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[parodeity]

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[splinten]

It was thirteen, constant formative years versus the unsteady, much shorter span we have on not doing that.

[Backsliding isn't surprising.]

Backsliding is normal.

[parodeity]

Sixteen.

[ a quiet correction. ]

Sixteen years. On the meteor I like, thought about the things I did and why I did them. But I never talked about it. It was sixteen years of the same old mask.

[splinten]

[Sixteen. Not a surprise. A gentle affirmation in a nod.]

Versus not even one.

[parodeity]

Sometimes this feels easy with you or Rose. [ sometimes. in the good moments, once or twice in a desperately bad moment. on occasion, it comes easier than it has before. ] But usually it's very, very difficult.

[ deliberately going against his past. ]

But I don't think I'd be happy doing things the easy way with you, even if I've tried.

[splinten]

We both know I wouldn't be happy. It's gratifying you aren't either. [Which... is maybe terrible? Shit. Is it terrible. Or is it good.

He doesn't know.]

Ignoring whether or not that was fucked up of me to think, what's the worst case scenario for you telling John? Without visualizing it. [No panic attack.]

[parodeity]

[ there's a knot in his throat. dave swallows around it. ]

He looks at me different.

[splinten]

[Okay. That's enough. Dirk remembers a conversation: do you pity me?]

You don't have to decide right now. You can wait.

[parodeity]

Sometimes I wonder how you would've looked at me if you didn't know.

[ on a sideways related note ]

[splinten]

With a lot of confusion and hurt, I'd guess.

[Since he'd be confused about how he fucked up every time he did, and he'd never even know why Dave didn't like him, and every time Dave shoved him away he'd be helpless and lost to figure out why this alternate iteration of the person he admires most seems to hate him.]

[parodeity]

...I mean, there's that part, also. But I meant, like, if you would have thought I were...

[ how to put it. ]

Competent and not lame? Which isn't a complaint about how you do see me.

[splinten]

[There's a pause. Because there are two ways to answer this, and both are true.]

I do think you're competent and not lame. You're a really cool person, in the ways that matter most, and you're really skilled and capable of handling a lot of different situations.

[That's way one.]

But I don't even think my baffled woundedness would have kept me from noticin' what an awkward, clumsy loser you are.

[And that's the other way]

[parodeity]

Hey?

[ it's the mildest protest in the history of the universe. and honestly, he likes that dirk can see who he is...usually.

though it never stops flustering him when dirk calls him cool in any way. in that way. ]

That helped. Back then. That you were, too.

[splinten]

In retrospect, my awkward incompetence in terms of human interaction was, I guess, an asset.

[Since awkwardness isn't robotic terribleness.]

[parodeity]

You were like me.

[ clarifying. ]

It wasn't like it was just that you weren't like Bro. You were like me.

[ it was a weird connection to have when it wasn't one he expected to ever get. ]

[splinten]

[That is actually an important clarification. It's nice.]

Yeah. Can't say I immediately felt the same, what with being busy wondering why you looked like you'd rather be dead than near me, but it came out later. [He can now joke about how Dave did not want to be near him. This is a good sign.]

[parodeity]

It wasn't...super immediate with me, either. Just, like.

[ he shifts on the bed, restless. ]

When I stopped freaking out and started payin' attention.

[ "freaking out" here being just straight up not talking to dirk beyond a few stilted attempts at conversation and then wasting time not talking and trying to not engage with bro. ]

And then I started noticing.

[splinten]

You did initially say I wasn't upending any paradigms there. [It follows it took a bit.]

[parodeity]

Yeah, I didn't, uh, start payin' attention until after I, you know.

[ ............ranted about why he was, uh, not thrilled? ]

.............Had a moment.

[ there we go. ]

You reacted to the shit I was sayin'.

[splinten]

[Ah.]

With my face muscles and everything.

[Dave must have been shocked when Dirk expressed any emotion at all, let alone shock about weapons in fridges.]

[parodeity]

[ it was a weird fucking experience ]

With my expressions.

[ a familiar turn of phrase. familiar minute reactions that bro had never displayed - dave had, though. ]

It was very much a twilight zone special?

[splinten]

The uncanny valley in the form of a teenaged stranger.

[It makes him happy, in a strange way, to hear Dave say he recognized their expressions were the same.]

[parodeity]

That's...actually exactly it.

[ unease and a gut-churning desire to be nowhere else until he'd been able to start categorizing dirk as Not Bro. ]

Uh. I think I forgot to ask you if you had any other questions about whatever.

[ may as well offer it while he's tired enough to front less than usual. ]

[splinten]

I'm good. Go to sleep, Dave. [They both need it.]

[parodeity]

Yeah, yeah. You too.

[ he'll try, anyway. it'll take him a while? but at least he will Shut Up, so dirk is Free ]