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WEEK ONE: SUNDAY, POST GROUP MEETING
[ well, after That Meeting was over, dave would have hooked a hand on dirk's arm, said "a'ight, come with me" and dragged him off to an area where they can maybe be alone and have enough room for...whatever...the hell he dragged dirk off for.
dirk gets a measured look before dave crosses his arms - dropping dirk's - and says: ]
Ground rules for comin' with me into dangerous shit: you guard the rear, I'm on point. Solid?
[ before dirk can answer, he adds: ]
You're less familiar with weapons that ain't the damn katana. I'm more familiar with 'em. So, point's me. [ he's tense and hesitant when he continues with: ] ...And you guard my back. [ he's usually more than a little wary about having dirk at his back, so this is. probably progress? ]
dirk gets a measured look before dave crosses his arms - dropping dirk's - and says: ]
Ground rules for comin' with me into dangerous shit: you guard the rear, I'm on point. Solid?
[ before dirk can answer, he adds: ]
You're less familiar with weapons that ain't the damn katana. I'm more familiar with 'em. So, point's me. [ he's tense and hesitant when he continues with: ] ...And you guard my back. [ he's usually more than a little wary about having dirk at his back, so this is. probably progress? ]
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He believes the lie, but not far enough.]
...What?
[He draws back, staring at Dave in confusion.]
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[ he lets his hands drop, then reaches up after a second to remove his shades - john's shades - with a care that isn't exaggerated. they're a defense, but he doesn't need them to guard himself if he has to give them away, clipping them to the front of his shirt and allowing himself to step off the ledge.
and there's no point to any guard except a cover for exactly how much he's going to fuck himself up, or how much anyone else is going to. no one will believe perfection, so the lie won't be that. dave doesn't bother to make his gaze steady, lets himself look at the ground instead, and he only halfway modulates his tone. ]
I learned quick how not to fall, so it worked.
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[Dave says his first memory is Bro (Dirk) throwing him off the roof and Dirk thinks, I'm doing it now.] Please don't do this. Stay on the roof. I'll leave.
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[ he casts around, distantly, for something else. ]
He taught me how to mix when I was a kid, too. He saved my life before I bit it before I even entered the game. [ he lets his left shoulder raise and fall, and dave looks up, and he's uncomfortable but he doesn't budge. he doesn't put his shades back on, but he doesn't let them go even though they're clipped to his shirt. ] He wasn't...what I wanted. Maybe not even what I needed. But it did keep me alive, and you should at least know that part, if you've finally realized I'm too fucked up to bother with.
[ there's a lever, dave thinks, and he slams it hard. ]
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I'll always want to bother with you! [Loud, vehement. Scared.] I don't want to break you. [It's what Dave has been telling him this entire time, You'll destroy me, over and over, Dave has said it.]
You said I'd wreck you. You said it and you warned me and it's the last thing I wanted, but I am exactly the kind of selfish, narcissistic asshole who can trick himself into believing I'd help you instead of hurting you, that I'd be the one to catch you instead of the one who throws you off the roof. You warned me over and over that I'd destroy you, and what I've ended up doing is locking you back in the room I promised to try to get you out of. You don't deserve that. You deserve to get out.
[Quiet and pained and miserable because the lever worked but Dirk is still scared:] I don't want to give up on you. There's pretty much nothin' that'd make me give up on you, because I've done the cruelest thing imaginable and started to love you. Mixin' records doesn't make up for throwing you off a roof.
If you want me gone, I'll leave the team. If that's what you need to get out of the apartment, if it'll protect you, you won't have to deal with me again. I can handle me and Jake dyin', we'll be okay, and I'll... I'll ask the girls to make sure you get out alive. You don't deserve to break because I'm a clingy, selfish bastard. You deserve to live and be free of this.
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the next best option is making sure everyone else has what they need not to crumble. ]
I can't get out of my room on my own. [ it's a soft admission of truth said to the ground, and it's true but it's also so very, very true he will never allow anyone to help him. maybe he could have if things had gone just a little differently, maybe if there were someone he could trust to bring him out or if he could have trusted dirk, if dirk didn't keep saying exactly the wrong things or exactly the right ones in quick succession, again and again.
he looks up again. ] But if you want to leave, I do get it. It's why I keep givin' you the option.
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[Dirk sees the wince and the lie is half-true so it hits its mark, but Dirk doesn't hear, Don't tell me you love me and maybe Dave wouldn't say it but it's what he thinks he would say.]
You can't get out of your room if I destroy you.
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"there's never really been any chance of getting out, anyway." is equally unhelpful.
so is "why do you suddenly care about that now, rather than during the part where you burned me down?" ]
I understand if you choose to leave anyway. [ that's careful, guarded, but that's how he's spoken the entire time, mostly. drawing back and letting his shoulders hunch and he keeps giving dirk the out and maybe this time dirk will really, actually take it when the damage is mostly irreversible. it would be ironic, and bro always had a thing for irony. ] What I want's still the same it has been since I woke up here.
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[He hurts. This all hurts. He hates what he has done. He hates what he can't seem to find a way to stop.
He thinks about how easy it would to stop.]
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[ it's not a lie. it's not enough. he searches for another half-truth: ]
I want to...learn to be less of a mess.
[ it's desperately too-true, but it's something he's never really thought possible, even on the meteor. you can learn to be a good person, and work on that. it's harder to undo what has been done to you. ]
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You're makin' a mess of yourself right now.
Aren't you?
[Dave's a phenomenal liar, but Dirk is made of splinters. He has been the self that broke. Over and over, he has tried to be the one to make the sacrifice, and he just hurts everyone else instead.]
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[ or exactly that. he turns up his right palm (the fingernail marks are still there, but whatever) and says: ]
You were right. I can't do this alone. But I was right, too: it's up to you if you help me or not.
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He doesn't want to throw him off the roof.]
My job was to sacrifice myself to protect you.
[He thinks he must have failed. He doesn't know how to save him now.
He curls his fingers in Dave's, but doesn't yet take his hand.]
You deserve to be loved and protected. You deserve to get out.
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he doesn't do much more than let his fingers curve. ]
Three - four. Four people love me. [ rose john jade the mayor. ] I carry that with me, for whatever good it'll do me.
[ he's sorry, but he doesn't think he'll see them again. not until he's dead, and maybe not then if this is disconnected from the dream bubbles.
he'd rather blow himself up than be without rose. but it's not longer a choice. ]
There isn't no one. They're just...out of reach.
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[ if anything, he's only settled further into the mindset the more they've talked. every moment dirk says dave matters is offset by a thousand reminders why he doesn't, and even if he wants the former it's the latter that's familiar and overwhelming and easy to grab onto.
it's for the best he doesn't matter at all, because he might get himself killed. ]
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He broke another kid, because of his toxic, selfish personality.]
Do you want me to walk away?
[If Dave says yes, Dirk will go. If Dave says yes Dirk will spare him.
If Dave doesn't, Dirk will stay, and desperately try to fix the disaster he made out of stupid, arrogant selfishness. He'll stay and live with the mess, never hoping he can help. Always, always trying.
Quietly, he says,]
I told you I was arrogant. I just didn't explain well enough how.
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[ it has pretty much always been too late to save dave strider since he landed in texas on a meteor. it was too late when he woke up here and things lined up just so and even right now with someone reaching out he feels nothing but absolutely alone.
he lets his fingers curl further. ]
...I need the help. But it's not my choice to make.
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[Dave didn't tell him to leave. Dirk knows he has failed, but he also knows that he operates on different principles than Jake English. He can't rely on hope, he has always been hopeless. It is only a matter of necessity.]
Sorry doesn't cut it, but I'm sorry I ruined you anyway. I'm pretty sure I can't undo the damage I've done.
I won't abandon you as long as you choose to have me stay.
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[ he doesn't say you didn't ruin me because it's the kind of blatant lie that won't be believed. he doesn't tell dirk if there is or isn't a way to fix him, because dave was honest a few times: he doesn't believe dirk is capable of doing anything that would help. accepting dirk's hand the first time, when he'd caved and said fine when dirk swore his loyalty had always already been a sort of ending.
because every second after that was only a reminder that it would end and end and end. it was always just a matter of when. dave's never been so precious as even some felt and cotton. ]
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[He wants to get Dave out of his apartment but he doesn't think he can. He'll help there if he can.
If he can't, he'll get Dave out of this hell and then let him go.]
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[ and there's no lie that can save it. it's an unwelcome but not unsurprising revelation, and one he'd warned dirk about from the start.
there's a whisper inside that says you're why bro was what he was because shit, he sure did do this. dave doesn't vocalize it. ]
Guard my back. Is still the plan.
[ he tugs to see if he can get his hand back and though he didn't put his shades back on something in his eyes shutters as dave gives up on feeling feelings for the next few hours, or days, or weeks. get everyone out, allow himself to register the break, and hopefully just end, the finality of death that every doomed dave is promised.
it's enough of a plan to go on. ]
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[No: that isn't true. He doesn't really believe he can. But he believes he has to.
He has let Dave's hand go, but he hesitates, and then touches his arm, close to the wrist.]
When I was a kid, I built robots to attack me. It's how I trained, since there wasn't anyone else around, and you can only learn so much battlin' sea monsters. I programmed them to stalk and surprise me, and I set them to kill.
I knew my Bro wouldn't have wanted me to do it, but I kept doing it because I wanted to break myself becoming good enough to deserve the legacy he left me. I'd have been dead in the water, entirely literally, if it weren't for what he had prepared to keep me alive. I wanted to deserve it and I didn't get how badly I fucked myself making sure it happened. I didn't believe I was getting any better if I didn't break or bleed or hurt. That wasn't on him, though. It was my own fucked up personality turning on itself. The responsibility wasn't his.
The responsibility here isn't yours. You're the one who has been hurt.
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