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[parodeity]

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[parodeity]

You always have been and always will be Prince of Heart. It has nothing to do with how adjusted you are or aren't. It's not like you got the title by failing a test or something.

[ paradoxically it was simply always going to be how things went. either side of the scratch. ]

You're not deficient.

[splinten]

[Dirk doesn't argue this time, at least not at first. He tugs a little on Dave's hand.]

What do you want to do?

[parodeity]

Not exist.

[ it's a flippant answer, or it isn't. dave opens his eyes.

he's not sure how to word any of the other things, so he settles for: ]

Whatever fucks you up least. But that's one of the things we always argue about.

[splinten]

[At that, his hold on Dave's hand squeezes.]

I get that.

[Both of them.]

Is hurting me what made you want to not exist?

[parodeity]

Partly.

[ it's a frequent contender. ]

What do you think needs to go on the list?

[splinten]

I'm not sure. [It's always a discussion. He wants to keep it that way.] Anything you want to work on?

[parodeity]

Nothing you want me working on. [ he wants to shut it all down, turn it all off, just feel nothing. ] You?

[splinten]

[He knows that once Dave says it. He has been sensing it for a while.] I'm not sure how to say it precisely as I mean.

[What does he want to say? He wants them to get better. He doesn't think distance is better. He knows, even, that it's worse. Shutting doors is worse. But being open can't be good if it's always an open wound.]

The endgame isn't really a tangible idea. It doesn't even feel appropriate to call it an endgame.

[He wants them to get better but he doesn't think they'll ever be perfect. He thinks, truly, they'll probably never be fixed.]

Do you ever think I'm trying to fix you?

[parodeity]

I don't think I'm really fixable.

[ there are too many things that simply won't heal, too many jagged edges he doesn't know what to do with. dirk does everything right sometimes and it just hurts, viscerally, and dave reacts like he's in a battle and then he just makes things worse. ]

I think you're too smart to think I am. [ it's kind of obvious? ] But too much of an idiot to call it quits when it'd be better for you.

[splinten]

Thanks. [Flat-toned. Dave called him an idiot. It must be acknowledged.]

Fixing you isn't what I'm trying to do.

Have you ever thought about trying to fix me? [Actually.] You probably don't think you're capable of it. Different question. Do you think I need fixing?

[parodeity]

No. You're not really broken.

[ it'd be cool if dirk wasn't suicidal sometimes, but that's less a concern for dirk needing to be fixed and more a concern for the possibility of losing dirk in an unforeseen way. it's acceptable if they just break off whatever familial idiocy they've committed to and dirk's still alive and well; it isn't so acceptable a thought if dirk just stops existing. ]

Fashion sense aside.

[splinten]

[A pause.]

I just told you how I wanted to die. There's also the thing where I work myself to exhaustion without stopping to eat or sleep because it's easy to forget about those things when my self-worth depends on my ability to prove I have any value to others. I could keep picking out others, like how I assume people will hate me when they get to know me, or the thing where the slightest hint of being abandoned provokes a spiral of self-loathing. That's leaving out my thing about control.

And I'm not broken.

[parodeity]

The worst thing about you is that you think those shoes you own are cool.

[ stubbornly. so. yes. ]

Because they're a disaster, actually.

[ STOP FUCKING WEARING THEM ]

You're not otherwise broken.

[splinten]

[No? This is stupid. Dirk refuses this.] My class is broken people by default. We just doubledown when it's Destroyer of Selfhood. That isn't just other people's selves I spent my whole life breaking apart, bro.

[is this their fight now.]

How am I not broken?

[parodeity]

You're a good person. You think you're broken, but you're not, really. I think you see shattered glass in situations there's a stained glass window.

[ when do they ever make sense in arguments. ]

There are jagged edges but everyone has those. You're not broken.

[splinten]

Props to that metaphor, not that I know what it actually means. [Still, nice spin. However!] Being good doesn't make you not broken. It just makes you a good thing in pieces.

[parodeity]

You're not in pieces. You're a stained glass window.

[ we are apparently buckling down into the dumb metaphor. ]

Don't you know how they're made?

[ why the fuck would dirk know this. ]

[splinten]

[Dirk knows lots of random things but]

Metallic salts?

[It's. A guess based on what he knows about manufacturing, honestly.]

[parodeity]

Not that part. You've seen pictures of windows, right? Or dioramas, or whatever. Stained glass. It's hundreds of different shards of different colored glass, arranged into a cohesive whole of a picture. The different panels were bound together with lead.

[ it's a kind of art dave can appreciate. ]

Even if you're splintered, you're not actually.

[splinten]

[Oh. Dirk doesn't say anything for a moment.

Then, he leans his head against Dave's shoulder, or wherever he can get at laying like this.]

What makes you different?

[parodeity]

[ his shoulder is in reach? and it means dirk won't see dave's expression when he asks that question, which is for the best. it's a flicker of something too pained and raw even if it's slotted behind a neutral mask. ]

He does. [ dave doesn't specify who "he" is because when does he ever really have to? he spent over half his life getting broken into a million pieces. there's nothing to be found in that but shattered glass. ]

[splinten]

['He' is someone else. He's also Dirk. Dave had said before it's just how the titles were, and there is something to be said for a Prince of Heart on the other side of the Scratch. But it isn't enough to stop Dirk now.

He lifts up his head so he can see Dave, and Dave can see him.]

You think that what he did to you shattered you, but I don't agree. It hurt you, but it could only shatter you if you were made of glass. You aren't. If anything, you're Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Comic version.

[Fragmented and disjointed; broken into pixelations. Superficially meaningless. Absurd, illogical. Strange and unsettling and Dirk's favourite comic on either side of the Scratch.]

It's literally unreadable for some people, but I find a lot of value in it.

[parodeity]

[ there's nothing on dave's face to read except a minuscule twitch of his jaw too small and restrained for everyone else in the world. some reaction smoothed out and controlled. ]

It's value you made up. We've discussed that before. [ he's not sure the metaphors matter, or if he wants to discuss this one any further. ] I'm always hurting you.

[splinten]

We also discussed how there isn't just nothing in it.

[He pulls on their linked hands, brings it up between their chests.]

I hurt you too. We help each other more, though, and learn how not to hurt each other as we go through things. That's how it works.

Being your brother has helped me become a person I like better. We talk about being suicidal sometimes, and how I hate myself. You have no idea how much more I hated the person I was before you helped me become better. I don't want to die half as much now that I have you.

[parodeity]

No, we didn't. I never told you what's there.

[ because some of those strips are really fucking disturbing, the duedly firearms saga at the top of that shortlist. ]

I really don't want to do movie nights. That's hurting you. [ he's not sure how to respond to most of that so he just drags the topic back to something tangible. ]