be called other than "cool." But he goes for the polar opposite: an exited grin and an emphatic nod of his head. "So fucking cool."

"No swearing. Did Bro let you hold him yet?"

From the way his orange eyes go wide at the suggestion, you're going to take that as a no. You let go of Dirk and gently push him away, getting up to lean over Bro and Dave. The latter's awake, those familiar red eyes blinking slowly up at you as he yawns and waves his arms.

You wouldn't be surprised if he cried when you picked him up, but he doesn't.. Just makes soft baby-sounds and reaches for your shades where they're hooked into the collar of your shirt.

"C'mon, lil' dude, you don't want those."

Dirk's watching you; you sit down and wait for him to do the same, then deposit Dave on his lap and guide his hands to support the baby properly.

God, you wish you were taking pictures of this. The amazed look on Dirk's face is fucking priceless.

Bro chuckles, and you look over to see that he has his phone out, doing exactly that. He shoves his shades up with his free hand, meeting your eyes with a small grin. "Cute," he says.

"Really damn cute." You put your hand down, and Dave grabs your finger. "Both of y'all, you know that?"

Dirk only looks up at you for a moment to nod. Then he's fully focused on his baby brother again. You feel like he'll stay like that as long as you'll let him.

Damn, but you're so fucking happy that your brothers love each other as much as you love them.