[SUBMISSION] A Gratuitous Meal

[dejup]

 I am suddenly confused despite the fact that I made up the rules. You can all run circles in disarray now.

 

Title: A Gratuitous Meal
Type of Media: Fic (2357 words)
Tags: none

 

Characters: Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde, AR
Ships: Dirk<>Roxy

Category One: 
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Tags Not Used: none
Category Two:
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There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Everything comes at a price. With every choice you make, you’ve got to put something on the line. There just might be something ready and willing to fuck you up in the line, and if there’s anything out to do that, you better be ready.

Your name is Dirk Strider. You figure you know this best in Post-Apocalyptic-Dictatorship-World-Once-Called-Earth. (Population: 2, a crap load of carapaces, an alien fish queen, and roughly a few trillion cubic miles of water.) You were born ready for the mess of your life, proudly armed with a pair of righteous shades and an inanimate puppet as a best friend.
Through the magical blessing called the Internet, you met Jane, Jake and Roxy. You expected this to come at a price too, and it sure did.
Jane and Jake were wonderful. They were sweet and kind and headstrong, but they were naturally from the past. 400 years ago, a girl named Jane Crocker and a boy named Jake English took it upon themselves to exist, and eventually became friends with a boy named Dirk Strider. The two of them made for conversations lasting deep into the night, until you found yourself drowsy and having to pick up your head, take off your shades, and squint to see the blue and green words clashing with the orange on your screen.
Then there was her. Roxy was more of the enigma within the three people you’ve met.
She was funny, chipper, and drunk – which you assumed was the price. The price of finding someone just like you, someone who lost the only person they looked up to hundreds of years ago and lived alone, thinking they were the last person on Earth for the majority of their life, was that she was constantly and desperately drunk. If you had to give an estimate, you’d say that her blood alcohol level was probably at a 0.15% level about 150% of the time. However, Roxy was still Roxy, as drunk as she may be. She was smart, not too vain, and knew a joke when she saw one.
Honestly, you could understand why she was drunk more often than not. You would be too if clashing swords against metal wasn’t more of your thing. (You also have very bad alcohol tolerance. Fumbling around like a juggler who’s lost his keys after the first sip didn’t exactly appeal to you; you would imagine that you’d be above things like getting totally wasted, no offense to Roxy.)
You found her price three years after you met her.
You hadn’t known you were putting so much on the line when you first saw those pastel pink words. The price, you assumed, was basically having to deal with her drinking. To meet a great friend, a valuable partner, but to have to sacrifice your time into pulling her up from her constantly drunken state. You eventually assumed the position of her best friend, and you were always there for her if she was down. And even though her mind was not always in a right state, her heart reached out for you and tried to help you when you were down, too.
She’s drunk, you tell yourself, but she always brings you up.

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

TG: dirkokkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkyface
TT: My face is a Diroky?
TG: yeh i beleive thts how it goes
TG: b/c youre dirk so your face is dirk
TT: I’m Dirk? Holy shit, Rox, I never realized that.
TT: Someone get the press. This is big news. We’ve got to tell everyone on the planet here.
TG: we did
TT: Touché.
TG: whts up with you and the pressures anyways???/
TT: Dunno, man. I get stressed out real easy. The pressure just gets to me real hard. It’s insane.
TG: *rollese eyes**
TG: *prses
TG: *press
TG: there happy
TT: Yeah. Happy.

You’ve always seen the world in a blur of facts. They were subtle certainties that defined your time here and objectively spoke reasons for doing what you do, being who you are, and perceiving what you perceive. You eat because it was necessary to survive. You sleep because your body demands rest. You speak and chat because not wanting to be alone was in your nature.
Roxy, you knew, saw the world in a blur of emotions. She eats because food tastes good, and who knows? Maybe she was in the mood for pumpkin soup with her vodka. She sleeps because she felt dead beat, hacking through a long day on things that aren’t even necessary. She talks to people because she likes them, because seeing words that weren’t hers pop up on her screen was appealing to her.
TT: Maybe I should make some sort of gargantuan transportalizer for us. Maybe we could visit each other.
She was like a little sister to you. You had to protect her, had to keep her happy and blissfully ignorant for as long as you could.
And even with a cool exterior, a laid-back charisma latent in pixelated orange words, you were the same to her.
Tired. Lonely. Scared, if you would let her amuse herself with such a thought so that she can find some way to distract herself. And who knows? Maybe you were scared, even if you don't feel scared.
You can't really accede that your gut feelings were very reliable by now, anyways. You look up, amber eyes flitting to the chat program on your screen.
TG: tht would be cool
TT: Damn straight it would be. Imagine having me in your house right at this moment, chicka.
TG: opps i shuld probably clean up now huh
TT: I don't mind.
And lo and behold, you actually didn't.
What would visiting Roxy be like? You wondered to yourself on many a cold, windy night. Fun? Tiring? Heartwarming?
You look over to your desk, eyes falling onto the screwdriver innocently sitting there. You had the ability to find a way to see Roxy in the flesh. You could make a one-way transporter and not come back, or make another one over at Roxy’s place so that the two of you could visit each other whenever you wanted. So that if any of you were upset, the two of you could just sit on a pile of stuffed plushies and jam out your feelings until even the night grew weary. And maybe Roxy wouldn’t have to type out a “dont worry dorky it will be fine *e-pap*" followed by a concise “*dirky” to you.
You seriously need to consider whether this is a good idea or not.
Instead, you put yourself at work, whittling away your nights with arduous hours of wrenches and scraps of metal. You would finish this, somehow.
TG: mayve we culd finally have that tea paryt dirkkkkkkkyyyyy
TT: I demand to be seated next to Mr. Pouncepaws.
TG: wow u baby
TG: do you want nestea instead too or what
TT: Was that a challenge?
TG: possibly ;))
TT: Bring it on, Rox. You'll soon find your stomach capacity to be lower than you thought.
TT: But all doilies and tea parties aside, I'm roughly 25% in.
TT: If you're truly curious on the exact percentage, just ask AR. He'll tell you.
TT: Anyways, this is one hell of an excavation I'm doing. Expect me to be off for quite a while on it.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TT: 34.628174%
TG: thnk u ar
TG: seriousku u are my to go math dude
TG: i knw i csn count on yohy
TG: *yuo
TG: *you woah there hands
TT: Glad to be of use here, Roxy.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TT: 41.626284%
TT: He's not being very productive today.
TG: its no pribs man
TG: *probs
TG: its just
TT: Just what?
TG: i cnat bvelievw tha hes doingthis
TG: *beliebe
TG: wait no ew tht dudw from the long long long time ago
TG: *beleive
TG: close enough
TT: Yeah, his heart's set on meeting you.
TT: The amount of effort he's putting into this is blowing my mechanical socks off at the rate of sound. It's insane.
TG: yeh hes never on any more
TT: With reason.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TT: 63.729495%
TG: wow hw eorked a lot more tonighy
TG: *he wroked
TG: u know ar
TT: Yeah?
TG: i cnat wait to poke ur shades rofl
TT: It seems you want to poke my shades.
TT: I'm not exactly sure if I should be flattered or unnerved.
TG: the bteter one
TG: *bester
TG: *better
TT: Well then, thanks.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TT: 72.724193%
TG: thank
TG: ar you are p much really smart
TT: I'm a fuckin' computer program bot thing.
TT: Smart comes with the package here. S'not exactly a choice here.
TT: Not like being smart is bad or something.
TG: yeh i get it js bro
TT: Oh.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TT: 72.724193%
TG: hwat
TG: but its been like three days
TT: Yeah.
TT: Something's definitely up.
TG: tht so
TT: That is so.
TT: Now don't get your kitty panties in a bunch. He's fine.
TT: Probably just going through that teenage phase or some shit.  No biggie.
TT: If he's actually not working like this, he's probably just nervous or some dramatic shit.
TT: Woah there, AR. What's the deal here?
TG: ooh hes on
TG: hye
TT: Hye to you too, Rox. Anyways, don't listen to AR here.  He's just spewing 13 year old bullshit everywhere.
TT: Seems like a grammatically incorrect sentence to me there. Is the bullshit thirteen years old, or what?
TT: God I was a douche when I was thirteen.
TT: I figure that's something to be proud of though.
TT: Damn straight, man.
TG: wat 13 yr ild isnt a douche tho
TT: Point made.
TT: Point made.
TT: Goddammit.
TT: Anyways, I should be off. Been taking a break these past few days here. As you can probably see.
TT: His hormones are acting up again.
TT: Finished that for you there, bro.
TT: Wow, man. Rude.
TG: hehehheh
TG: nice one ar
TT: Thanks.
TG: e-fistbunp
TT: Roxy, are you really using my own jokes against me to a computer version of me?
TT: That shit's messed up on so many levels.
TG: y
TT: Anyways, I'm out. I should finish this.
TT: Dirk Strider sure never leaves a project unfinished.
TT: Sounds about right.

--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]--
TG: hey
TT: 94.7394%
TG: lol ar that took you a while
TT: Sorry.
TG: nonnono its ok to be off your game
TT: Speaking of being off your game, you're sounding pretty sober today. Should I be offering my congratulations?
TT: A 'Congrats on the Sobriety' cake?
TT: A tylenol?
TG: no
TG: ok maybe the last one
TT: I'd get right on that if I weren't glasses. But alas.
TT: Why the sudden change in morale?
TT: I don't reckon that you suddenly decided that being drunk was lame and uninteresting.
TT: Which society has led me to believe, yet once again I have no idea what being drunk is like because I'm glasses. As I've previously said.
TG: im trying to stay sober in case dirk gets here ok
TT: Oh.
TG: i dont want him to work ao hard and show up to me being a dumb drunk
TG: *so
TT: I don't think he'll mind. I mean, being an imprint of his mind from three years ago I’d testify to that. He's your best friend.
TG: i know
TG: but i mind and all so
TG: im just trying to stay right b/c hes my best friend
TG: and hes done all that shit for me and yeah
TG: hes finally found a way to get to me so id like to at least not be piss drunk
TT: Yeah, I get it.
TT: Thanks.
--timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]--

--timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]--
TT: 'Sup.
TG: oh hey
TG: long time no see
TT: It's been less than a week, Rox.
TT: Either way, I'm sure you haven't entered a diving
contest taking place in the Sea of Fuck-Ups, so a week shouldn't have been that bad. I've been pretty hard at work.
TG: yeah i know
TT: Anyways, it should be done now. I'll have to give it some test runs, though.
TG: really?
TT: Yep. Are you in your room?
TG: eyup
TT: Alright, hold up. Let me punch in your coordinates.
TG: alright
TG: woah
TG: dirk did you really just send me a smuppet
TT: Come on. I even sent a pink one.
TG: yeah its cute :3
TT: Glad you like it.
TG: woah did you just send another one
TG: this ones orange
TG: huh
TG: oh
TG: dirk you are going crazy w/these smuppets lol
TG: this ones white hmm
TG: oh theres a diamond on its back
TG: dirk you suck at this subtlety thing
TG: ...oh
TG: dirk dont think i dont see you
TG: youre reflected in the monitor jesus christ
TG: dont give me that look
TG: fine ill get off the computer now

Your name is DIRK STRIDER and you are currently shin-deep in a pile of smuppets. Which wouldn't be so embarrassing if you weren't in your best friend ROXY LALONDE'S room.
When you met her, you thought the most you would have to get to lose was a couple thousand brain cells. You didn't expect to get so attached.
Roxy is the one person you would trust your life to. And you were the only one Roxy trusted her life to.
Neither of you were betting that kind of a friendship away anytime soon.