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[parodeity]

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[parodeity]

[ he drops his hands and scowls at dirk. ]

That makes zero sense. [ mostly because dirk's talking like a heart player and dave's thinking like a time player. ] You're always continuitous to yourself.

[splinten]

I thought we were doing the time talk, not the heart talk.

[parodeity]

Yeah, well, I thought the obvious answer was "fuck no", so there.

[ they can obviously both! be! confused!

there's a lot dave should probably say, or things he should ask.

he's never sure where to start and he's not sure he wants to try, so he ignores all of it for the time being. ]

I'll...take it under advisement.

[splinten]

[That is. Such a weird sentence.]

Okay then, so we're good on that? Aside from you apparently needing time to process not getting the answer you expected.

[parodeity]

I don't know. Probably.

[ he won't ask dirk to flip out with rose on the kharaa thing because of various reasons, and has to adjust when he'd asked solely so he could crush the instinct to ask dirk for help. ]

I checked departures, too. Just the two of them. [ john and homura. it's easier to talk about the warper thing than any of the issues he's refusing to acknowledge. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk will give Dave space. Dave can decide for himself what to do next; Dirk has given his answer.]

Warpers?

[parodeity]

For John. Homura got pulled through a stargate. I mean, more or less a stargate.

[ he didn't interfere with either because he hadn't interfered with either, so it was pointless to try. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk understands the implicit in that. No interference. He couldn't if he wanted to and if he did he could well doom the timeline.]

Was it Precursor tech?

[parodeity]

Yeah. I'll take you there later.

[ he doesn't mean to see her disappear, though dave supposes that's possible - except, no, he hadn't seen himself. but he was kind of out of it so that didn't mean a whole fucking lot. ]

It turned on randomly. She got sucked in.

[splinten]

Okay. We need to be really careful with our hunt for Precursor things, then.

[Dirk isn't getting pulled out of here yet.]

[parodeity]

Might not help if you get randomly warpered, but it wouldn't hurt, yeah.

[ there is absolutely no guarantee either of them won't up and disappear through a portal.

and if they come back, they may remember fuck all. ]

John seems ok, at least. Still can't stay in one fuckin' spot when told to, but I guess that's part of his charm.

[splinten]

So we learn how to forcibly shut their portals and we make fields around ourselves to ensure it.

[There is a way. Not because it makes sense, but because Dirk needs it. Because Dirk refuses to leave Dave.]

He mentioned the door. That makes him current with us.

[parodeity]

Whatever you want, dude.

[ completely deadpan neutral. dave has spent the day resigning himself to that particular eventuality, inbetween his...everything else. people leave, that's life, and yet again he's realized he's relying too heavily on the people who could leave. it's a balancing act dave has never gotten right. ]

John's current for a given value of "current", yeah.

[ he forgot like everything dave brought him up to speed on the first time around, but...whatever. at least that was probably just awkward as fuck instead of anything else. ]

[splinten]

Dave.

[Dirk's voice is quiet because he knows what Dave is thinking.]

[parodeity]

What? He fuckin' forgot everything we went through the first time, I didn't have time to entirely catch him up. Or I didn't feel like doin' it all in one go.

[ deliberately picking the topic that dirk probably wasn't referring to. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk puts his hand on his desk. Face up.]

If I make a promise you'll just get bitter about it. Like, fuck me for making promises to you that I can't keep.

[parodeity]

I wouldn't be upset with you. I'm generally not.

[ just himself. all of the other day, all of today, he'd only been upset with himself. it hasn't dissipated and it probably won't, and he can't fix it because dirk would hate every solution dave's come up with. ]

You don't have to worry about it. The universe doesn't take kindly to promises like that. Ain't really a big deal.

[ his hands stay in his lap, fingers laced loosely together. ]

[splinten]

Why do you think I won't worry about something that hurts you and puts distance between us?

[Those are like. The top two things Dirk worries about, honestly.]

[parodeity]

Dirk. I'm used to broken promises, or promises never made, or a million other things you seriously don't have to worry about. It's whatever.

[ he can deal. ]

Focus on things less nebulously idiotic? You'll thank me for it someday.

[splinten]

It isn't whatever.

[Dirk looks down at his own hand, left there on the desk.]

It's a defence against pain, which makes sense. You're protecting yourself by shutting out those things which could lead to you being hurt.

[He doesn't finish the end of the thought. But it hurts me. Dave says he wants him to say how he feels but Dirk is sure that's manipulative. He's asking Dave to stop protecting himself for his own sake. He's asking Dave to risk getting hurt because it's a guarantee of misery if he doesn't. He can't do that. He can't do it to Dave or anyone. He can't be that person.]

[parodeity]

I'm not doin' it to the extent I'd like, so rest easy?

[ he'd love to, because he hates the way he feels right now, but it's not a possibility.

though, fuck. it probably shouldn't be a possibility here, either. dave shuts his eyes. ]

You can make whatever promise you wanna make.

[ don't be an asshole. right. he just has to...not be an asshole. ]

[splinten]

It's just the same promise I always make.

[Dirk looks across the bedroom. It's their bunk beds. He loves those bunk beds. He'd talked about it with Dave and then Dave made him stop because Dave didn't like talking about things that could never happen.

He breathes.]

It's okay that this fucks you up, and it's okay that you want to pull away from me. I get why you don't want to rely on something you'll lose. I'm scared too.

[parodeity]

Don't worry. I'm not really lettin' myself. I can deal.

[ he can shut up and take it, he can, and the past few days is just further proof dave needs to ease back into that. john being around makes that almost laughably easy. talking to john is like turning back the clock - it's easy banter and never letting anything get through that might hurt his friend. why did he ever start to ease off that instinct? ]

Anyway. That's all I had to say for now. [ about the warpers. john or anything else isn't really relevant. ] Can this count as the pre-trip talk? We'll leave sometime tomorrow, probably.

[splinten]

Yeah, okay.

[It isn't what he wants. He doesn't stop looking at the bunkbeds.]

Do you want some space from me?

[parodeity]

How do you mean?

[ dave opens his eyes, slants his gaze sideways. ]