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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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"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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[ by me, he doesn't add, because it's obvious. because dirk said dave didn't break this, but he did. it is everything he never wanted to do to any of his friends, and every reason he never told them anything.
he could have done this differently. he could have played off the first meeting calm and waiting, and he could never have let on to how many pieces his heart has always been in.
it's too late to make that lie a reality. but dirk doesn't really need to be aware of the settling numbness and the patient wait for the end to come, when all dave's tasks are finally done. maybe in eternity after life he'll just lock himself away somewhere alone, or maybe he'll find a rose who won't be his but won't mind the company.
maybe he can get lord english to kill his ghost, too, along with all the obnoxious teenage trolls. ]
You're still just a kid. [ it's something he can recognize even at a distance, through fog. ] You always have been.
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[He's a little incredulous, a little too exhausted to be that.]
You have no idea how you're keepin' me alive right now, do you?
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[ veering conversationally: ]
It wasn't just about wanting to deserve something, was it?
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...The training? [Dave stop taking u-turns??]
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[ it's not a statement that hurts, because hurt is a thing that isn't happening right now, so he continues with his other topic, implacable and calm: ]
It wasn't about bleedin' to prove you deserved somethin' or whatever, was it? Or whatever grandiose explanation you're tryin' to say it was, always. That isn't the full truth, is it? Sometimes it was probably just to feel a thing, even if it was a really stupid thing. Or to try to stop feelin' them.
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[It's true.]
...Yeah. Sometimes. Human motivations are pretty complicated things. I've spent a long time trying to pick apart and fully understand mine.
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[ but it's too late for that. they're locked into whatever this is and dave can't shut the door entirely until he's dead, and then he never has to think about any of it ever again. he can find a corner and sit down and just not care to his heart's content, and then he can end. he imagines dirk will maybe figure something out that isn't just dying after death for himself. maybe dirk will meet rose someday.
rose would probably like that. ]
You're too much your aspect.
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