Work Text:
Dee Dee woke up to the sound of books thumping off the shelf in the other room.
Oh no, she thought with a frown.
She left her room. The hallway was quiet; Mom and Dad were still asleep. It was probably just as well. Dee Dee was more used to helping Dexter when he got ... well ... like this.
She gently creaked open Dexter’s door, as always ignoring the STOP and KEEP OUT signs plastered on the door.
“Dexter?” she whispered.
Like usual, Dexter was standing in front of his bookshelf. His room was unchanged from how it was in his elementary school days: same sheets, same decorations, same everything. It was a deep contrast to Dee Dee’s room, which had changed much as she became an older teenager (okay, it was still pink, but it was at least had new things in it that were pink.) But that was okay. The familiar was at least ... comforting. Until it wasn’t.
“Dexter?” she repeated.
Dexter jerked his head towards her, the scar on his head peeking out from his red hairline. He was wearing a lab coat, but his feet were bare. He looked scraggly, the red peach fuzz on his chin not having been maintained in a while. Dee Dee would have to remind him to take better care of himself after she ... dealt with this.
“Hi Dee Dee,” he mumbled with disdain.
It was okay, Dee Dee told herself. He was just frustrated.
“Need help?” Dee Dee said, smiling helpfully.
Dexter frowned, sitting down, drawing his knees into his chest.
“I ... forgot which book to pull ...” he said.
“Right,” Dee Dee nodded, as if this hadn’t happened before. “Right. That’s okay.”
Dee Dee stood in front of the bookcase and pulled the right book. The sounds of grinding gears accompanied the bookcase raising upward to reveal the chrome metal interior of the lab.
“There we go!” Dee Dee said as cheerfully as she could manage.
Dexter sniffed and walked inside.
A thank you would have been nice but ... Dee Dee forgave that. She always did. Without being invited, Dee Dee followed. Dexter didn’t protest.
They walked past many machines that were cracked and damaged, springs and servos and ... other important looking stuff exposed. It was amazing the entrance had never broken considering the state of everything else.
Dexter either didn’t notice because he was confused or chose to ignore it. Dee Dee wasn’t sure which.
“Computer, tell me what I should work on today,” he shouted.
Oh jeez, this was gonna be a bad day, Dee Dee realized.
“Um, Dexter--” she said, raising her finger.
Dexter ignored her.
“COMPUTER!” he shouted.
Dee Dee gulped. “Dexter?”
“What?” he snapped harshly.
Dee Dee winced.
“Um ... “ She fidgetted her hands together. This was always hard. “Don’t you remember? The Computer got damaged a little while after ... you know ... the accident? She uh ...” She felt a horrible pit in her stomach. “She doesn’t work anymore.”
Dexter’s face softened, his eyes widened.
“What?” he said, almost a whisper.
“Y-yeah,” Dee Dee nodded. For some reason, she added, “I’m sorry.”
“... right. I ... see.” Dexter, for all the times he lashed out, never seemed to whenever Dee Dee reminded Dexter of the Computer. Somehow that made it hurt worse. His eyes seemed to flicker into the distance, then he nodded. “No matter. I can fix her.”
“R-right ...”
Dexter approached one of his many workbenches. It had a large gouge right down the center. Dexter didn’t acknowledge it at all. He reached for a large wrench sitting on it, scuffed and half-rusted on its crescent.
Seeing him like that made Dee Dee want to smile and cry all at once. Stifling a sob in her throat, she pulled out her phone.
“Hey I--” She cleared her throat to get the cracking out of her voice. “I-I- I’ve got an iPhone. I mean, it’s not exactly the same, but if you want, you know, something to talk to while you’re working, you can just say ‘Hey, Siri,” and then it’ll--”
Dexter glared at her. Dee Dee pursed her lips together.
“Or-- you--you know, nevermind,” Dee Dee said trailing off.
Dexter shook his head and began screwing a single bolt on his bench. It didn’t exactly seem to tighten anything but Dee Dee didn’t say anything.
“Okay well ...” Dee Dee stepped away. “I’ll let you go back to um ... that.”
“Good,” he said.
Dee Dee lingered, staring at him for a moment. She allowed herself for, just a moment, to think maybe things would be different this time, even though deep down she knew that was too optimistic, even for her.
She left the lab, quiet except for the soft scraping of metal on metal.
Dee Dee went back to her room and, when she realized she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, just laid in the bed and waited.
It wasn’t long after before she heard the sound of a loud smash.
She got up out of bed automatically, only stopping for a moment to let out a heavy, sad sigh. She rubbed her temple.
This wouldn’t be any different, she realized. This would be the same as always, but it didn’t make it any easier.
She went back into Dexter’s lab through the bookcase.
“Dexter?!” she yelled as she stepped through.
The destructive noises of metal smashing had stopped.
Dee Dee stepped into the lab, putting her hand to her mouth, calling out.
“Dexter?! DEXTER?!” she shouted as she walked through the lab. She felt a jolt of fear at the lack of a response until she finally reached the workbench he’d been working on.
The workbench was now split jaggedly in half, the large rusted wrench stuck through it. Dexter was slumped over the wreckage, head in his hands.
“... Dexter?” she whispered.
“... go away,” he mumbled back, voice cracked.
Dee Dee felt a sinking feeling in her chest. She put on a smile.
“Hey ... hey, Dexter, it’s okay.” She put a hand on his shoulder.
Immediately he twisted around, tears steaming his glasses.
“It’s not okay!” he shouted. “I ... I can’t fix her. I can’t fix anything!”
“I--I know, it’s--”
Dexter clawed at his hair.
“It’s like the knowledge is there, but I can’t focus, it all comes out muddled and ... it’s ... hard for me to remember what I am doing, what I wanted to do and ...” He grinded his teeth and swung his foot around, kicking the bench. “I can’t do anything with any of my inventions! I can’t even remember how to work my own lab-or-atory! I’m useless!”
“What? No no, Dexter, you’re not--”
“Well what would you call me, Dee Dee? What is Dexter without his lab, without a brain? Huh! You tell me!”
Dee Dee opened her mouth, but wasn’t sure what to say. Before she even got the chance, Dexter slumped down to the floor.
“Now look at me ... I’m almost as stupid as you.”
Dee Dee’s eye twitched and, with a clenched fist and a deep breath, she bit her tongue. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before.
“Dexter ...” she said.
He pulled his hands back and glared at her.
“This is your fault!” he spat out.
Dee Dee’s anger boiled over, despite herself.
“What?” she hissed.
“It is!” he shouted. “If it wasn’t for you all ...” He held his arms loosely out and put an insultingly ditzy expression on his face, tongue half sticking out. “‘Uhhh, what does this button do?’’ and wrecking my lab all those times, I probably could have already made a cure for whatever is wrong with me!”
“This is not my fault!”
“Yes it is!”
“No, it’s not.” Her fingernails dug so tightly into her palm they were close to breaking skin. “Don’t you dare.”
“Dare what? Blame you for being an idiot and making me like this!”
Dee Dee, unable to stop herself, screamed out.
“I WASN’T THE ONE WHO SCREWED UP AN EXPERIMENT SO BAD THEY ALMOST SMASHED THEIR SKULL OPEN! No, no, that was all you, mister!”
Dexter stopped, blinked rapidly.
“... is ... I did that?” he asked softly.
Dee Dee unclenched her fist, the red leaving her face. What was she doing? She shouldn’t lash back like that. She ... she should have been better than that.
“... you really didn’t remember, do you?” she asked.
Dexter shook his head.
“Did ... did that experiment destroy my computer?” His voice was soft. His eyes glanced all around, as if only now seeing the evidence of the damage. “And ... my lab?”
“No ...” Dee Dee sighed, giving this talk again. “No, you, um ... you did that after. After you were frustrated from not being able to fix anything else. You got upset and ...” Dee Dee trailed off.
Dexter’s eyes were wide. He looked back at the workbench that he had just destroyed, then nodded slowly.
“I ... I see.” He put his hand to his head, an awful grimace on his face. “Dee Dee?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.” His voice quivered.
Dee Dee frowned.
“I’m sorry too,” she said.
“No really, I’m so sorry.” Dexter’s eyes started to gush as his words became more and more strained. “I’m sorry. I’m a terrible person, I shouldn’t have said that--”
“It’s okay.”
Dee Dee stretched her arms out as Dexter collapsed into them like a child. He cried into her torso.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Dee Dee rubbed the back of his head.
“I know ... it’s okay, Dexter. I’m still here.”
“I know.”
Dee Dee stayed their holding Dexter for some time as he let it out, just like always.