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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]

...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.

[splinten]

Why is it okay when I do what?

[He could guess but he has decided at this point guessing is a mistake and he needs to just ask things.]

[parodeity]

Let the other person decide all the things. Why are you runnin' a monopoly on it.

[splinten]

Because I landed Park Place. [Dumb joke.] So... do you want it so I decide where you get to decide all the things, and you decide where I do?

[parodeity]

You lost me.

[splinten]

You asked why I get the monopoly on letting the other person decide all the things. So I asked if you wanted in on my monopoly. Split the enterprise fifty-fifty, joint shareholders.

[parodeity]

I mean you lost me on how that would work?

[splinten]

We'd have to work out who gets to compel the other to decide on what.

[parodeity]

Such as?

[splinten]

[stop this plan doesn't make sense he's just winging everything stupidly??]

I could make you decide whether or not you tell me things, and you could make me decide whether or not I tell other people things?

[parodeity]

Dirk, come on.

[splinten]

Yeah, I know. You're right, Dave, it isn't right that it goes all one way. How to balance it out isn't immediately forthcoming, but I'm open to ideas.

[parodeity]

I don't have any. That's at least half the damn problem. What did you want to do? Talkin' is only gettin' us in tangled up circles.

[splinten]

We could ask each other that. Like I ask if you want to have to tell me things in a deal and you ask if I want to tell anyone else about my memories. Not yes or no, necessarily, but clear enough we can decide what to do from it.

Would that work to end the tangling, you think?

[parodeity]

Don't you? I'm not great at support and never was. I meant what did you want to do beyond...this, by the way.

[ another capitulation, or the attempt of one. ]

[splinten]

Not particularly, to be honest. I've been worried about tripping up and letting something slip, but I've never really felt inclined to confide in anyone else on it. I prefer to have you as my confidant, and frankly, the very things that I think make you think I'd rather turn to Roxy or Jake are exactly what make them impossible as options. Our past lives were messy and complicated, and I don't feel like I can really talk to them about any of it when they were part of it. And I don't especially trust anyone else outside of them enough to want to go to them with anything.

So no, I haven't really wanted to confide other people. I've just been worried about losing track of who already knows what and letting something slip. I'm scared of letting you down through sheer incompetence.

[Candidly for all of it, because it's true. It just doesn't work with anyone else]

You mean activities. [Confirm?]