Alpha Dave:

This writing sample is from an AU where Alpha!Dave is a robot.

Dave comes into existence in stops and starts. His limbs wake before he does, testing themselves in increments. Twitching fingers turn into clenched fists, wiggling toes to legs that stretch and test the limits of their boundaries. Dave registers the weight on his lap before he remembers how to open his eyes, processes the room without needing to look. His mind comes online all at once, a flash of light in the dark.

Red eyes snap open, and Dave has to silence the scream that wants to rip out of him. Something’s wrong, but he can’t pinpoint what it is, not at first. He presses a hand to his chest, but doesn’t find the frantic heartbeat he’s expecting. Instead, the exact temperature of the room and the precise amount of weight sitting in his lap asserts itself, a nagging that he can’t ignore until he first acknowledges it. It dissipates immediately, only to be replaced with the time and date, practically a neon strobing light beneath his eyelids.

“What’s wrong with me?” Dave asks, panting. His voice sounds as wrong as everything else feels. He’s laying on something soft, but that isn’t right. It should be solid cement beneath him, the sky at his eyes and HIC hovering over him. A bland ceiling meets his gaze instead, and when he tilts it downward — Rose! It’s Rose sprawled across his lap, but it’s not. She’s so much younger than she should be, her expression politely curious instead of disapproving, sorrowful, or warmly amused. She’s a preteen, his brain calculates, can’t be more than thirteen.

Dave looks at her for half a second before his expression crumbles into grief. His knuckles knock against his hip – his chassis – and it's the metallic clanking sound that catches his attention. “No, no, no, no, no.” A sob tears from his throat as he lifts his hand to stare at it unseeingly. It’s metal, just like the rest of him. Frenzied fingers slide over his chest and up to his face, tracing the lines of his features like a person might pliable clay. It’s metal. All of him is metal.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Dave continues, an agitated murmur that pitches higher as his voice cracks. “What am I? What’s happening? Rose — ” there’s another sob, “I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t protect anyone. ” Not only had he failed, but now he’s some kind of metal automaton without even the decency of tear ducts. Dave jerks upright, inadvertently knocking baby Rose off of his lap. He drops to the floor beside her with a loud thump and crawls on his hands and knees, his hands scrabbling at the ground as if he’s looking for something. He wants to slot himself under the bed, to hide from such a cruel reality, but all he can do is curl up with his knees to his chest and his head tucked into them.

Dave wants to go back to nonexistence, thinks with frantic fondness of the silent reality of death. It was easier than being without his Rose Lalonde, where he can’t even cry to express his grief.

The meeting ends with a whimper and Dave loves his kid, really he does, but the entire session was boring as hell. He’d tapped his fingers impatiently on the long table and muted his offensive yawning as best he could. It’d helped that he’d been situated between the two loves of his life — both of them Rose, so similar and yet so strikingly different. It’d been hard to take his mind off of how small and young the one to his left had looked. He wonders if Dirk will be the same, a miniature version of the cowboy blessed with massive titties across the table.

It doesn’t escape his notice that there are “twins” (of varying age differences) in the room for almost everyone. Dave’s not sure how it works, but he’d thrown the question down during the meeting like a gotcha and gotten the most bizarre explanation for it. Dave would have wagged finger at them and deadpanned that he was far from naive, but what other explanation was there? Nothing made a lick of sense and the idea that it originated from a game with ectobiology (a field that doesn’t exist!) felt as ludicrous as everything else they were discussing.

In spite of it all, Dirk’s been found along with Rose’s daughter Roxy. Dave doesn’t know how to feel about it. On one hand, he’d never expected to be straddled with the responsibility of a real living child in real time and he knows for damn sure that he’s not prepared for it. On the other, that’s his boy, the one he’s worked for and towards keeping safe. He’d started his Hollywood career for this kid to ensure he had the funds to give him the best life he was capable of. Dave loves him even if he’s never met him, but it was easier knowing he’d never meet him.

It’s not something he wants to dwell on, so as people disperse, Dave ignores Rose’s gaze on him as he looks for her counterpart. He finds her in the corner of the room by her lonesome; she appears to be absorbed in thought and Dave almost feels guilty about interupting her. Almost. Instead, he sidles in next to her. She’s so petite that Dave feels like he could break her with a rogue touch, but he’s not stupid enough to believe it. All Roses are tougher than they look and he knows she could break his bones if she wanted to.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dave asks, thumbing the rim of his water bottle. He’s got an extra one on him and when she looks up at him, he offers it to her. He’d snagged it from Harley’s cooler because he apparently owns not a thing in this world. Harley’d been kind enough to gift him with money to house himself, to buy some clothes, and Dave had almost been too proud to take it. It’s been a long time since he’d had to rely on anyone but himself and it’s a struggle to realize he’s back where he started.

It’s almost novel to be one of the normals again, to be able to walk the street and not be recognized. Dave can’t remember the last time he’s been able to have a day to himself without being reminded of his fame in some way. He doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself now that he has the chance to do it all over again. There are so many possibilities and there’s one he’s leaning towards, but who knows how that’s going to turn out?

Header Art by VerinsDemise. | Background Art by Tenshiikisu.

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