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[Well, that answers that. Now that Dave is upright, Dirk drops water out of his sylladex and hands it to Dave. He also hands him a bag of very lightly salted crackers: the kind that is easy to eat and easier to keep down even when you're sick.]

Not eating and drinking aren't the cause, but it isn't helping you. You can eat them on the way down or sit up a bit when you get to bed, whatever. It's just gonna help if you can get any of that into you.

[ dave makes a face, but he dutifully opens the bag of crackers and takes one out to start the process of Eating Shit To Please Dirk. it is a process he logically knows will actually help him but all the same one that often is done solely for the purpose for which it was named. ]

I've been drinkin' stuff. [ he can defend his honor there. anyway, magister informed, he'll just head to the spiral stairs at the outside of the room to traipse down to the mostly untouched bedroom floor, closet aside. ]

[Dirk follows, careful not to move into Dave's blindspot. Not that he really has one with his instincts but still.]

So you're properly hydrated.

[Dirk isn't going to fight the fact that Dave is eating just to please him. He doesn't care right now? Dave needs food and water and rest and Dirk has been given the okay to give it. So now he will. Relentlessly.]

[ that's an obvious thing dirk is doing, what with making noise and positioning himself where dave could always see him were his gaze focused but dave will just. not call him on it. it would be a dumb thing to call a person on. ]

I'm usually more properly hydrated than properly fed, you know this.

[ once he's on the next floor down dave will just beeline for the bed so he can flop back down and go to not moving. dirk can either do his dirk stuff in the bedroom area or go down a level to find the bathroom and a bunch of empty space apparently earmarked for nothing. the bathroom is clean of anything much at all, because dave does not actually leave robots or puppets in showers.

he eats another few crackers since he is not sure how many will appease dirk here. a box?? less??? it is better to just like eat them methodically until told to cease. ]

I do, but you're also usually not lying on the floor in agony.

[Dirk does not in fact need the bathroom yet. He came prepared ahead of time! And the first thing he does is take out a couple of pills to offer Dave.]

Painkillers. I checked to be sure they wouldn't have sedative effects, but it means they're not as strong as they could be. Still, they'll help.

[Dave needs sleep, and Dirk would be happy to give him sedatives if he liked, but Dirk personally hates anything that makes him sluggish and he is pretty sure Dave feels the same if not stronger.]

I wouldn't call it agony.

[ like

he probably would but he feels stupid about it, so. he takes the pills but waits for the explanation before palming them into his mouth and cracking open the water dirk gave him to swallow them down. there's no reason to comment on how effective they may or may not be when combating a supernatural cause since dave has no idea if that matters and it's worth a shot. ]

Do I want to know how much stuff you slammed into your sylladex?

[If nothing else they should hopefully calm secondary tensions, like the headache that comes from getting all knotted up from having a headache in the first place? Maybe? Look, he doesn't have a magic shield, he just has this.]

I only have ten slots.

[And out of the next slot comes towels. One is rather large and, Dave will find, has a heater inside it. Dirk holds it to Dave.] For under your neck and shoulders for relieving tensions. [Second towel is also warm, and slightly damp.] Forehead and/or eyes. You can take a break from the crackers now.

[He will want more in Dave when Dave wakes up, probably, but priority is getting Dave to bed.]

Did you read up on headache-y stuff or what?

[ just to clarify what's going on here. he drops the crackers into his sylladex to get rid of them, and the water follows with. his cards are mostly blank since he dumped the stuff he'd ferried back with dirk at base.

he'll follow towel orders without complaint, though, since whatever the case it's a better idea than. lying on the floor waiting for stuff to stop happening probably. hm. ]

Already knew it. I gave myself headaches all the time growing up. Overexertion of one kind or another, mostly.

[Reading too much, training too much, working for too long, staring at screens, doing too much fine mechanics—Dirk learned all of his limits by breaking himself on them.

Eventually, he also figured out how to make his stupid decisions hurt less afterwards.]

Where should I be so you can rest?

Idiot.

[ about the overexertion. dave went with towel-over-eyes since it seems about the same as arms-over-eyes, and he just thinks about the question for a moment. dirk will probably be fine with whatever answer he gives, and no answer he gives right now could possibly hurt anyone else. so he should just give the answer he wants to give. so he just has to decide what that is.

it's a question that takes two minutes and thirty-seven seconds before he stretches out his left hand towards dirk's voice. ]

Just come here.

[Dirk waits patiently. He isn't sure if Dave would prefer him guarding up by the Magister or in this room, but he'll manage whichever. It's pretty easy to roll with it since he and Jake sometimes traded guard duty in the game.

Then there is a hand, and Dirk pauses. Almost takes it, and then doesn't. Not if Dave's expecting attacks. Comes closer?]

Okay?

It's easier to trust you're here to have my back if you're actually tangibly here to have my back.

[ i.e. contact. or at least being on the bed. if he drifts off those are both anchors that will reassure him of that, whereas otherwise: ]

I'll just keep wakin' up otherwise.

Edited 2017-01-05 10:02 (UTC)

Oh. Okay. Yeah.

[Dirk. Takes the hand? Hesitantly. And will do as his brother tells him.]

[ okay well did taking the hand involve like. actually getting on the bed. or is he just standing off to the side of the bed holding dave's hand like an idiot this is an important clarification because if dirk is being that brand of idiot dave will tug so dirk will topple.

if he however decided to use his whole genius intellect or something, though, dave will just turn to curl up on his side. hand holding point of contact only, still a little different than usual but his grip is firmer than it was the last time. ]

[lmao no he was a fucking idiot and was toppled in.]

Oh. Right.

[NOW HE FULLY GETS IT.]

Okay. Goodnight, Dave. I love you.

[ dirk why are you the brand of idiot willing to stand by a bed for however long holding someone's hand why are you this dumb but anyway the whole laying on his side thing will still happen because he prefers it to laying on his back. particularly when his back is to a wall if he lies on his side, which it is currently. that leaves dirk between him and the rest of the room now that dirk is at least a lying down moron. ]

Love you too. [ it will probably take. a while. for him to fall asleep. he won't exactly stop reacting in very small ways to time getting fucked with. mostly tensing up. but at least dirk probably will not distract him from attempting to zone out and after maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes he'll finally manage it? and then just. stay out for a good while since it has been. at least three days now since he managed actual sleep.

i'd say hopefully dirk doesn't find this boring but it's dirk and he's probably having a blast or something throws up hands ]

[And it was the happiest day of his life...

Yeah, no, Dirk doesn't mind. Like, that hand may eventually go a little numb but whatever. If a life of isolation prepared him for anything, it would be sitting alone with nothing to do but think. But this time someone is holding his hand. And that someone isn't a puppet. It's an improvement!

So yeah he has no problem just sticking through it idly planning projects mentally or whatever. Very still and quiet, and content as long as Dave is resting as best as he can. He's like this.]

Edited 2017-01-05 10:18 (UTC)

[ dave tends to specialize in cat naps but this one will probably last for a good six hours, sorry for your loss dirk. or, well. six hours forty two minutes fifty seven seconds. no nightmares for once on the basis he was finally more exhausted than strung out and dirk being around actually does tend to help with those.

but yeah that is. an amount of time and dirk's hand is probably numb when dave jerks awake. or rather just. wakes up. it's easier to tell when actually making contact since his muscles tense before relaxing as he takes stock of things. bed, tower, dirk's hand, right. ]

Sorry. [ he doesn't have to ask "how long was i out" ever because it's simply something he knows. ]

[He feels it immediately, of course, registers the shift and refocuses in an instant from his idle thoughts.]

It's okay. Headache?

[Direct question instead of asking how Dave is, in hopes of a minimally cagey answer.]

Edited 2017-01-05 17:41 (UTC)

It's fine.

[ still there but when it isn't compounded with a lack of sleep and when actual steps have been taken to stop it, it does happen to be better. how much dirk does or doesn't trust dave's claim of "fine" is up to him, and dave would not be able to blame him for taking him at his word or not, all things considered. ]

I regretted pretty much every life choice after we went through portal one, for the record.

[ AND YET, HE WENT THROUGH A SECOND ONE AFTER... ]

Just, like. I will be avoidin' it if it isn't important. [ it's possible he's attempting to be reassuring here ]

The implication is there was a portal two.

[HE SAID PORTAL ONE. Dave, why.]

You think you can eat and drink a little more right now? Enough to cut off a food headache before it happens.

[Those are things and people get those things, and Dirk believes 'fine' as meaning 'not as bad as before' instead of 'all better.']

Didn't I say we went through two?

[ look. AT LEAST they mutually decided "let's. stop going through portals." after portal two. at least the time players weren't dumb enough to keep trying after portal two. ]

...A what now. [ they might be things people get but they are things dave has probably trained himself to ignore or which he has never given much thought to? ]

[Dirk thinks back.]

Maybe. I sort of blanked in horror at one.

[Because Dave, why. Anyway—]

The headaches that people get if they haven't eaten enough. Low blood sugar and muscle tension are the root causes. Since these guys are still warping spacetime, you're still going to be getting pain from them regularly. The best way to mitigate that is to treat the effects of that pain that would increase the headaches.

[Dave he got SO MANY HEADACHES living on his own]

[ he actually has to think about this for a few minutes? and well. childhood of having to hoard food and a following time period of never quite seeming to buy that food is there for him to eat. ]

Oh. Huh.

[ "bro is gay" "maybe dave has ptsd" "not eating might have actual negative effects???" ]

Well, anyway, we went through a second portal because we weren't sure I didn't fuck up tracking them the first time. I lost the timestop when we went through, couldn't focus.

[what idiots]

That is not super surprising.

[The loss of focus. Also Dave has crackers in his sylladex Dave gave him, but Dirk also brings out a pre-sliced apple? That he just had there in his sylladex all night for this moment? He is the manlusus, it's him.]

Given the size of them, we could keep them out of the tower if we adjusted the Magister's tank to be a series of sections just too small for them to get into. Areas stacked together with connecting sections so they've got plenty of volume and ways to play around, but none of it is big enough for the jackass aliens.

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