literature

Dave, not David

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Literature Text

Your name is Dave Strider. Dave, not David.
You are 21 years old, and you are alone.
You live in a small apartment in Texas, alone.
You've been alone since you were born.
Yes, you had family, a mum, and a dad, you had grandparents that lived across town and you went to visit them during holidays.
But you never really felt like you belonged. So when your parents sat down, the day after your 16th birthday, and told you you were adopted, you weren't suprised at all.
And although you should have been happy with all of that, you weren't.
You always wanted a brother. Not a younger brother, like most people ask their parents for. You want an older brother.
You didnt have many friends.
To be truthful, you didnt have any friends. In elementry school you sat by yourself on the playground and at lunch. In middleschool you got a laptop for Christmas and started hanging out in chatrooms, thinking maybe you were better suited to online friends. By the time you finished highschool, you had made, and lost, dozens of them. The only one that stuck was a girl your age named Rose.
Just Rose, not Roselynn or Rosetta or anything like that.
Rose lived in New York, and had the same feelings as you.  When she was 17 1/2 her parents told her she was adopted. Unlike you, she had 2 silblings, a younger sister, and, the thing you wanted most, an older brother. Neither of her siblings were adopted.
Rose didnt feel like she belonged with her family. She tried to run away 3 times while she was in elementry school. She never talked about her family much, you dont know her siblings names, or how much older or younger they are.  Rose herself is in university right now, studying psychology. Before she left she came and stayed with you a while. About a week, it was almost a month ago now. She critized your apartment, said it looked like you moved into whatever was avilible as soon as you turned 18. She knows that that's true.
Its not like you need anything bigger anyway. For that matter you can barely afford this place.
You turn on the tv in your empty apartment. Some comedian is on. John Crocker.
You open your laptop and begin working on coming up with another shitty movie. You went to collage and took a film course last year, by next year, sometime in the next few years, you'll probably have a job making shitty movies.
You dont actually enjoy the movies you work on, nor do you even enjoy actually working on them. But you just have this feeling that youre making them for someone. In another life maybe you had fans, maybe even friends, that loved them.
You dont think movies are the best way to showcase these shitty stories but you think maybe they would find it cool that they made it this far.
You made up these horrible characters in late elementry school. You wanted to make comic with them, a webcomic series maybe. But you just had this feeling that the person you wanted to see them, wouldnt get to that way. So you went with movies.
----
Years later
----
You have written and produced 2 1/2 movies, and even have a rough draft of your 4th.
Currently you are on a plane, flying to Washington to meet comedian John Crocker.
Months ago you started exchanging emails. You hate his show, and he hates your movies. Now he wants to meet you. So badly in fact that he paid for you plane ticket.
The flight attenent comes out to tell everyone the plane will be landing in a few minutes.
You close your laptop and sigh.
Once youre off the plane you grab your suitcase and call for a cab. You pull a piece of paper out of your pocket and read the address. You tell the cab driver where to go and get in.
For some reason youre very excited.
You havent been excited in a long time. The last time you were excited was probably when Rose came to your house. Before that you cant remember the last time.
You thanks the driver and take your suitcase out of the trunk. A man with graying hair comes to greet you.
"Hello Mr Strider, I'm John Crocker. Im very pleased to meet you. Would you like me to take your bags?"
"Yeah thanks. Its nice to meet you too."
"Is this the only suitcase you brought?"
"Yeah, that and my laptop. I dont have a lot of stuff."
"Well follow me and Ill show you the guest room. Ill introduce you to my son, James."
"Alright, cool."
"You dont talk much, do you David?"
"Its just Dave, not David."
"Oh I know how you feel Im John, not Jonathon."
And thats when you made a connection.
You stayed with John and his son James for 2 1/2 weeks. You'd think you would have more in common with James. He was adopted, and an only child and way closer to you age, but really you clicked more with John. You were both sad to say goodbye when it was time for you to go home. You promised to keep in touch by email.
About 4 months later you got terrible news.
You got a call from John, which was weird, he never called you, it was always an email or text message.
When you answered it was James.
"Oh, James, I thought you were your dad, whats up? And not to be rude but try not to make this areally  long call, I dont have a long distance plan."
Normally you'd be annoyed but you hadnt heard from John in two days, normally youd have gotten a text or an email or something by now.
"It's... Im sorry. Its about dad."
"What? What about him?"
"He- last night, he got in an accident."
Your heart skipped a beat.
"Is he alright."
It wasnt a question. You know its bad, or John would have called or messaged you himself.
"He, we got him to the hospital as soon as we could but it was too late."
This was not happening.
"Dad's gone. Im so sorry not to have told you earlier but so much is going on and, Dave? Are you still there?"
"Yeah, yeah Im here. Thanks for letting me know James. Im sorry. I should go now"
"Alright, Im sorry too. Ill email you about the funeral when theres a date. And dont worry about the plane ticket, dad would want to pay anyway. Dont protest, I know you put away all the money from the movies for the kid youre hoping to adopt. Dad would want it to be this way."
"....Thank you."
You hang up the phone and lay on the floor.
You cry harder than you probably ever have.
----
2 weeks later
----
You get off the plane and get a cab to John- or, James house. You have a much smaller suitcase this time, youre only spending the night. Youll get on the plane again first thing in the morning.
When you get there James comes out to meet you, holding a girl about a year old if that.
"Hi Dave, this is Jane, my daughter. Well, shes adopted. Ive been waiting to be able to adopt for a long time. They called me in to get her the day after dad died. I was going to decline, wait until all this was done but I was afraid I wouldnt get another chance for a long time."
"She looks kind of like your dad."
"I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her. Come on inside, you know where the guest room is. We'll leave for the funeral in about an hour."
----
After the funeral
----
You stand around awkwardly with all of John's family and friends. You find James and offer to hold baby Jane while he talks to relitives.
"Dave this is dad's sister, Jade." James says as he passes Jane to you.
"Hello."
"Hey."
After that you and Jade start sending each other emails, shes your new John, your online friend with some kind of weird connection. Shes just Jade, not Jadeyn.
You kind of think you fell in love with her.
The only problem was she was twice your age.
She texted you everyday. 'hey cool kid! <3'
You were crushed when she died.
----
You only met her in person once, at Johns funeral.
You had plans to fly out to meet her. After you gave up hope of ever being able to adopt a kid in your life time. You had money. She had a grandson, named Jake living with her. It would be easier for you to fly there then bring them both here. She agreed.
They lived on an island, with no one else. Youre not even sure its technically part of America.
And shes gone.
The only other thing new in your life is information. Rose found out about a game that will be played by her future daughter, your future son, Jake and Jane. Which means you will have a son.
Or a brother.
You dont think you'd make a good parent.
Thats means you need to get things ready.
Thats what you were doing, before you got Jake's email.
And Rose's email.
Your brother will get here long after youre gone.
You grab another bottle of alcohol and lay on the floor.
There will be lots of time to get this place ready.
For the brother you'll never meet.
You miss John. No offence meant to Rose, but even though you didnt know him long, he's your best friend.
You miss Jade, she wasthe love of your life, you were just born at the wrong time.
You miss Rose, your non biological sister. You havent heard from her since she found out shell never meet her daughter.
Maybe you can sleep on the floor tonight.

You think his name will be Dirk.
Alpha Dave
Kinda sadstuck
Small mention of DaveJade, but its not a shippy fic

Dave is 21 and alone, he's always wanted a big brother, his best friend Rose is away at school and he's waiting for career making shitty films to take off.
You'd think being alone would leave you with nothing to lose though.
He doesn't even like the films he makes.

I wrote this like, last night, idk how good it is and yeah.
Ill probably draw a preview image for this sometime after I get my tablet installed on this laptop.
© 2013 - 2024 Strawberrijamm
Comments3
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PastelGauges's avatar
This is underrated.