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"I don't get why you're so obsessed with these guys," you whisper, as Davesprite waves at the baby Nakodiles waddling their way through his front gate. He lives in Consort Kingdom, in the nicest district, of course, and his street is completely mobbed at Halloween. This is what you are doing here: candy distribution support.
The mob has died down, though, as the twilight faded, and you think maybe this little pair making their way over now could be the last. They are super cute, you have to admit. The bigger Nakodile is dressed like Slimer, and the littler one is dressed like… a black and yellow ghost trap? You think?
"Sure you do. You like the chess guys, don't you?" Davesprite whispers back. You don't have time to respond, because it's your cue: you flashstep away, nothing but a black blur, to bang the gate shut behind the little ones, who nak in delighted terror, setting off all the sound-activated animatronic bullshit Dirk built him for his front yard. You can hear their parents cackle back down the road.
You watch from by a tree in the yard as Davesprite, a smile so faint only you could detect it, lets the kids pick candy from the huge bucket he had prepared. After the game he lost his sprite powers and most of the features—his hands are a little scaly and his eyes are still orange, though, and he's shorter than you. He looks weirdly tender as he says something you can't hear to the little Nakodiles, and you do know what he meant before.
When the kids go skipping back, struggling with the gate until their parents come to help, and take their hands, and walk them away into the darkness, you flashstep back to Davesprite's side.
"Do you remember…" you begin, watching his face carefully from the corner of your eye. He's still relaxed and soft in his bright orange pumpkin sweater knitted by Rose.
"...When we were kids?" he finishes. Of course the same memories would have risen in him, the same keys opening the same doors.
You almost don't have to say it out loud, secure in the knowledge he knows exactly what you want to say, but you say it anyway. "Bro used to bus us out to swanky suburbs just like this. Remember that year he took us to the gated community down in The Woodlands?"
You can tell he does. He closes the door, and turns to pull you into a hug. You've always been a bit jealous of that part of him—the fuck-everything confidence he has to do what he wants and mean what he says.
"I like how you say us," Davesprite confesses, digging his pointy chin into your shoulder.
"What, you think after all this time I'd still be the asshole saying 'me'?" you grump, bringing your own arms up to hug him back. You've worked really hard on not being an asshole. You think you deserve some credit for that.
"No, just like." His arms tighten around your middle, and you get that swoop in your stomach that you always do, like you're about to fall into a singularity. "Imagining like we grew up like brothers."
You imagine it. Two little boys in shades, hand in hand, boggling their eyes at manicured lawns and private pools almost as much as the elaborate spooky decorations. Salivating at the fancy ass full size candy bars. Playing pretend together they were fleecing these rich assholes, too cool for this shit, outsiders and proud.
Bickering over the spoils on the bus home. Enduring the age-inappropriate gory movie Bro put on before bed. Hiding the best candy from Bro safe in the closet. Snuggling into their shared bed, two mattresses stacked on top of each other, and critiquing the anatomical correctness of the skeletons they'd seen that day.
Two little boys that had split from one in the womb, instead of at the age of thirteen.
But the fact of the matter is, you never even came from a womb. You came from fucked up sci fi video game bullshit, the same magic/science bullshit that led to him existing, that led to you touching him now, warm against you, same shape, different skin.
"Nah," you say. "I like us how we are."
And maybe that's cruel to him, considering his whole raw deal, but you've hashed this shit out a million times, and he doesn't take it wrong.
When he pulls back, there's something strange about his expression. Wry, or maybe a little nervous. "Like, 100% happy? That's it, dawg, Davesprite route cleared? No more scenes to unlock, no room for any changes, or like, new developments, or…"
"Shut the fuck up," you say into his mouth, and he tastes like candy corn, why, you don't even like candy corn.
When you pull back, he blinks up at you slowly with those big orange eyes, and for a split second you worry maybe you've made a mistake, maybe you don't know him—don't know you—as well as you…
But then he cracks into a tiny private smile, and pulls you in to bump noses, smirking for some reason, like he can't just look happy like a normal person, and you know you have the same damn expression too.