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[parodeity]

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[parodeity]

Why the fuck did that help.

[ no, wait. he actually works through it. ]

Because I wasn't tellin' you at all.

[splinten]

[Nailed it.]

Then it just took a system reboot to refocus, to use inappropriate computing metaphors that are probably not awesome for my self-image. Anyway, I'm okay now. It would be dishonesty even past your usual level to say I'm good, but I don't want to make creative use of a sendificator so I'm calling it a win.

[parodeity]

[ when he slows down, he usually isn't too bad at figuring it out. ]

Creative use of a - oh.

[ goddamnit dirk. dave seriously debates demanding dirk never make anything remotely resembling a sendificator ever again, but opts not to. ]

You're kind of the furthest thing from a robot. Thinking in those metaphors doesn't change that.

[splinten]

My friends used to joke about me being one, entirely because that's basically what I pretended to be. They've more or less worked it out by now.

[He thinks some people make that mistake though. He doesn't mind as long as the people who matter most realize.]

You didn't scold me for automatically choosing head-removal. Nice restraint holdin' back on it.

[parodeity]

Why the fuck would you have chosen anything else.

[ so dry ]

In actuality I've probably got more robo-tendencies than you do. You're just kinda awkward.

[splinten]

[He remembers the descriptor Dave used for his Bro. He doesn't want Dave using it for himself.]

You don't really. A true robot would totally get rid of the processing that you can only ignore. You're as human as I am.

[parodeity]

If you say so.

[ some days he still feels like an afterthought rather than a person. dave reaches out, but it's to awkwardly put two fingers at dirk's carotid artery. neck still connected, pulse still going. ]

Are you going to be ok?

[splinten]

[The gesture is surprising. Dirk doesn't pull away from it, and it isn't uncomfortable. It's just that he usually gets it from Jake.

He wishes he could undo what he did to them both.]

Yeah. Sorry for the decapitation joke.

[parodeity]

I'm the last person you need to apologize to. I could do it all over again.

[ he absently counts the heartbeats. ]

No hesitation.

[ probably it says something unfortunate about him. ]

[splinten]

[It's a good way to keep time. As strange as it is, Dirk doesn't mind sitting there and letting Dave feel his pulse beat away. It's steady and calm, now.]

The hesitation isn't the part that matters.

[parodeity]

Enlighten me, Obi-Wan. What part matters?

[ because, the thing is. ]

Everyone else would have hesitated, if they'd even been able to kill you.

[splinten]

I think a lot of the others wouldn't be capable, but if it happened they wouldn't be worse or better off.

[His voice is quiet, not disturbing the pulse on his throat.]

The nightmares and the self-loathin' are what I'm counting as the expression of your real feelings on it. What matters to me is it hurt you.

[parodeity]

It's okay to let me hurt myself for you sometimes.

[ all the times. whatever. ]

For the same reasons you're tryin' to tell me it's somehow magically better if it's the other way around.

[ it's not a response to his ability to kill his own brother in an instant, when it's down to the wire. dirk and rose don't have that, for all that they're more violent than dave is in some ways. ]

[splinten]

Like I said, there's nuance. There's compromise and negotiation, which are healthy in a relationship. The other thing, the toxic thing, is silencing yourself and suffocating your feelings.

Regardless of the choices I've made, that isn't a good thing for either of us or for our relationship.

[Not decapitation, but he's still sorry for that.]

[parodeity]

You're willing to put your feelings aside for me.

[ that isn't nuance, dirk. ]

[splinten]

[fuck you everything is nuance.

Dirk does consider it genuinely, though. He listens, and then he speaks.]

Yes. I don't think it's good that I do, though. I'd like to try to learn not to. Honestly, though, it's difficult to successfully do that if you put your feelings aside for me, because it means that you're making sacrifices on my behalf and I can't stand it. Fair or not, I'd rather be the one with my feelings on the roadside if one of us is going to.

[In other words, Dirk can't really stop sacrificing his feelings unless Dave tries to, too.]

[parodeity]

It isn't. You shouldn't worry about me like you do. We're probably too close? Which just makes it worse. Letting you live here didn't help.

[ he lets his hand drop. ]

Personally I'm team ignore any unfortunate and unreasonable feelings I have, or learn to deal with them on my own. You could join this team. There's potentially t-shirts.

[splinten]

No, thanks. Your team is bad at working out what actually is unreasonable.

[Dirk takes the hand that went away.]

Distance isn't going to make us any better off. It will just mean we're fucked up in isolation. What helps is being open with how we feel and working out a decision together.

[Be honest with their feelings. He's a hypocrite. Can he be honest now?

Dirk closes his eyes.]

Please don't be less close to me.

[parodeity]

I think step one of not putting aside feelings is not doing movie nights.

[ it makes sense to dave, anyway. ]

You being happy unrelated to me is kind of more important [ and possibly less fucked up and more stable ] than you being happy related to me. You need to do stupid normal people stuff without thinking about whatever the hell I'm doing. You aren't my guardian, and I'm not yours.

[ he doesn't tug his hand away, though. ]

I think there are times we both fuck up remembering we're not that level of responsible for one another.

[ it is halfway possible now is one of those times but w/e ]

[splinten]

[Breathe.

Don't feel like you're being shoved out a door.]

You sure? Because you're sure as hell acting like you think you're my guardian right now. I can practically feel myself getting pushed out the door [whoops failed that] and told I need to make some new friends at daycare today.

[parodeity]

Maybe I wouldn't have to if you'd do it alone, kid.

[ this is both a stupid argument and a potentially stupid thing to say and dave isn't even sure why he's saying it? it's a joke or it isn't and he's not sure the difference matters. ]

I don't want to be the obstacle course I realize I am. Okay? Can we just...avoid the rainbow road, here. I know I'll feel the exact same way if not worse if we keep doing Tuesdays, the next time we just can't do things. And then I'm going to have to make a choice between faking being okay or telling you I'm not, and you might think I find that choice easy but I really fuckin' don't. And then I get to sit there fully understanding I'm making things shit for you because I can't turn myself off. Is that what you want to hear?

[ genuine question. he has no idea what dirk's looking for. ]

[splinten]

[It's the 'kid.' Dirk draws entirely off the bed and sits up straight. He looks at Dave like he's waiting for the second attack to come. And it seems to and he wonders, stupidly, when it is that Dave realized he hated Dirk.

He knows it isn't right but the thought sticks in his head. He thinks about asking but he knows it would be the wrong thing to do. It might break something.]

What... am I supposed to be hearing here?

[parodeity]

[ it was a stupid thing to say. he thinks he's called dirk "kid" before jokingly, or at least during a training session, but he can't remember. he might have called him kiddo in a similarly half-mocking situation? what the hell. ]

The thing I hate most is making your life difficult by being me. [ for not having functioning feelings or anything else and always doing or saying something halfway wrong or all the way wrong, and holy shit dirk doesn't need that? ] You're a thousand times more...you're way more functional. I guess I'm trying to tell you not to waste it or get caught up in the times I'm, like, not?

[ it's not "maybe bro had a reason to hate me" so much as "yeah, he definitely did" any longer. ]

I hate the ways in which I'm like him, and this is one of those times. And you really, really don't deserve any of it.

[splinten]

[Dirk doesn't know everything that is happening here. Part of him is still regrouping from the thought that it let go into its head.]

How is any of this like him?

[None of it sounds like it. Maybe being dangerously clingy, that feels like a Dirk thing, but it has never been a Dave's Bro thing from what he could see. On the contrary.]

[parodeity]

When I tell you jack shit and give you nothing to go off of, it's pretty much his playbook.

[ which isn't to say he'll stop that, because dave doesn't entirely know how even when he tries. it's the fallback and how things go but he's aware it fucks dirk up. ]

Letting you shove aside your feelings or interfering with things that make you happy even just by existing are Bro things, too. I guess he usually did it more actively but that wasn't always the case.