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[parodeity]

TELEPATHY | TEXT | VOICE | VIDEO | ACTION

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[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 ]