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[parodeity]

DAVE STRIDER

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

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[splinten]

That sounds pretty one-sided, Dave.

[parodeity]

Between what you just said and what I just said, it's what I'd prefer to do.

[splinten]

[He can't say anything to that. What Dave wants to do is all Dirk can do. It's one-sided in more than one way. He doesn't know how to explain it all, to say that it isn't that Dave is wrong about things changing, it isn't that he doesn't think Dave has a right to set boundaries and refuse to go past them. It hurts and it matters but it isn't the thing.

It's that Dirk is trapped. Not that Dave won't believe him, but that Dave refuses to accept that it's possible Dirk might be sincere, refuses to allow for even the possibility that how Dirk feels is true for all its contradictions and mistakes. It's that he doesn't seem to even be trying to listen.

But it's selfish to ask that of Dave. It's unfair. It's a burden. It's manipulation, isn't it? And he can't find a way to it that doesn't make Dave hurt.]

Dave, I... If that's a boundary you want to set, I'll respect it.

[parodeity]

I don't want to set boundaries. I just...I want you to be happy and not worry about me, because I know that out of everythin' in the past few months, I'm the thing that's made you the most unhappy. So...please. Just write me out and we can dial it down to somethin' where I'm not constantly makin' you look like you do right now.

[ whatever that might be. something where they never talk about things like this, maybe, at least not until some hazy far off day where dave isn't jumping backwards at the first sign of an outstretched hand. ]

[splinten]

[He doesn't know what to say. He tries to find a way to put it right. Honest, without being bruising.]

Sorry. It isn't... I don't know how to put it. It isn't the conversations in themselves.

[He doesn't know what to do, he turns it over in his head, trying to put it right.]

I don't know if I can say it without forcin' your hand, and that's the one thing I am tryin' so damn hard not to do.

[parodeity]

You say that like it isn't always one or the other of us doin' that.

[splinten]

[There's a breath of laughter, quiet, unhappy.]

It's the givin' up. It's when you give up on us, and me. I understand when you can't believe me and you can't trust me, that doesn't hurt like this. It's just—being stupid and flawed and makin' mistakes doesn't make me any less sincere. I don't know if that makes any sense, it isn't about belief and trust, it's about... feelin' like I'm not allowed to feel the things I do because I'm not good enough to pull them off right.

[parodeity]

...You can feel what you feel, Dirk. But yeah, I guess I have. It ain't about your sincerity, even if I...don't have an easy time believin' in it.

[splinten]

You've given up. [Clarifying that.] What does that mean.

[parodeity]

I spent the week thinkin' it'd be better if we did. For you. And I...gave up on the notion that wasn't true, and that it'd ever be...what it was.

[splinten]

It wouldn't be better for me. I don't know if it is for you. If it is, I can accept it. But for me it'd be—not better.

[He'd never recover. He won't say it out loud because Dave won't believe it. He'll become functioning with a chunk of his heart dead.

It sounds too extreme for Dave to buy, maybe, but Dirk has always loved in extremes. In this world and in the last.]

[parodeity]

I think you'd acclimate. After a while. After we stopped havin' these conversations where all we do is - where all I do is hurt you. You'd do other things, and have other conversations, and you wouldn't...be trapped into this shit. It'd be like cuttin' off a limb with gangrene in it.

[splinten]

You are not a gangrenous limb, Dave.

[parodeity]

I am pretty sure that has been proven conclusively to be a thing, Dirk.

[splinten]

We're havin' a rough patch, and things are changing. You definitely can't insist you're more gangrenous than I am.

[parodeity]

I'm pretty sure I can. So I'm givin' up, Dirk. I won't say this kind of shit to you again, okay? About...my feelings, or whatever, because they're just as pointless as I knew they were. And we'll go back to the time when I didn't tell you it.

[splinten]

[His jaw is set.] If I'm the one with the bad limb then I get to choose my fate. My choice is to keep it and keep tryin'. You can decide what you need for yourself, and I won't force your hand, but this is my decision for me.

[parodeity]

I don't know what I need, Dirk. Probably nothin' I can get, so...focus on you. If that's your decision, fine, we'll do that one.

[splinten]

You know it doesn't work like that.

[He steadies himself, turning over the conversation.]

You're unhappy 'cause you hurt me. And you keep hurtin' me, and you hate it and you don't know how to stop except by cuttin' out and pullin' back. And it confirms every shitty thought you have about yourself, it makes you certain that all the worst things you believe about yourself are real.

[parodeity]

That's a major portion of why I'm unhappy, yeah.

[splinten]

Is there anythin' else that you'll tell me?

[parodeity]

Things that're pointless to be unhappy about, mostly.

[splinten]

I have a lot of those.

[He looks at Dave, trying to find the way to put it that makes sense.]

It's okay. We're just... fucked up now, beyond the level that we used to be. I think, though, that you're also one of the people who's best able to unfuck my head. You make me want to keep tryin', at least.

[parodeity]

[ dave's expression goes flatly neutral in an instant, covering something else.

he nods. ]

...Okay.

[splinten]

[He's quiet.]

...What is it?