[It's a lot. And the second John is named, Dirk understands it, and everything else is just further illumination. It's just everything that he's afraid of.

Dirk lies back down again, although this time, it isn't a flop of despair. He shifts his hand, just a little. It isn't touching Dave's, since Dave's arms are at his eyes anyway. But it could be if Dave moved his hand over.]

Like I said, dude. It matters to me.

[Dirk Strider is very stubborn. And he loves his brother very, very much.]

I told you that I used to fantasize about some kind of, like, master-apprentice relationship with my Bro, where he trained me in the ways of the rebellion and I went down a hero like him. That was what I imagined for a brotherhood. Jane's life was pretty bizarre anyway because of the Crocker thing, so maybe I didn't have enough frame of reference for normalcy, or maybe it was how I read his persona over the distance of the centuries. But I just thought that'd be really cool, the kind of sibling relationship I wanted.

[The kind he thought about all the time, that he pretended he could have, one day. His hand doesn't move closer, but it does curl up. Dirk turns his head towards Dave.]

For the past half a year, I didn't fantasize about that at all. Now I just think about how much I want to do together the things we used to do.