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Okay.

[ ...

...

.................. ]

Can you unimagine Squarewave first, though.

[ HE CAN'T THINK SERIOUS THOUGHTS WITH SQUAREWAVE ASKING FOR RAP BATTLES AND CALLING THEM STUPID NAMES, I AM SO SORRY DIRK ]

[And there goes the tension. RIGHT. SQUAREWAVE. STILL THERE. BEING SUCH A GODDAMN DOG.]

I. Let me try that.

[Dirk tries to focus? He tries very hard. Squarewave is there, rapping; then it's Sawtooth, rapping much better; it switches fast to Brobot—and Dirk manages to get rid of it. It's always easier killing a splinter.]

Sorry about that, dude. He's always been pretty much an overenthusiastic puppy.

[Which Dirk finds charming, but.]

[ LOOK...look. he liked squarewave but he cannot do this will the guy is talking about D-STRIZZLE and DAVE-DIGGITY in the background. he is willing to have serious conversations in terrible christmas sweaters but they have to draw a line somewhere, maybe, and squarewave is maybe the line in the sand???

he sighs. ]

Thanks. And, uh, no, it's fine, he was pretty cool. Just kind of. Distracting? [ he does not ask about brobot because he does not think he needs to know right now. ]

Um. Ready?

That is pretty much his number one skill. [Like. His number one skill definitely isn't rapping there.

Dirk nods.]

Ready.

[Whenever Dave can do it.]

Right.

[ he'd tapdanced out of the way of "if you trust me" because it's still something he's on uncertain ground with. some things he trusts dirk with; some he's still uneasy about. but maybe wanting not to be misunderstood should count for something, also. and he doesn't think dirk could ever have described what he'd simply shown dave. not well enough.

dave's pretty sure every description he's ever given was unequal to simply showing dirk a memory of bro. but he'd been so very careful to keep all his feelings out because they were never something anyone else should have to feel.

there's absolutely a few false starts that are mostly a blast of nerves and tangled thoughts before dave forces himself to breath in and out.

just let it go.

your name is dave strider and you are never alone - maybe. when you were much younger your bro was around more often but usually he's a violent robotic entity you rarely manage to see because you just aren't fast enough or strong enough or good enough. if bro isn't there - sometimes he leaves, you think, but you're never sure - then cal is. cal moves, too. sometimes you don't think it's bro moving him, but you're never sure. in these rooms there's always a presence that sets your nerves on edge, always at the corner of your eyes or just in the back of your mind. there's always a trap or a fight or a test. you don't live alone but you never know where the other person is, and he never speaks to you except once in a blue moon or through notes and weird riddles and games you have never been able to comprehend, and he never touches you unless you're fighting. he barely touches you even then, because it's always a puppet or a sword or a kick with a shoe or one of his inane fighting styles that you can't even keep track of.

you can never calm down but you can pretend you can. you tell yourself a million lies every day about what happens and why and how, and you share those lies with your friends or tell them nothing at all. the truth is, you're just not good enough. you're too small too weak too stupid and you aren't worthy of bro's attention or love and you can't earn it no matter how hard you try because you never measure up. you're terrified he'll leave you alone or decide - finally - that you're not even worth trying to train, even though sometimes you wish that would happen and then hate yourself for it. you're terrified your friends will leave you when they realize what bro has always known: you're nothing at all. bro's a hero, and you never will be; you're less of a person than even the puppet cabal, and you have nothing to offer anyone except jokes and a million words to cover up every truth that's ever looked your way. sometimes you can disconnect and not think about anything at all but stupid comics and photographs and whatever else comes you way, and those times are the best times; they are only overshadowed by talking to your friends, safely hidden hundreds of miles away and behind your jokes and text so you can play pretend that your bro is your biggest fan. you pretend you do not spend your days and nights sneaking around your own home trying not to invite anything worse than what is already coming. you're fast, but you're never fast enough. you can never predict how your days will go, and you can never outrun them. absconding is never an option; stalling sometimes is.

you want someone to care about you, but you can't ever let them know you. you want to reach out to your friends, and you do, but you never reach out all the way. you aren't sure if you want them to take your hand or not, because you link touch with pain but worse than that you don't want to feel them letting go when they figure out who you actually are. you are not worth their time or love and you know it but you're too selfish to tell them that. you want to be anywhere else, all the time, but you know there is nowhere else to go. you want to be alone, you want bro and cal to sleep or something and let you be, but it never happens. none of this matters, because you do not deserve to want anything when you don't even deserve the life you have and the training your bro tries to give you. ]

[Dirk knew it would be a lot, but Dirk was ready. He closes his eyes and he feels it sink into him, lets all the muggy air fill up his lungs. Just as it was for Dave, some of it is strange and some of it is familiar, and some fits just right, the heart of it, wanting and not deserving, wanting and having no right to want. Their apartments are alternate universe mirrors with their lives, and it isn't so simple as that—they are not just each other reflected back. But while Dirk suffocates on hot air, he understands better the things that he didn't ever live, and those he did.

Like someone else's sweater, yes. Like someone else's furnishings in the apartment you grew up in. Ben Stiller is in the same spot, but the furniture is rearranged and different horrors cover the floors.

He has said so many stupid things lately that he doesn't want to try to say anything. He has pushed Dave so hard lately that he doesn't want to make a move. But he remembers how scared he felt showing Dave all of that. He needs to do something or say something.

He doesn't know what to do or say.]

We need to actually remember to go get lunch after this. And not... not? I'm not at all hungry right now but it's still a thing that we need to eventually make happen. Maybe it should be dinner instead? We could, maybe, do something stupid until we can do that.

[It's a little helpless and it's very very stupid. He just knows that he still wants to be with his brother and spend time with him and help him every single day of forever.]

[ at least dirk is just about as bad at knowing what to say as dave is, because he doesn't even know what he wants or expects to hear. nothing, really? there has never been anything that really helps a lot, although rose called it what it was and dirk had once told him he wasn't cool but it didn't matter. it's scary and weird and somehow a twisted relief to know someone else knows, even if he doesn't know how to talk about any of it still. not in a way that ever makes sense.

a different topic is good. ]

Probably. I had, like, an apple at some point. I think.

[ eating would be good?

dave bites his lip. he understands at least one thing, but he isn't sure what to do with the understanding. it's all too possible that he won't be understood or he'll break something - again. it would be safer not to say a word. he could make some sort of comment about what he wants to eat (nothing, but ice cream sounds like a fine random option to annoy dirk or amuse him) and let it lie. or he can try to say something and maybe break it. it's like stepping out into freefall without flight, and dave really doesn't like doing that when it comes to the people he loves.

still.

he opts to at least try, this time. ]

But can we do somethin' not stupid first?

[So more food. Dirk is thinking about that while Dave is thinking about talking and Dirk registers the nervousness but he thinks it's the same thing, the after effect. Only when Dave speaks does Dirk refocus, and it's the same attention it has been since they first met, really: open, interested, wanting to listen. Caring.]

Sure. What do you have in mind?

Can we please finish that list? Both sides. You do so have a trigger, and it's a pointless list if it's just my shit and not yours, or if it's not...the things that we absolutely can't handle or need to work on. Both sides.

[ he uncrosses his arms, but doesn't really know what to do with them, so just ends up rubbing at the pants of his slacks nervously. ]

We did it first 'cause you were worried about settin' me off and breakin' shit and needed rules. And we added clauses about what to work on because I didn't want everythin' off the table full stop. I want a column with your name on it for the same reasons you wanted one for me. Clauses included.

[It's a reasonable request and Dirk is following along, and in theory he doesn't have any real objections, except Dave says he has a trigger and he doesn't and he doesn't know what Dave could have found in his apartment that is a trigger.]

I don't actually have a thing against the ocean? [It's the only thing he could think of Dave thinking he has a vendetta against.] It's cool as long as it isn't. [He gestures towards the window, Dave's window, which is now showing Dirk's blue horizon. He is good with oceans that are not lonely apocalypse oceans.]

[ oh ok dave figured out what to do with his arms. he will use them to bring his hands to his face to just drag down his cheeks. ]

Dude, in retrospect I'm pretty sure I have triggered you before. Did you just not notice? Oh my god you completely didn't notice, did you.

[ that figures ]

You could try explaining yourself instead of being as dramatic as you claim me and Rose are.

[dirk why do you keep coming back to that

because he feels it's unfair that dave accuses them of being the drama queens in the family when this family has dramatists to spare]

Yeah, but why are we both so emotionally constipated that neither of us see our own goddamn problems until someone puts them on neon marquee signs? Do we blame you or me for that?

[ legitimate question. ]

Let's give you another minute to see if you can guess it before we cop to bein' that bad on both sides. Should I give you what I don't want and what I want to work on first? While you try to think up an actual item for your list.

We've already decided Paradox Space is the author of our lives, so I'm going with it. Generally, I've been pretty adept at spotting my own problems.

[This is, one might suggest, only true because it's very easy to see at least a few fish when one is in the middle of a coral reef.]

You're lucky I don't have a childhood fear of asses because you sure as hell are one. [dirk is being mature about this. did dave say he wanted a serious thing? joke's on him, nothing is serious] Fine, give me yours while I try to figure out what you're being a dick about.

[Like it can't be open spaces. Or confined spaces. Or apartments? Which, oh yeah. Dirk decides to shift the room into something that isn't either of their shitty childhoods, which he eventually decides on making a generic apple and orange grove. Not either of the base farms, just a random place that grows apples and oranges.]

Edited 2017-01-08 05:05 (UTC)

You don't get to claim that if you haven't figured it out by the time it's your turn. Also, you don't care that I'm an ass. [ dave says, uncertainly, because he isn't. sure that's true haha but ] You're an asshole, too.

[ dave is also being mature about this?

he makes the oranges bright blue. ]

To reiterate the dumb shit that's obvious that we were listin' originally because my shit wasn't obvious: [ he starts ticking them off on fingers. it's easier to say the ones he's said before so this isn't going to take too long. he thinks. but for the sake of actually trying he tries to be complete. ] don't attack me outside of strife sessions, don't attack me with puppets in strife sessions or out of 'em, no video tapin' without my permission especially for the purposes of weird porn, don't touch food that's mine after I have it unless I give it to you on purpose which ok look I know you don't do any of this but this was on the list before and it's still, um, relevant?

[ that's all old news stuff. he has to slow down to think about anything new. ]

I'd...appreciate it if we never have rooftop fights. I like that our rooftop interactions have only been arguments at worst if they were fights, not...you know. I don't want to work on that. I mean, I like havin' it be somethin' different. If that's okay. [ what the fuck else can set him off? there's probably going to be something he misses, so dave just. tries to think of what he wants that he can admit to. ] Don't...

[ he trails off. the new stuff is harder than the old stuff. ]

...Don't make decisions about changes to our relationship without at least tellin' me about them, even if they're not open for discussion. If that's...okay. That's not - an attack, I just - I want that on the list.

Unfortunately, yeah, I don't care. [Grumble grumble loves Dave it's terrible (no it isn't).

But okay. List. Dave makes a list. It's a good list. Dirk thinks he has messed up one or two of them, like he didn't record Dave for puppet porn but he's not always careful about his recording equipment. So he'll be careful about that. No rooftop fights are okay.

The next thing is harder, but Dirk understands it.]

Yeah, I... that's fair. I'll work on thinking things through better. And not just... thinking they'll be okay. Or hoping, would be more accurate. [He messed that up. He doesn't want to mess up like that again. Time to reassume a philosophy of worst case scenarios, frankly.]

I don't have any problems with all of that.

That's all I [ am willing to admit i ] want. [ there's no follow-up about telling or not telling people things, or any of the rest of it. if he at least knows about shit beforehand he can deal with it as it comes, or force adaption. ]

The work-on-shit column was, uh, flashsteppin'. Which we solved. [ ... ] And now it is here, again, in the list. But we're delayin' that until shit isn't jumpin' out at both of us. But this was me acknowledgin' that it exists still.

[ he doesn't like acknowledging it because he shouldn't have backslid. it sucks. he hates himself? but. ]

That was pretty much it. So, new stuff. The eatin' thing. I...would like to work on the non-attack puppet thing.

[ ...that seems like enough for now because adding anything else to that list of three items would be a monumental undertaking considering he just added puppets to the list. he really fucking hates puppets and that item will probably take longer than the food thing. ]

Uh. Thoughts?

[He knows that there are things not there. But Dave said time, chronological time, and maybe part of that time is letting Dave hold back. Unless that's the opposite of helpful? He should really call Rose in on this.]

I... Yeah. I am okay with us working from that list right now.

[Because he knows there is more, and surely Dave knows he knows. Surely, Dave knows he isn't just getting away with lying. But he is being given space? Not chased down into all of the spaces he has left.]

Are you sure about benign puppet adaptation? That one is honestly pretty big.

[Like they clearly have more important things to work on and Dirk would toss puppets out the window for being able to hold hands , but also: puppets are intense. He knows this now more than ever, and he's aware that was pretty tame.]

It was your apartment.

[ to clarify: ]

I...assumed when you were not doin' the puppet thing you were specifically not doin' it to the degree he did it. Out of, uh, a sense of respect for the whole I completely ranted to you about puppets and my dislike for them at our first meetin' thing?

[ also dave forgot to mention touching people as a work on thing. oops. he isn't even thinking about it. ]

Which was kinda an asshole move even though I didn't know for sure you were still w - still into them. [ "weirdly into them" is probably not useful at this juncture. ] The probability was high you were. But they're, like. A thing you enjoy. I'm not goin' to ever like them, but it would be easier all around if the sight of you with a puppet did not make me flinch or stop breathin', and you should, like. Be able to enjoy your hobbies without that bein' a concern? And apparently that does not mean, uh, Bro-level puppet idiocy.

[For a second Dirk thinks that's the answer to Dave's fun new 'What does Dirk get triggered by!' riddle, to which he wants to say, 'Well kinda, I did more or less say that but it isn't really a trigger and also a non-issue anyway' and then Dave explains and. Oh. Right? Right.]

Yeah, it... is probably not my place to judge a dude who likes puppets, but his thing for them was beyond fucked up.

[Organize your puppets and don't put that porn on the walls and LIKE BETTER PUPPETS THAN BILLY FROM SAW]

By gettin' used to puppets I am definitely never advocating leavin' naked sex puppets handcuffed around or leavin' marionettes in the shower or like, movin' them around on me or. Bro shit. So I meant more like. You havin' them and not hidin' them like I assume is the current thing? And...I don't know what you even do with puppets. Sew them??? Apparently make piles of them.

[ ?????????? ]

You, uh, clearly do not actually do anythin' he did with them so throw me a bone here.

A shower is a fucking stupid place to put a puppet. I only kept robots on the toilet because I'd work on them when I'm stuck on a shit.

[THAT.

WAS TOO MUCH INFORMATION.]

That was said ironically, and also I sanitized. [BELIEVE HIM AND FORGET WHAT HE JUST SAID OR HE WILL DIE.]

We could... work on puppets being okay. I like sitting in piles of them and sewing them, yeah. I've always enjoyed them as a specific kind of textile design challenge. [That's worse than working on robots while you're pooping.]

Ok the ironic excuse only works on things that are actually ironic. Also I don't want to sit in piles of puppets with you ever, but uh. I guess. On the work-on-it scale you can...sew puppets around me?

[ he has no idea where to start on this undertaking. dave spent so long around puppets they shouldn't set him on edge but they always did and he eventually copped to it and he's pretty sure just going back to Puppets Are Cool does not constitute working on it so he's picked the least threatening puppet option.

HE REALLY HATES PUPPETS... ]

That could be unsettling psychologically if you thought about it too much. [Like. The creating of puppets. Their innards and composition. Etc.]

What about starting with puppet designs. Like... just me sketching out puppet designs while you're in the same room.

Well it wouldn't have been if you hadn't mentioned it.

[ THANKS, DIRK. dave considers the new option. ]

Can they be not smuppets? Can we work on normal non pornographic puppets first.

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