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[parodeity]

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[parodeity]

Was it not always clear to you we fuckin' sucked at the game known as life? That's almost shockingly naive, actually. Pinch-your-cheeks adorably dumb.

[splinten]

I'm well-known for my charming innocence.

[parodeity]

I'm not sure most of us were ever innocent.

[splinten]

We were definitely innocent little ectobabies. All crawlin' around a secret lab, puttin' flintlock pistols in our mouths like soothers. Or at least I assume at least some of us did that, based on what Jake said about how his Grandma found him. I personally don't understand why you got the pony.

[parodeity]

[ a shrug, as dave drops the topic of innocence in favor of dirk's deflection. ]

Doubt John gave it much thought aside from givin' out rabbits.

[splinten]

[That, actually, is what brings Dirk back to innocence. It's a dodge of confirmation.]

You weren't crawlin' around bathed in original sin or anythin'. Even I wasn't, I assume.

[parodeity]

Would it make your nitpicky ass feel better if I change it up to "I don't remember ever beint that innocent".

[splinten]

Not especially, dude. What are we even definin' as innocence?

[parodeity]

Assumin' the world was an okay place, I guess?

[splinten]

Okay, I'll buy that. In that case, I don't really remember being innocent myself.

Mostly I remember seagulls.

[parodeity]

Trainin'.

[ for what he mostly remembers. it is impossible to recall a time before that, when his earliest memory is pretty much "get thrown off roof, rinse and repeat. ]

[splinten]

I'd rather you had my seagulls.

[And not the training. Dirk would willingly have traded places, and knows full well Dave wouldn't let him.]

[parodeity]

You really wouldn't if you follow that thought to its logical conclusion.

[ and also dave wouldn't let him. ]

[splinten]

You said you found being alone relaxin'.

[It's hard, and maybe it would have fucked up Dave. But Dirk is pretty sure he got it easy compared to what Dave suffered, and he would gladly step in and take the cuts and bruises. What's the big deal? Dirk always trained himself with brutality anyway. This way, it would just be more effective.]

[parodeity]

Sure. And how the fuck do you think we'd get on if he'd raised you?

[splinten]

[There's a pause. An open mouth. A shut on.]

Right.

[Dirk would have been more awful than he already is. He would have been a monster.]

[parodeity]

I think, [ dave says very quiet ] he would have fucked a lot of you over in ways that're worse than how it went with me. So I'll take what I got. Besides. You wouldn't be you if you had a different situation, even if it weren't that one.

[splinten]

[Dirk says nothing, for a moment.

Then, quietly,]

You might not be happy with me for this. Maybe I shouldn't say it. I decided to mostly because I think I'm supposed to articulate these things a little more.

It occurred to me, maybe, if he didn't raise you, then you could maybe have been happy without me.

[parodeity]

I don't think so. There's no way to know but that doesn't feel right.

[ he's not angry although it's one of those trains of thought he categorizes as useless, like wanting anything more than what is willingly given without asking. ]

I probably would have just found new and exciting ways to be a disaster in. And I...prefer none of the rest of you got to go through my particular brand of bullshit. None of you deserved that.

[splinten]

You didn't deserve it.

[Quiet again but also insistent. He can't let it be unsaid.]

[parodeity]

[ on good days he agrees with that assertation. on bad days he doesn't. today is somewhere nearer the former, although dave wonders all the same. ]

I survived it, though. So. There's that?

[splinten]

That is somethin' I'm grateful for.

[Although he wonders if other timelines did not allow that. If there are worlds where Dave died, and Paradox Space, unwilling to accept that outcome, struck those defunct realities from its network of allowable possibilities.

For once, he could agree with Paradox Space.]

I guess this all adds up to thanks for being my brother.

[parodeity]

Thanks for lettin' me.

[ because that had never been a guarantee. he spent three years simply assuming the person on the other side of the universe would be bro 2.0 and things would slide back to how they always had been and at least Rose had seemed excited and never looked too hard at the part where dave wasn't.

it was never a guarantee because neither of them were from the same time and it was a choice more than a forgone conclusion and at least most days dave thinks he prefers it that way even if other days the part where it's a choice is terrifying. ]

You get philosophically sappy when you won't sleep.

[splinten]

Nah, dude. I am in a constant state of pretentious sentimentality. You just get an extra dosage of it right now.

[He closes his eyes, still resting on Dave. He hasn't pulled his hand away, either.]

This is your last chance to protest my decision to take a nap right here.

[parodeity]

Dirk, it's nighttime and we're literally here to go to sleep. Kinda past the point where you can pretend it's a nap, even if neither of us can sleep that many hours in a row?

[ the protest is apparently occurring but it is just about dirk's choice in terminology? ]

Although sometimes I vaguely think we're gettin' betterish.