recollé ic inbox 2.0;

[parodeity]

DAVE STRIDER

consider this your warning about stairs. itll just keep happening bro. im telling you man

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[parodeity]

How the fuck is it any less weird with me, I ain't your twin.

[splinten]

Because you're you.

[parodeity]

That's why I'm failin' to get it.

[ tbqh. ]

And anyway, I figured that wasn't a thing.

[splinten]

I can't elaborate on somethin' that is essentially a gut feeling. It's just how I feel.

[So. Yeah.]

[parodeity]

Are you sure you're not just trickin' yourself into thinkin' that's a thing you want re: me?

[splinten]

Given the sustained nature of this feeling, as in a continuous sentiment from our childhood to the present moment, I am reasonably confident that it ain't a self Jedi mindtrick.

[parodeity]

You gave away pieces of me willingly.

[splinten]

I didn't think that was what I was doing. That probably makes me a fuckin' idiot, but it... It's the home thing. I wasn't thinkin' about the physical location of it, and you were. I was thinkin' of it as both of us always being able to go to each other, whenever, for anything, as the same home in a different place.

I was stupid not to see it, but I didn't.

[parodeity]

You missed things.

[splinten]

I did.

[parodeity]

Which way d'you think I meant that sentence?

[splinten]

That I didn't notice things then, and I'm not noticin' them now.

[parodeity]

No. I mean you missed things. What you gave up.

[splinten]

You mean sleeping in the same room and sharin' space and being able to comfort you or take comfort from you any time things went wrong.

I still miss them.

[parodeity]

Again: no.

[ he moves his hands off the ledge and they go to his lap, palm-up. there's the scar on the right palm, and he traces it with his left index finger. ]

I mean you missed things. I mean when I wanted to talk about college options I eventually texted you, but you weren't around so before I ever did that I talked to Rose and Roxy because they were. I mean there were a million times I had nightmares and I didn't call, because you weren't there. I mean that the day I woke up and I'd lost a bunch of weight, I went to Roxy's room and knocked on the door and talked to her for a little, even if I didn't tell her a damned thing that mattered. I mean there's a million thoughts or opinions or conversations I didn't have with you because you weren't around, and so I had them with other people, or I didn't have them at all. I mean there were a thousand mundane things I would've gone to you with first, but I went somewhere else instead because it wasn't like I could just walk into our room or whatever and tell you whatever it was. I mean you're never gonna be the first to know most of the bullshit that happens to me nowadays because you're not the first line of defense, and other people will notice or see or be around for it first.

[ so, to sum up: ]

You missed things. So I find it kinda hard to buy you want all of me or whatever. And when I said it was normal to not have people entirely, this is the kinda thing I meant. You can't be around for someone all the time. It's an impossibility, and everyone is always giving up pieces of other people.

[splinten]

[Dirk goes very still and quiet and he listens and he hears it all and he looks down at the street underneath them and he doesn't say anything.]

Yeah. It made me jealous, and upset with myself for being jealous. And I tried to get back in by shopping with you for clothin' or whatever else, but it didn't matter. I'd already destroyed what I was tryin' to have.

[parodeity]

You get used to it. Missin' shit, or mindin' it. It ain't impossible to do. But that's why I think you're kind of kiddin' yourself when you say you want everything. Things like that.

[splinten]

If I didn't want it, I wouldn't get jealous that you went shoppin' with Roxy instead of me. I wouldn't get upset when you chose Kashuu to Strife with, or that you chose to stay with Yuri instead of me, or when I learned you were having nightmares and wouldn't come to me. If I didn't really want it, I wouldn't hate myself for being so selfish as to still want it now.

I always fuck up everything for myself, Bro. That doesn't make the feeling any less real.

[parodeity]

You get used to it, though. There's a door, and someone on the other side, and sometimes they come out and you talk and things are fine, but you're never gonna get that stuff back, you know? You're mostly never gonna be whoever the fuck gets to see any bullshit that happens to me firsthand, I'm never gonna be that for you [ gestures at dirk's everything, meaning the physique change ] and nor should I be really, and that's just kinda how things are. This is barely even related to whatever we came up here to argue about, it's just...true. We're past the point in our lives where we shared a room and were one another's first picks for everythin'.

We grew up, Dirk.

[splinten]

[Saying 'I don't want to grow up' sounds so childish and petty. He feels childish and petty and pathetic and small.

He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't look up from the ground below, and he thinks of water.]

I'm sorry.

[parodeity]

Me too. But you don't really got anythin' to be sorry for. Like...you haven't done anything wrong. This is all normal. The only not normal shit is all the past life nonsense and, like, me bein' weird about ordinary everyday growin' up stuff.

[splinten]

[His grip has gone tight around his shades. He doesn't look up still.]

A romantic partner ain't replacement for family. It isn't the same.

[parodeity]

I didn't say it was. [ just that it's normal not to be first place for someone forever. ] All I'm sayin' is that "everything" isn't a possibility when neither of us can give the other that, and when we've both given up things we used to have of one another and in certain cases have made it impossible to get those things back.

[ and also: ]

And that isn't bad, it's just somethin' we both have to accept and get used to and not...care about. I sulked about it like, for the space of one thing and then accepted it as the new normal. I figured you already had as well.

[splinten]

You underestimate my sulkin' skills, Bro.

[parodeity]

Sulk all you want, then.

[ that mostly sounds tired. ]

I'm not wrong.