Chapter Text
The door is unlocked when Rose checks the handle. She walks straight through, not bothering to announce herself.
After all, she is expected.
The clicking of her heels echoes resoundingly through the trashed penthouse apartment. Somewhere further in, an eerie wailing and dry rustling float through the rooms. Discarded clothes gather dust in corners, and dishes lie in unwashed, teetering towers in the sink. Boxes, both empty and full, cluster around the doorway to Dave’s bedroom. This door, too, Rose swings open in a matter appropriate for an author of her dramatic prestige.
The wailing she had heard in the front rooms is being emitted by a small, pink bundle wriggling on the bed, and the rustling turns out to be Dave himself, frantically trying to shoosh the irritable infant. He looks positively exhausted. Shoes scuffed, knees stained, something unidentifiable and suspiciously chunky drying on his shirt. Usually crisp and press-ready, his velvet suit jacket hangs unbuttoned and wrinkled from his shoulders. Dave’s face is makeup-free, drawn, and half hidden by his dirty shades and bangs.
Gently, Rose places a hand on his shoulder.
“Tell me again, brother dear, how exactly did you come to be in possession of this child?”
Wearily, Dave picks up the baby and cradles it to the relatively clean part of his jacket.
“I told you over text. Club got too loud, I dipped to take a smoke break, and instead of finding some peace and quiet to brood artistically in for a while, I find this kid sitting surrounded by beer bottles and shit. Not literal shit. It might have been literal shit. It’s not like a got down to give it a whiff like some sort of shit inspector. Yessir, mister dooky union representative, this is some grade-A alley shit we have here with, what’s this, some bull? Because it’s bullshit that someone would just leave a baby where anyone could come and pick it up.”
“Such as yourself?”
“Exactly.” Rose’s mouth quirks up. Dave, who had begun to pace around the room, turns back to her. “It’s not like I could just fucking drop him off with the police. Have you heard the shit that goes down in the system these days? I mean, fuck, we lived that shit. That’s our shit. Not his shit,” He tucks his chin and looks at the rancorous little face still hiccuping and red from its tantrum. “I have cash now. So much fucking moolah. Literally enough to fill a swimming pool, and not just ones like some sort of fish hooker. Rose, I could protect him.”
Rose gestures around the room and the mess, “But are you ready for the responsibility, Dave? While I applaud your newfound paternal instinct, this,” she wrinkles her nose as she nudges aside an opened box of diapers, “is not encouraging.”
“I panicked.”
“A single baby does not require one of every formula available on Amazon.”
“I’m prepared.”
Sighing, Rose gives Dave that LookTM. The one that tells him he’s an idiot, but damn if it isn’t endearing. Or perhaps Rose is growing soft in her old age. (Her wife assures her that mid-twenties isn’t old, but Rose knows better. She will defeat those crows feet.)
“At least promise me that you won’t attempt this journey entirely on your own. The tour ended this week, so I’ll be in town for at least as long as it will take to get settled.” She doesn’t bother mentioning the legal jungle gym that will require navigating. That’s what lawyers are for.
Behind the glasses, his eyes soften and the tension in his jaw eases. “Of course, sis. You can be his aunt or godmother or whatever. Are godmothers still a thing? Is that just a Disney princess thing or is that a real thing thing. Whatever, Dirk’s going to be the coolest Disney princess ever.”
“Dirk?”
“…Yeah,” A rare smile creeps across Dave’s face. “I did some mad net-surfing in the taxi. It’s German for dagger or some shit.”
“And you can call him ‘dork’ when he’s older.”
“And I can call him ‘dork’ when he’s older.”
Their goofing is interrupted by Dirk’s renewed fussing. This time, Dave is the one to wrinkle his nose. “Okay, that’s actually shit. Holy, shit, that’s rank. Phew. Yeah, I’m just going to go, do whatever I have to do to take care of that. Jegus.”
As Dave beats a hasty retreat, Rose chuckles to herself and slips her phone from her pocket. Dave’s lawyers are excellent, but hers are faster.
The majority of the day is spent sorting the horde of baby supplies Dave had overnighted to the apartment and clearing his bachelor pad of anything that might be dangerous to an infant. While Dave cleans first himself then the baby, Rose compiles a list of any essentials Dave might have missed in his late-night shopping frenzy. (She may take the opportunity to boost a few of her fellow authors’ books on parenting, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Later that evening, a bottle of wine on the coffee table and fleets of emails sent, Rose sits back with a glass of and watches the exceedingly domestic scene before her. Cradling Dirk against a clean shirt and burp rag, Dave raps quietly about princesses and fairy godmothers and snakes and swords. Finally quieted after his spontaneous adoption and the proceeding chaos, Dirk listens with a surprisingly intelligent expression for an infant. Wide and amber in the dim light, his eyes seem too old and world-weary compared to his chubby face. Slowly, they droop closed, and Dave lays him gently down in a pile of blankets.
Tossing himself back onto the couch, Dave reaches over Rose’s lap to grab the other glass.
“Is it weird I’m already used to him? I feel like I could actually do this. Can I do this? What should I get him to call me like, when he can actually say more than goo-goo-gah-gah. Definitely not doing the whole ‘daddy’ thing, that’s just weird. That’s what rando DMs on Twitter call me. Papa? Ew, fuck, I can’t believe that just came out of my mouth, I need Listerine, a toothbrush, something. Bro?” the rant pauses, and Dave considers, brow furrowing.
Rose sets her glass down. “You could always let him choose naturally,” gently, she reminds him, “He doesn’t have to be a part of this.”
“Nah.” Dave seems to make a decision, nodding his head sharply, “Bastard stuck around as long as he could. Besides, any variation of dad makes me feel like someone dragged a mushy banana down my spine,” he nudges the sleeping Dirk with a sock-covered toe, “Hear that? You can call me Bro.”
In the following years, Dave learns much about being a Bro. It’s exhausting, messy, and so fucking rewarding. He learns that it’s a good thing he’s an insomniac because the kid sure as hell isn’t sleeping. Many times, he does take advantage of Rose’s generous invitation to help watch the Dirk and make sure Dave isn’t messing the kid up too badly by letting him watch director’s cuts of SBaHJ during dinner. He learns that preschool isn’t for them and that Dirk learns best when Dave raps or lets Dirk color during lessons. Taking care of a kid also gives Dave an excellent excuse to avoid a number of pointless dinner meetings. (Turns out that strolling up to a which-pose-should-be-used-for-Hella-Jeff’s-action-figure conference with a Baby Bjorn on excludes you from further invitations to said conferences.)
Dave documents everything. His office is plastered with Polaroid pictures of Dirk playing with SBaHJ merch prototypes, Dirk in those hilarious baby photo shoot outfits, Dirk on his first night home. An album on Dave’s desk holds more of all of Dirk’s firsts. One picture features Dirk leaning as far as the plastic highchair will let him away from a spoonful of avocado mush. The first spoonful of solid food had been accepted without protest, but as he chewed, Dirk’s tiny face scrunched up in disgust. That also happened to be the occasion of Dirk’s first word: “No.” It was quickly followed by his second and third: “Fuck that.” Another picture shows Dirk with tiny aviators, wobbling on his own two feet in the grass. Another frames his tiny silhouette against the city sunset.
A knock on the door interrupts Dave’s reminiscing. He doesn’t bother answering as it swings open to a 6-year old in footie pajamas, dragging a bag of Legos. For the past few nights, an hour after bedtime, Dirk has been showing up with his Legos to build quietly in the corner until his head starts to droop. Dave knows why; tomorrow marks Dirk’s seventh birthday, or as close to it as the doctor could estimate.
He lets Dirk sit there for a few minutes.
“Hey. You hyped for tomorrow? Gonna be bringing in more presents than baby J on Christmas. Which won’t be hard cause that’d only be three presents, and they’d all be herbs and gold, which isn’t that bad of a present when you think about it, but what’s a gogdamn baby supposed to do with a hunk of gold anyway. I guess the parents would be pretty happy, but that kinda sucks ass for the kid.”
Dirk nods. That’s another thing Dave learned: Dirk doesn’t talk when he doesn’t have to. When he does, he’ll go off on tangents even more random and convoluted than Dave’s own.
“Rose and Kanaya are going to be there with Roxy. Hell yeah, little man, Ro-Lal and D-Stri back together, ready to blow the fucking socks off of everybody.” At the mention of his playmate, Dirk looks up from his project in interest. Dave’s pretty sure he has a picture of them mid-rap somewhere…
His album flipping is interrupted by tiny bony knees digging into his lap and small fists gripping his shirtsleeve.
“Woah, hi there. Careful where you’re climbing— FUCK— Ow, jegus, sit or be yeeted, kid.”
Settled, Dirk reaches for the photo album and heaves the leaves over to show the first pictures, the ones taken the first day Dave brought him home.
“Tell me about this, Bro,” he points to a cellphone shot of Dave holding a cocoon of pink heart blankets on his hip while he pours premade pancake batter in a pan.
“That is Rose trespassing on pancake morning because she’s Rose. Also using technology at breakfast, which is just plain fucking rude.”
Dave feels proud of the look of muted exasperation Dirk gives him. That’s probably also Rose’s influence, dammit.
“Bro. Please.”
“Fine, fine, buckle up kid we’re taking a trip down memory lane so keep all arms and legs and heads inside the vehicle…”
In the morning, Kanaya opens the door to find them both curled in a blanket and surrounded by Lego replicas of the apartment’s rooms, fast asleep.
She takes a picture.