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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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[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?

[parodeity]

Somethin' stupid. What about you?

[splinten]

What about me?

[parodeity]

Your feelings. I don't know. You always try to just talk about mine.

[splinten]

[Ah.]

Sorry. That's a hypocrisy on my part, but I'll try to correct it. [So.] What do you want to know my feelings about? I'll be honest about them.

[parodeity]

...Whatever. This, the city, the universe.

[ he's not sure where to start. ]

[splinten]

Startin' with the easiest, then. I distrust the city now. I can't rely on things to stay constant or work the way they're supposed to. I'm always waitin' for the other shoe to drop, for a twist that will pull the whole thing out from under my feet. It's... fucked up when I have my sense of people's souls. It's like walking around knowing that most souls are just less.

['Window dressing.' Dave put into a phrase the thing that Dirk feels, on a visceral level, wherever he goes.]

[parodeity]

Are you happier without it.

[splinten]

[He's quiet for a moment.]

I don't know. It isn't a reminder on a physical level, but I feel lacking without it. [A pause] And it's comforting to have a sense of your soul. It makes me feel at ease.

[parodeity]

So you just listen for our souls all the time? Like, all of us. [ well the house is that way but dave gestures towards whereabouts it is. ]

[splinten]

Not all of you, and not all the time. I'm not as good at finding others as I am at finding yours, and... [He pauses.] Sometimes when we were kids, you'd come up to me after a nightmare and I'd be still awake, and I'd tell you it was because I couldn't stop thinking. But once you were with me, I basically fell straight to sleep.

Lately I've been looking for your soul when I feel like that. I can't track you down, but I can sense that you're out there, and it helps. It has to be yours, not just because Rose's soul is wrong, but because... [This is stupid. He rubs the back of his hand against his mouth.] I always figured losing me forever would hurt you more than it would hurt Roxy. So you're always reason enough to stick it out.

[parodeity]

Because I've always been transparent as fuck in unfortunate ways.

[ he doesn't say: i miss that about the nightmares, or that he slept better in those days, or that he hasn't slept at all since monday and it's exhausting in its own way. ]

It's a sucky power, isn't it?