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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]

Like what.

[splinten]

Like Rose's death.

[parodeity]

I didn't raise my own fuckin' sword and cleave her head from her neck. You've decapitated shit in your memories. You know exactly what it feels like. You have to cut hard enough to get through the bone. Or fast enough.

[ it'd sucked standing there looking at her and knowing he couldn't do anything at all, that she was going to die and he couldn't save her, but - ]

I didn't kill her. I watched her die, but I didn't cause it. Her blood wasn't everywhere.

[splinten]

[Oh.]

Okay. Yeah.

That was a really fucked up thing for me to ask you to do.

[parodeity]

[ dave twists his hands together to keep from reaching out. ]

Just keep your head on your neck and I'll be happy.

[ ... ] And your neck attached to your body. All the pieces and parts properly accounted for.

[splinten]

[Dirk pauses and notices his hand.]

I will.

Can I put your hand on my throat again? Or do you not want to be touched.

[parodeity]

It's weird when you ask permission.

[ which isn't a no. he stops clenching his hands, at least, and kind of looks at dirk off to the side, uncertain. ]

[splinten]

It's always weird. This is a weird thing.

[Gently, he takes Dave's hand, and pulls it up to his pulse.]

I enjoy it.

[parodeity]

...Why. I know why I do [ because while he has nightmares about bro and the training and his deaths and rose's and john's, and jade's now, dirk's deaths feature pretty heavily. it's the death dave directly caused, and he's consistently terrified upon waking that it wasn't fixed. ] but why the fuck do you.

[splinten]

[His pulse is steady under Dave's hand, as Dirk searches for a way to explain it.]

There are two connected reasons, I guess. It means that I'm still able to help you. But it also just means that you're here with me.

[parodeity]

I didn't say you weren't able to help me. Just that you can't.

[splinten]

That's tricky semantics, bro.

[parodeity]

It's one of those facts I think you're better off not knowin'.

[splinten]

It's also the truth. [He doesn't pull Dave's hand away; he lets it rest there.] So I asked if you had objections before I did this.

[parodeity]

I didn't mean that. [ he meant: he doesn't think it will help dirk to know he can't sleep at night even when sleep is a thing his body wants, or that when he wakes up from that particular nightmare he just stays up until he crashes later, or that a few hours at once are getting more and more difficult to attain as he gets more and more keyed up. ]

I get why you asked, though, even if I'd rather you hadn't.

[splinten]

...Do you want me to stop askin'? What... did you mean?

[He's so lost. It's crossed wires and moving steps and no move he makes is the right one.]

[parodeity]

I was referrin' to talkin' about how this helps, or why it would, ain't...useful.

[ he waves it off with his free hand. ]

If I don't tell you at the outset of a conversation I don't want to be touched, I don't mind it.

[splinten]

It might not be useful. I don't know the best path forward.

I keep wanting to find ways to offer you choices, so that you aren't backed into a corner here. I don't know if that's the right thing to do either.

[parodeity]

Are you backin' yourself into a corner like that?

[splinten]

I don't think so. I've never really considered it, but reflecting on the circumstances and how I'm operating, it seems to me that trying to give you choices is in itself a choice I'm making from a position of full mobility. At this point, it seems like you'd go along with something if I insisted on it and said it was what I needed. That gives me a lot of power, power that I don't really want, because it's the power to coerce and control you. So while I'd like to retain autonomy over myself, obviously, I'd argue that my efforts to give you choices are only possible because I'm not in a corner.

[parodeity]

I don't want it either.

[splinten]

[a pause]

Do you not want choice, or do you not want the power to coerce and control me.

[parodeity]

...The latter.

[ although sometimes he's not sure about the former, but w/e. ]

I know I've done it on decapitation and memories, although you can back out of the latter.

[ however, he will not ever tell dirk he can back out of a no decapitation pact no matter how much he backtracks? ]

[splinten]

[He doesn't point out Dave electing to continue to coerce him on the decapitation thing.]

At that point, the latter is a choice I'm making. I don't know that I'd tell anyone anything even if you decided to break the deal yourself. For the other half, it was generally my intention to tell you all of my memories.

[parodeity]

Why is it ok when you do it and not me.