Fic: Rewind 1/1
Title: Rewind
Author: Jessi B.
Fandom: Eerie Indiana
Rating: pg-13 (language and guys kissing)
Pairing: Dash/Simon
Summary: Seeing your younger self walking down the sidewalk is very odd experience, but in Eerie? Business as usual.
Warnings: Guys kiss, a little language from Dash, slash, and a bit of angst, fluff
Notes: Sequel to Christmas Past and Present . Short and not betaed but it was fun to write.
***
Dash was stepping out for a breather when he saw them. It took him a moment, because really it wasn't anything you ever expected to see, but then he placed them.
"Shit," he muttered and stuck his head back in to yell for Bill. The vampire came out and watched the approaching group.
"Yup, smells like you. Looks like a mini-you too," Bill agreed, looking at the gray haired kid arguing with the brown haired boy. The redhead walking on the other side of the brown-haired kid was frowning at their surrounding thoughtfully and silent. "And unless I miss my guess that kid that smells and looks like your Simon is mini-Simon."
"Great, ok if I bring 'em in?"
"I think you better, considering," Bill said absently. "You got into some weird shit as a kid, huh, X?"
"And then some," Dash muttered, stalking towards the group. "Hey! Kids!"
"What?" his mini-self snapped then stopped dead. He winced inside at the almost hopeful look on the boy's face as the kid took in his hair and face.
"I don't know what the hell you idiots did but you just jumped ahead a few years," Dash snapped back with a frown. "And I don't remember this happening."
"Wait, who are you?" Teller-mini asked.
"Oh!" Simon smiled. "He's Dash, you're like, future Dash, right?" Dash smiled despite himself.
"Yeah, come on, you can wait in the garage I work at while I call in Teller and Simon," he said turning and walking towards the garage. He stopped when only Simon followed him. He sighed and turned to glare at mini-Teller and mini-himself.
"How do we know you're who you say you are?" Teller asked, arms crossed. He remembered the urge to burn that damn Giants sweatshirt and glared back.
"I'm with Teller on this, so you look like an older me..." Dash the younger started.
"I swear to fucking..." Dash closed his eyes and counted to ten. Simon had suggested the technique years ago. He yanked off his winter hat, his recent Christmas gift, that hadn't hid most of his hair anyway and then his gloves before holding up his hands and extending them for inspection. "Be difficult when Teller gets here, huh? That I'd enjoy more."
The older boys had a brief conference and pulled Simon back to their side before agreeing to go with him. He put them in the waiting area and called Simon.
"Happy Dragon Restaurant," a cheerful voice broke over the line.
"Hey, Li, is Simon there?" Dash asked.
"Yeah, one sec, Dash..." there were moving noises and he heard the sounds in the kitchen. "Simon! Boyfriend!"
"Dash?" Simon asked as he got on the phone.
"What other boyfriends call you?" Dash asked with a smile. "I'm gonna need you here. We got a weird issue."
"Weird?" there were sounds of sizzling in the background and he could picture the scene from the few times he'd picked the redhead up. Simon at a stove or grill moving with a sure skill that he'd picked up in his time working at the Dragon.
"I got me, you, and Teller here at maybe ten, eleven years back age."
"Wow, I'll tell Ms. Ling and be over. Do you want lunch too?"
"Yeah, if you can," Dash sighed. What did it say about them that this was almost just normal, no panic stuff? "I'll call Teller."
"'k," Simon clicked the phone off as he hung up and dialed Marshall's house.
"Sure he's here, Dash," Mrs. Teller said, "how are you?"
"Pretty good, Mrs. Teller," Dash said sticking his head out of the office to make sure that the three past-thems were still in place. "I was just calling to see if Mars wanted to get together and do something with me and Simon..."
"I'm sure he will," Mrs. Teller said sounding like she was smiling and then Marshall was on the phone.
"What..."
"Get your ass over to the 'Lost Garage', Teller. I bet this is somehow your fault," he muttered before hanging up. That'd get him here fast. He stepped out and directed a wandering mini-Teller back to his seat. "Don't touch anything."
"But...is that...?" Teller protested.
"Flying Saucer Mark 8, they stopped making them in the fifties," he answered , shoving the kid back onto the couch where Simon was reading an old issue of 'Werewolf Monthly' and asking young Dash quiz questions. He rolled his eyes and flopped on the armchair to the side.
"You work on flying saucers?" Marshall asked.
"Only if Z'na's not in and it's a simple fix. He's the expert on alien tech. I'm better at it then some but I'm still not the expert," Dash shrugged. His younger self was watching him and seemed to want to ask something. He knew what the question would be. Did he know? Did he ever find out? So, he started answering questions on the quiz that Simon was doing before his other self could ask. God knew the kid needed something to hope for.
He turned away gratefully when Simon used his key to come in. Bill had given the key to him after he had worked there on the phones a few weeks. He smiled easily at Dash as though everything were fine and nothing weird was going down.
"I brought you shrimp stir-fry," Simon said, handing the warm brown bag over. "Ms. Ling had Li drop me off and said his Highness could do dishes for the rest of the night. Did you call Mars?"
"Yeah," Dash was opening the bag already. Weird shit or not he'd skipped breakfast.
"Cool," Simon settled on the arm of the chair while he popped the containers open. "Hi, I don't remember this at all..."
"Really?" younger-Simon asked curiously. "And I work at a Chinese place?"
"The Happy Dragon," Simon confirmed. "It's great. Ms. Ling hired me in high school and she's teaching me to cook too..."
"And you're bring me lunch...?" Dash asked with a frown.
"Sure, you get hungry because you skip breakfast a lot...because you'd rather sleep in," Simon shrugged. Someone banged on the front door. "I got it, Bill!"
"Thanks!" came from somewhere in a car. Simon checked the outside then opened the door to let Marshall in.
"What..." he started, then stopped and gaped at the kids on the couch. "How can this be my fault? I don't even remember it!" he demanded of Dash who glared over his food.
"Gee, Batman, who was always dragging my ass into this stuff? Who was always poking the weird?" Dash asked. They glared at each other. Simon sat on the floor by the coffee table and pulled out his cell phone.
"How old are you?" he asked the trio of younger thems.
"Who knows?" Dash muttered.
"Fourteen, just last week," Marshall said hesitantly.
"Ten," Simon the smaller answered. "I guess you already know when..."
"Yeah," Simon grinned. "I'm calling, Mrs. Potts. She might know something. Do you think Joe would help?"
"Probably, but he's in Texas visiting family and his cell service is sketchy," Dash answered.
"I can get his mom's number from the office..." Simon said absently. Dash blinked and wondered why he and Bill hadn't thought of that.
"I'll take notes on how they got here," Marshall said, pulling out a note pad. Dash rolled his eyes but listened as Marshall asked questions. Apparently the 'kids' had been messing with some bad stuff and they'd ended up getting a ride from some guys in a black van.
"They dropped us off at the corner and said they couldn't take us any farther..." Marshall continued, the teen seemed happy to ramble on for his older self's benefit.
"You should never get in black vans," Simon said coming back from the office. "It's not safe."
"Neither were the giant ants," Dash the tiny said with a frown.
"Black vans?" Marshall the elder asked. "Really?"
"Not all black vans," Dash shrugged. "Just the trans-dimensional ones. But they look like the regular ones. What'd Joe say?"
"Joe says he can't do that kind of magic, Mrs. Potts says she could try but there's no guarantees she'd drop them in the right place. I figure that's a last resort..." Simon sat on the chair arm again. "She said she doesn't know of anything short of a sacrifice spell that would do it either."
"Does that mean what I think it means?" Marshall asked with a wince.
"Yeah," Dash said cheerfully. "I say we use you, Teller, for the good of the world."
"She'd just use a rat or something, probably," Simon said with a 'look' in Dash's direction. Dash rolled his eyes but tossed a fortune cookie to his boyfriend. "'You will see the past clearly'," he read crunching on the cookie. "You?"
"'The past will show you the worth of your present', yeah. These things worry me," Dash read and gave Simon his cookie.
"I think they're neat, Ms. Ling says they're blank till you crack them, she makes them herself. Fortune cookies are really from America and she wanted to make them true to their name, she said."
"And that doesn't freak you out? Even a little?" the younger Marshall asked.
"Nah, I like Ms. Ling. They're mostly harmless anyway, they're usually immediate future and vague," Simon shrugged eating Dash's cookie. "I'll call Trans Dimensional Delivery fleet HQ. We've had work with them recently and Sue could probably get them a ride back."
"Why didn't we do that first?" Marshall sighed.
"Because it'll get whoever rescued mini-us in deep shit, Teller, you don't take on passengers. Not even if giant bugs are chasing them," Dash stood and stretched. "Their dimensional drive's gotta be fluxing if they didn't realize they'd time skipped though."
"Yeah, so it's best to let 'em know anyway," Simon sighed. "I hope nobody gets fired..." he walked away to make the call and Dash started to follow when a hand with an all too familiar '-' caught his arm.
"Ok, so we're going back, great," the younger Dash snapped. "Wonderful, back to Weirdsville where I have no clue who I am and end up in the middle of weird stuff, fine, I'm getting used to that. But before we go, I gotta know..."
"Come on, we'll talk in the office," Dash sighed, tugging the kid up. "Teller, don't wander anywhere, either of you!"
Simon was sitting in the desk chair and smiled when they came in. Simon always smiled at him, now. How could he get that across to a fourteen or something year old? That he still had no clue what or who he was but he had something, his own piece of happy.
"Thanks, Sue, no, they're fine. Yeah. I'd bring the Mind Zap and set it for the last hour or two..." Simon agreed. "Sure, fifteen minutes is fine."
"No clue," Dash said simply as Simon hung up and he shut the door. He flopped onto the rickety office couch. His younger self glared and he waited for the anger, the yelling, and maybe even violence.
"That's great, what, ten years? And I'm still a nobody with no memory and..." the younger Dash stopped ranting because Simon had blocked his pacing path.
"That's not true," Simon protested. "You're Dash. You just can't remember before...but you're still Dash and we're still looking."
"That's not much," the young teen snapped. "I've got nothing, everything I've got, I got for me! And you're telling me it doesn't get better?!"
"You've got us...well, them," Simon said softly. Dash on the couch knew that look. It usually meant Simon was close to hugging him. Dash wasn't sure that'd be a good idea with his younger self.
"Yeah, great. To Teller I'm just another weird thing that needs looked into and to you I'm just...you're just Teller's sidekick!" the boy poked a finger in Simon's chest and Simon flushed.
"Well, yeah, sort of, I guess..." Simon looked to Dash on the couch who looked lost again and he hated that look. "But...you see, you're...you and Marshall you're kind of all I got too. You know? Sometimes...sometimes having memories and family isn't all its cracked up to be either."
The young Dash looked up at him with lost, angry eyes. Simon gave in to the urge and hugged the smaller teen. Dash tensed in his arms but then pressed into the hug clinching his eyes against wetness.
"It sucks, I know it sucks a lot but...it gets better, Dash," Simon whispered. "You're smart and you can fix anything and you have your own place and Mars's mom thinks you're great."
"But I don't know anything...I don't know..." Dash husked into Simon's chest.
"You're Dash," Simon hugged him tighter. "You're you before you were anything else and that's what you still are and...maybe you'll know the rest one day. I hope you do."
Dash sniffed against his chest and looked up at Simon, startled to see the redhead crying, the older Dash pushed up from the couch and slid his arms around Simon from behind.
"Stop crying, idiot," he muttered, kissing Simon's head. "So I don't know about my past, fuck it. I've got stuff now. I've got a home, I've got clothes, I've got a kick ass motorcycle, and I've got people that care whether I'm around or not. That's all that matters. I can't make my past come back but I'm not going to let it screw up my life. You got that shorty? We survive and we do really fucking good."
"Yeah?" the younger Dash sniffed and wiped his nose on the too big sleeve of his coat. "Why the hell are you kissing Simon?"
"'Cause I'm dating him, I pretty much get to do that," Dash grinned when the younger boy scrambled away and frowned at the two of them. "What? You won't be complaining, trust me, he puts out."
"Dash!" Simon squeaked.
"Well..." his younger self watched Simon wipe his eyes and did the same. "There's worse people I guess. At least it's not Teller."
"Don't even joke," Dash growled back.
Simon got a wet washcloth for Dash and splashed his own face. So Dash looked like his typical angry self when he stalked out of the office. He didn't like the idea of his memory being messed with and neither did his older self but the flash of light was quick and then Simon caught him as he fell unconscious. Their three younger selves were loaded into a truck to be dropped off in their proper time.
Simon booked TDD for an entire fleet check up with Bill grinning behind them. Marshall was finishing up his notes on the incident in the waiting area and Simon and Dash watched the van pull out and away into nothing as they drove between dimensions.
"Hey, Simon?" Dash asked.
"Hmm?" Simon was turning to walk back into the office as the roll up door closed.
Dash wrapped his arms around his boyfriend.
"Was I really that big of a punk?" Dash asked, kissing his head.
"You weren't a punk, you were a scared kid with nothing and no one," Simon murmured.
"Yeah, lots of anger issues," Dash said absently. Working nights gave him the chance to watch a lot of talk shows during the day.
"You...I know you still want to know. I want to know too, so you'll know, but no matter what...you'll still have us."
"You, great, sure we can't sell Teller?"
"Dash!" Simon laughed.
"Hey, no discussing selling and/or sacrificing me," Marshall called. "I have got to start dating, I'm even getting jealous of your public displays of affection..."
"You haven't even seen PDAs, Teller..." Dash called and tilted Simon's head back to kiss him. A long, slow kiss that brought a whoop from Bill.
"Stop making out, X," Bill yelled with a laugh. "Get back to work." Dash grinned and let Simon go.
"Oh, hey," Simon picked up a Giants sweatshirt from beside the couch as he went by. "I guess we finally know what happened to it, Mars..."
"Yeah," Marshall said with a half smile. "We always thought the ants got it..."
"I swear to God, Teller, if you don't put that straight into the evidence locker..." Dash called. "You wore that thing all the time, I wanted to burn it!"
"I loved this shirt! And you always wore your trench coat all the time!"
"The difference being you had other clothes," the gray haired young man sighed as he pushed himself under a car. "And my coat was awesome."
Simon grinned and handed the sweatshirt to Marshall. Marshall smiled and looked at the shirt. It looked smaller then he remembered. Then with a sigh he folded it up. He'd stopped needing to compare everything to New Jersey years ago. Eerie was home now. He looked up to see Dash under a hearse and laughing about something with Bill, the vampire, and remembered wanting desperately to figure out Dash. He wanted that so bad he'd almost forgotten to see Dash sometimes. Despite the way they grated on each others nerves Dash was his friend. One of his two best friends.
In Eerie, he started again in his pad, now propped on the shirt, it really shouldn't surprise me when anything happens now. But sometimes it's the things that go beyond the weird that make you think. Was I ever that naive? Am I still? Why didn't I notice how lonely and human the mysterious 'Dash X' aka the Gray Haired Kid was? And why didn't I realize he was reaching out some of those times we were fighting? In my defense, probably because Dash can be a big jerk. I've seen my future and I've seen my past now. I still don't know what to think about the Milk Man thing. Maybe Dash is right, maybe I'm still too far on the outside. But I don't think that'll last. Part of me worries he's right, that the moment I'm on the other side I'll want back. But...
Marshall looked up as Simon came out of the office to talk to Bill about the fleet of vans being brought in and Dash came out from under the vehicle he'd been poking with some weird glowing tool.
But if I do get stuck on the other side then at least I'll have Dash and Simon. I can't think of any better place to be then exploring the weird with them. Even if Dash is an ass.
He closed the pad and stood. The Giants shirt would go in the locker at home and he'd need to tag it.
"Teller!" Dash snapped. "Take Simon and get him something that can't be eaten with soy sauce."
"You wanna get something, Mars?" Simon asked looking around. "There's an all night diner at the edge of town some nights."
"Some nights?" Marshall frowned.
"Yeah, they have great apple pie..." Simon smiled. "Let me put this in the office. Is an hour ok, Bill?"
"Take your time, kid, you just got me a ton of good paying work. I'll see you when you get back..." Bill shrugged, turning back to a normal looking red pick-up.
"Ok, thanks, you want pie, Dash?" Simon asked as Dash lay back to roll himself back under the car.
"Sure," Dash muttered going back under the car. "Hurry back, me and Bill suck at the phone answering shit."
Marshall had to admit the pie was good, as was the view of the Martian landscape through the diner's back window, but he just shook his head and sipped his milk while enjoying the view. Sometimes it was best to just let things be. For the moment at least.
Author: Jessi B.
Fandom: Eerie Indiana
Rating: pg-13 (language and guys kissing)
Pairing: Dash/Simon
Summary: Seeing your younger self walking down the sidewalk is very odd experience, but in Eerie? Business as usual.
Warnings: Guys kiss, a little language from Dash, slash, and a bit of angst, fluff
Notes: Sequel to Christmas Past and Present . Short and not betaed but it was fun to write.
***
Dash was stepping out for a breather when he saw them. It took him a moment, because really it wasn't anything you ever expected to see, but then he placed them.
"Shit," he muttered and stuck his head back in to yell for Bill. The vampire came out and watched the approaching group.
"Yup, smells like you. Looks like a mini-you too," Bill agreed, looking at the gray haired kid arguing with the brown haired boy. The redhead walking on the other side of the brown-haired kid was frowning at their surrounding thoughtfully and silent. "And unless I miss my guess that kid that smells and looks like your Simon is mini-Simon."
"Great, ok if I bring 'em in?"
"I think you better, considering," Bill said absently. "You got into some weird shit as a kid, huh, X?"
"And then some," Dash muttered, stalking towards the group. "Hey! Kids!"
"What?" his mini-self snapped then stopped dead. He winced inside at the almost hopeful look on the boy's face as the kid took in his hair and face.
"I don't know what the hell you idiots did but you just jumped ahead a few years," Dash snapped back with a frown. "And I don't remember this happening."
"Wait, who are you?" Teller-mini asked.
"Oh!" Simon smiled. "He's Dash, you're like, future Dash, right?" Dash smiled despite himself.
"Yeah, come on, you can wait in the garage I work at while I call in Teller and Simon," he said turning and walking towards the garage. He stopped when only Simon followed him. He sighed and turned to glare at mini-Teller and mini-himself.
"How do we know you're who you say you are?" Teller asked, arms crossed. He remembered the urge to burn that damn Giants sweatshirt and glared back.
"I'm with Teller on this, so you look like an older me..." Dash the younger started.
"I swear to fucking..." Dash closed his eyes and counted to ten. Simon had suggested the technique years ago. He yanked off his winter hat, his recent Christmas gift, that hadn't hid most of his hair anyway and then his gloves before holding up his hands and extending them for inspection. "Be difficult when Teller gets here, huh? That I'd enjoy more."
The older boys had a brief conference and pulled Simon back to their side before agreeing to go with him. He put them in the waiting area and called Simon.
"Happy Dragon Restaurant," a cheerful voice broke over the line.
"Hey, Li, is Simon there?" Dash asked.
"Yeah, one sec, Dash..." there were moving noises and he heard the sounds in the kitchen. "Simon! Boyfriend!"
"Dash?" Simon asked as he got on the phone.
"What other boyfriends call you?" Dash asked with a smile. "I'm gonna need you here. We got a weird issue."
"Weird?" there were sounds of sizzling in the background and he could picture the scene from the few times he'd picked the redhead up. Simon at a stove or grill moving with a sure skill that he'd picked up in his time working at the Dragon.
"I got me, you, and Teller here at maybe ten, eleven years back age."
"Wow, I'll tell Ms. Ling and be over. Do you want lunch too?"
"Yeah, if you can," Dash sighed. What did it say about them that this was almost just normal, no panic stuff? "I'll call Teller."
"'k," Simon clicked the phone off as he hung up and dialed Marshall's house.
"Sure he's here, Dash," Mrs. Teller said, "how are you?"
"Pretty good, Mrs. Teller," Dash said sticking his head out of the office to make sure that the three past-thems were still in place. "I was just calling to see if Mars wanted to get together and do something with me and Simon..."
"I'm sure he will," Mrs. Teller said sounding like she was smiling and then Marshall was on the phone.
"What..."
"Get your ass over to the 'Lost Garage', Teller. I bet this is somehow your fault," he muttered before hanging up. That'd get him here fast. He stepped out and directed a wandering mini-Teller back to his seat. "Don't touch anything."
"But...is that...?" Teller protested.
"Flying Saucer Mark 8, they stopped making them in the fifties," he answered , shoving the kid back onto the couch where Simon was reading an old issue of 'Werewolf Monthly' and asking young Dash quiz questions. He rolled his eyes and flopped on the armchair to the side.
"You work on flying saucers?" Marshall asked.
"Only if Z'na's not in and it's a simple fix. He's the expert on alien tech. I'm better at it then some but I'm still not the expert," Dash shrugged. His younger self was watching him and seemed to want to ask something. He knew what the question would be. Did he know? Did he ever find out? So, he started answering questions on the quiz that Simon was doing before his other self could ask. God knew the kid needed something to hope for.
He turned away gratefully when Simon used his key to come in. Bill had given the key to him after he had worked there on the phones a few weeks. He smiled easily at Dash as though everything were fine and nothing weird was going down.
"I brought you shrimp stir-fry," Simon said, handing the warm brown bag over. "Ms. Ling had Li drop me off and said his Highness could do dishes for the rest of the night. Did you call Mars?"
"Yeah," Dash was opening the bag already. Weird shit or not he'd skipped breakfast.
"Cool," Simon settled on the arm of the chair while he popped the containers open. "Hi, I don't remember this at all..."
"Really?" younger-Simon asked curiously. "And I work at a Chinese place?"
"The Happy Dragon," Simon confirmed. "It's great. Ms. Ling hired me in high school and she's teaching me to cook too..."
"And you're bring me lunch...?" Dash asked with a frown.
"Sure, you get hungry because you skip breakfast a lot...because you'd rather sleep in," Simon shrugged. Someone banged on the front door. "I got it, Bill!"
"Thanks!" came from somewhere in a car. Simon checked the outside then opened the door to let Marshall in.
"What..." he started, then stopped and gaped at the kids on the couch. "How can this be my fault? I don't even remember it!" he demanded of Dash who glared over his food.
"Gee, Batman, who was always dragging my ass into this stuff? Who was always poking the weird?" Dash asked. They glared at each other. Simon sat on the floor by the coffee table and pulled out his cell phone.
"How old are you?" he asked the trio of younger thems.
"Who knows?" Dash muttered.
"Fourteen, just last week," Marshall said hesitantly.
"Ten," Simon the smaller answered. "I guess you already know when..."
"Yeah," Simon grinned. "I'm calling, Mrs. Potts. She might know something. Do you think Joe would help?"
"Probably, but he's in Texas visiting family and his cell service is sketchy," Dash answered.
"I can get his mom's number from the office..." Simon said absently. Dash blinked and wondered why he and Bill hadn't thought of that.
"I'll take notes on how they got here," Marshall said, pulling out a note pad. Dash rolled his eyes but listened as Marshall asked questions. Apparently the 'kids' had been messing with some bad stuff and they'd ended up getting a ride from some guys in a black van.
"They dropped us off at the corner and said they couldn't take us any farther..." Marshall continued, the teen seemed happy to ramble on for his older self's benefit.
"You should never get in black vans," Simon said coming back from the office. "It's not safe."
"Neither were the giant ants," Dash the tiny said with a frown.
"Black vans?" Marshall the elder asked. "Really?"
"Not all black vans," Dash shrugged. "Just the trans-dimensional ones. But they look like the regular ones. What'd Joe say?"
"Joe says he can't do that kind of magic, Mrs. Potts says she could try but there's no guarantees she'd drop them in the right place. I figure that's a last resort..." Simon sat on the chair arm again. "She said she doesn't know of anything short of a sacrifice spell that would do it either."
"Does that mean what I think it means?" Marshall asked with a wince.
"Yeah," Dash said cheerfully. "I say we use you, Teller, for the good of the world."
"She'd just use a rat or something, probably," Simon said with a 'look' in Dash's direction. Dash rolled his eyes but tossed a fortune cookie to his boyfriend. "'You will see the past clearly'," he read crunching on the cookie. "You?"
"'The past will show you the worth of your present', yeah. These things worry me," Dash read and gave Simon his cookie.
"I think they're neat, Ms. Ling says they're blank till you crack them, she makes them herself. Fortune cookies are really from America and she wanted to make them true to their name, she said."
"And that doesn't freak you out? Even a little?" the younger Marshall asked.
"Nah, I like Ms. Ling. They're mostly harmless anyway, they're usually immediate future and vague," Simon shrugged eating Dash's cookie. "I'll call Trans Dimensional Delivery fleet HQ. We've had work with them recently and Sue could probably get them a ride back."
"Why didn't we do that first?" Marshall sighed.
"Because it'll get whoever rescued mini-us in deep shit, Teller, you don't take on passengers. Not even if giant bugs are chasing them," Dash stood and stretched. "Their dimensional drive's gotta be fluxing if they didn't realize they'd time skipped though."
"Yeah, so it's best to let 'em know anyway," Simon sighed. "I hope nobody gets fired..." he walked away to make the call and Dash started to follow when a hand with an all too familiar '-' caught his arm.
"Ok, so we're going back, great," the younger Dash snapped. "Wonderful, back to Weirdsville where I have no clue who I am and end up in the middle of weird stuff, fine, I'm getting used to that. But before we go, I gotta know..."
"Come on, we'll talk in the office," Dash sighed, tugging the kid up. "Teller, don't wander anywhere, either of you!"
Simon was sitting in the desk chair and smiled when they came in. Simon always smiled at him, now. How could he get that across to a fourteen or something year old? That he still had no clue what or who he was but he had something, his own piece of happy.
"Thanks, Sue, no, they're fine. Yeah. I'd bring the Mind Zap and set it for the last hour or two..." Simon agreed. "Sure, fifteen minutes is fine."
"No clue," Dash said simply as Simon hung up and he shut the door. He flopped onto the rickety office couch. His younger self glared and he waited for the anger, the yelling, and maybe even violence.
"That's great, what, ten years? And I'm still a nobody with no memory and..." the younger Dash stopped ranting because Simon had blocked his pacing path.
"That's not true," Simon protested. "You're Dash. You just can't remember before...but you're still Dash and we're still looking."
"That's not much," the young teen snapped. "I've got nothing, everything I've got, I got for me! And you're telling me it doesn't get better?!"
"You've got us...well, them," Simon said softly. Dash on the couch knew that look. It usually meant Simon was close to hugging him. Dash wasn't sure that'd be a good idea with his younger self.
"Yeah, great. To Teller I'm just another weird thing that needs looked into and to you I'm just...you're just Teller's sidekick!" the boy poked a finger in Simon's chest and Simon flushed.
"Well, yeah, sort of, I guess..." Simon looked to Dash on the couch who looked lost again and he hated that look. "But...you see, you're...you and Marshall you're kind of all I got too. You know? Sometimes...sometimes having memories and family isn't all its cracked up to be either."
The young Dash looked up at him with lost, angry eyes. Simon gave in to the urge and hugged the smaller teen. Dash tensed in his arms but then pressed into the hug clinching his eyes against wetness.
"It sucks, I know it sucks a lot but...it gets better, Dash," Simon whispered. "You're smart and you can fix anything and you have your own place and Mars's mom thinks you're great."
"But I don't know anything...I don't know..." Dash husked into Simon's chest.
"You're Dash," Simon hugged him tighter. "You're you before you were anything else and that's what you still are and...maybe you'll know the rest one day. I hope you do."
Dash sniffed against his chest and looked up at Simon, startled to see the redhead crying, the older Dash pushed up from the couch and slid his arms around Simon from behind.
"Stop crying, idiot," he muttered, kissing Simon's head. "So I don't know about my past, fuck it. I've got stuff now. I've got a home, I've got clothes, I've got a kick ass motorcycle, and I've got people that care whether I'm around or not. That's all that matters. I can't make my past come back but I'm not going to let it screw up my life. You got that shorty? We survive and we do really fucking good."
"Yeah?" the younger Dash sniffed and wiped his nose on the too big sleeve of his coat. "Why the hell are you kissing Simon?"
"'Cause I'm dating him, I pretty much get to do that," Dash grinned when the younger boy scrambled away and frowned at the two of them. "What? You won't be complaining, trust me, he puts out."
"Dash!" Simon squeaked.
"Well..." his younger self watched Simon wipe his eyes and did the same. "There's worse people I guess. At least it's not Teller."
"Don't even joke," Dash growled back.
Simon got a wet washcloth for Dash and splashed his own face. So Dash looked like his typical angry self when he stalked out of the office. He didn't like the idea of his memory being messed with and neither did his older self but the flash of light was quick and then Simon caught him as he fell unconscious. Their three younger selves were loaded into a truck to be dropped off in their proper time.
Simon booked TDD for an entire fleet check up with Bill grinning behind them. Marshall was finishing up his notes on the incident in the waiting area and Simon and Dash watched the van pull out and away into nothing as they drove between dimensions.
"Hey, Simon?" Dash asked.
"Hmm?" Simon was turning to walk back into the office as the roll up door closed.
Dash wrapped his arms around his boyfriend.
"Was I really that big of a punk?" Dash asked, kissing his head.
"You weren't a punk, you were a scared kid with nothing and no one," Simon murmured.
"Yeah, lots of anger issues," Dash said absently. Working nights gave him the chance to watch a lot of talk shows during the day.
"You...I know you still want to know. I want to know too, so you'll know, but no matter what...you'll still have us."
"You, great, sure we can't sell Teller?"
"Dash!" Simon laughed.
"Hey, no discussing selling and/or sacrificing me," Marshall called. "I have got to start dating, I'm even getting jealous of your public displays of affection..."
"You haven't even seen PDAs, Teller..." Dash called and tilted Simon's head back to kiss him. A long, slow kiss that brought a whoop from Bill.
"Stop making out, X," Bill yelled with a laugh. "Get back to work." Dash grinned and let Simon go.
"Oh, hey," Simon picked up a Giants sweatshirt from beside the couch as he went by. "I guess we finally know what happened to it, Mars..."
"Yeah," Marshall said with a half smile. "We always thought the ants got it..."
"I swear to God, Teller, if you don't put that straight into the evidence locker..." Dash called. "You wore that thing all the time, I wanted to burn it!"
"I loved this shirt! And you always wore your trench coat all the time!"
"The difference being you had other clothes," the gray haired young man sighed as he pushed himself under a car. "And my coat was awesome."
Simon grinned and handed the sweatshirt to Marshall. Marshall smiled and looked at the shirt. It looked smaller then he remembered. Then with a sigh he folded it up. He'd stopped needing to compare everything to New Jersey years ago. Eerie was home now. He looked up to see Dash under a hearse and laughing about something with Bill, the vampire, and remembered wanting desperately to figure out Dash. He wanted that so bad he'd almost forgotten to see Dash sometimes. Despite the way they grated on each others nerves Dash was his friend. One of his two best friends.
In Eerie, he started again in his pad, now propped on the shirt, it really shouldn't surprise me when anything happens now. But sometimes it's the things that go beyond the weird that make you think. Was I ever that naive? Am I still? Why didn't I notice how lonely and human the mysterious 'Dash X' aka the Gray Haired Kid was? And why didn't I realize he was reaching out some of those times we were fighting? In my defense, probably because Dash can be a big jerk. I've seen my future and I've seen my past now. I still don't know what to think about the Milk Man thing. Maybe Dash is right, maybe I'm still too far on the outside. But I don't think that'll last. Part of me worries he's right, that the moment I'm on the other side I'll want back. But...
Marshall looked up as Simon came out of the office to talk to Bill about the fleet of vans being brought in and Dash came out from under the vehicle he'd been poking with some weird glowing tool.
But if I do get stuck on the other side then at least I'll have Dash and Simon. I can't think of any better place to be then exploring the weird with them. Even if Dash is an ass.
He closed the pad and stood. The Giants shirt would go in the locker at home and he'd need to tag it.
"Teller!" Dash snapped. "Take Simon and get him something that can't be eaten with soy sauce."
"You wanna get something, Mars?" Simon asked looking around. "There's an all night diner at the edge of town some nights."
"Some nights?" Marshall frowned.
"Yeah, they have great apple pie..." Simon smiled. "Let me put this in the office. Is an hour ok, Bill?"
"Take your time, kid, you just got me a ton of good paying work. I'll see you when you get back..." Bill shrugged, turning back to a normal looking red pick-up.
"Ok, thanks, you want pie, Dash?" Simon asked as Dash lay back to roll himself back under the car.
"Sure," Dash muttered going back under the car. "Hurry back, me and Bill suck at the phone answering shit."
Marshall had to admit the pie was good, as was the view of the Martian landscape through the diner's back window, but he just shook his head and sipped his milk while enjoying the view. Sometimes it was best to just let things be. For the moment at least.