So Many Striders - Now With Illustrations!

Oh, god, that choked up whisper goes straight to squeeze Hal's heart. He nods, letting go of Dirk's shoulder with one hand so he can prop himself up against the ground, leaning forward to brush his lips over Dirk's forehead, right up by his hairline. Which... is a pretty romantic gesture, and further than he's gone since telling Dirk about his crush, but dammit he's already literally lying on top of Dirk, surely a little more affection won't hurt anything. He then pulls back just enough that there's some space between them, freeing his other hand so he can point to Dirk then make the 'ok' sign with said hand, tilting his head to make it a question. It's not proper sign language at all but it's hopefully enough to get his point across. And if he focuses on checking whether Dirk's alright, he doesn't have to think about his near-death experience.

 

Hal moves on top of him, shifting his weight and leveraging himself up a bit. If they weren't on the roof and his head weren't killing him he is pretty sure he'd be enjoying this, which is a realization in and of itself. Hal kisses his forehead and it feels so sweet, he is being so sweet, it feels almost unbearable. Hal draws back and does some impromptu sign language to ask if he's okay. His head is the least of his concern right now; it feels like that little kiss has put Dirk on the edge of something. He chokes on the familiar feeling of exhilarated fear and tries to respond.

"Yeah, I just..." Dirk blinks and licks his lips. Hal's tilted head is perfect. All he has to do is leverage himself up a few inches to press his lips to Hal's. Do concussions make people impulsive? It's a very light kiss, and he draws away quickly when lifting his head turns out to have been a really stupid idea. Something wet and warm dribbled down the back of his neck and his fingers come away red when he automatically reaches back to brush it away.

 

Dirk just kissed him. Did Dirk just- Dirk just kissed him?? He's got a small, surprised smile on his face, eyes wide, and the smile quickly stretches into a grin. Dirk just kissed him! He almost just fell off the roof to his death but that's so not important because Dirk just kissed him! On the lips! He's put his head back down against the rooftop and it's honestly kind of gross up here and they should probably move but Dirk asked him to stay and then kissed him so instead of working out a way to suggest they go back into the apartment he follows Dirk's head down with his own, brushing the tip of his nose against the tip of Dirk's, then along the side. He notices something red out of the corner of his eye and lifts his head again, just slightly, turning it to look and oh shit that's blood. Dirk is bleeding that is not a good thing. He pulls back sharply, staring at Dirk's hand in concern, moment ruined.

 

For a split second Dirk was horrified that he'd kissed Hal without thinking while Hal couldn't even talk, but he looks incredibly happy. Hal follows him down and Dirk can feel his breath on his lips. The air smells like it'll finally rain any minute and Hal smells like the very concept of warmth. Dirk's lips part so that he can take in more of that dizzying scent, Hal's nose brushing against his making his stomach clench in anticipation. Dirk closes his eyes.

Then, all at once Hal is out of his personal space and Dirk's eyes snap open. He follows Hal's concerned stare and abruptly remembers the whole head wound thing. Speaking of feeling dizzy... "I uh." His voice is husky and he clears his throat yet again to try and fix it. "I think I hit my head on the ledge when we fell. It's not that bad. Maybe. I'm not really sure." He's acutely aware of Hal's leg between his thighs, and of the fact that they need to go inside before his brains fall out or they both get drenched. "We should look at it inside?" The moment might have been ruined but Dirk is still reluctant to let it go completely.

 

God. Dirk's voice should not be allowed to go all husky like that. Hal is both relieved and, although he shouldn't be, deeply disappointed when Dirk clears his throat and it mostly goes away. He nods firmly at Dirk's question and sits up completely, pushing himself up slow. He holds up his index finger to ask Dirk to wait a moment, then gets up to his feet. He's feeling kind of wobbly, so he takes several big paces away from the roof's edge before heading over to scoop up DJ Roomba, staggering just a little as he does. He scoops the robot up and tucks him into his sylladex for safe keeping, then totters his way back over to Dirk to help him up, because people with head injuries should not be pushing themselves.

 

Hal sits up and seems in control of the situation when he motions for Dirk to wait a minute, but then seems unsteady on his feet. Dirk tries to scramble up to go make sure he'll be okay, but he only manages to make it onto his elbow before a wave of dizziness puts him on his back again. When Hal comes over to help him up he is more prepared and slowly makes his way to his feet without passing out or throwing up. A worthy accomplishment. There's a small puddle of blood where his head had been, but head wounds always bleed like crazy. He'll be fine. The back of his neck tickles as droplets slowly make their way down to the collar of his shirt.

He doesn't want Hal to panic, quick, think of something reassuring to say. "Oh god, my hair is going to be pink."

Perfect.

 

He gets his arm around Dirk's back, and eases him up nice and slow, and ideally his legs would be fine by now but they're still kind of wobbly. He snorts at Dirk's complaint, because holy shit you narcissist is that really what you're thinking about right now? The puddle of blood is definitely concerning, he's concerned, but Dirk seems his usual self (except for the kiss? He kissed Hal. Was that because his head was muddled oh fuck.) He escorts Dirk over to the stairwell, but pauses at the top, holding up a hand. He curls his ring and little finger into his palm, making his index and middle finger 'walk' down in the air. They abruptly fall over, and proceed downwards on their sides, 'bumping' into something that makes them bounce on the way down.

careful

of

the

stairs bro​

 

Dirk watches Hal's little production and responds seriously, "You told me dog." Hal's arm wrapped carefully around him makes him snort "I am protected" but his head does not appreciate the laughing. Besides, he doesn't even know Terrible Secret of Space, Hal would have no reason to-

...

He might be slightly incoherent. Despite that, they slowly make their way down stairs. Dirk starts feeling better rather quickly, and Hal seems a bit more steady on his feet. "I should clean this up." And by 'this' he really does mean his hair because he is not Roxy and is not excited about pink hair.

 

Hal snorts with laughter, and is definitely not planning on pushing Dirk down the stairs he just finished warning him about, that would be counter-productive. They make their way downstairs without issue, and at the bottom Hal feels much less like he's going to fall over. He bites his lip at Dirk's comment because yeah his cut does need cleaning what with him lying on the ground with it and all, but Dirk isn't the person who'll have the best view of it, so... he points to himself, makes a washing (wax on) motion with his hand, and tilts his head for a question.

 

Hal bites his lip and tilts his head to the side again and maybe Dirk is more disoriented than he thought because he automatically leans in a fraction for another kiss. His brain sluggishly processes the meaning of Hal's gestures a moment later and he turns toward the bathroom, hoping no one noticed his initial error. "Yeah, um, you can help. That's be very... helpful. I can't actually see the cut."

His hair is starting to feel very heavy and mucky. He mumbles, "Lord baby Jesus, please don't let my hair have to be cut down it it's prime." He's suddenly exhausted and lets Hal support him on the way to the bathroom where he takes up residence on the bathmat and leans forward over the tub. "How bad is it doc?"

 

Hal noticed. Hal noticed and would totally have been up for the error continuing all the way to his lips, but apparently this wasn't to be. He has hope for the future though. He follows Dirk into the bathroom and stands behind him, grabbing the shower head and pulling it down. At the question he hums, touching his fingers lightly to Dirk's head. He can't really see the cut past all the blood, which is not a great start but head wounds do tend to bleed like there's no stopping them so hopefully it's okay. He leans over Dirk a bit to hold the hand where he can see it, waggling it from side to side with fingers stretched out flat. Dunno man.

Focussing more on the shower head, he points it down into the bath and turns the taps, adjusting the water until it's a decent temperature before pulling up the little stopper thing to divert the water to the shower. He sprays a little on Dirk's shoulder, to check whether he's okay with it temperature-wise too.

 

Dirk zones out while Hal fiddles with the shower, trying to block out the stinging and the pounding in his head. He flinches when warm water hits his shoulder, wetting his tank top's shoulder strap a bit and surprising him out of his near stupor. "Was there blood there? Thanks. That might be a bit warm though, it could re-open the cut if it's stopped bleeding." He sits up and struggles out of his tank top without letting it touch the back of his head before leaning over the tub and batting the faucet to almost unpleasantly cool. "Plus I'm falling asleep. That should not be a thing that happens. Sorry to make you babysitter."

 

Well, that got the job done, even if Dirk keeps talking like Hal can answer him. He gives Dirk's dry shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then lifts the shower head over the back of Dirk's head, tilting it so the water isn't pounding directly onto where he thinks the cut is. He runs his thumb up Dirk's neck with a firm pressure, trying to get him to bend over further, so the blood-water solution doesn't trickle down his back. He's pretty damn confident that that wouldn't be pleasant..

 

The contrast between the cool water and Hal's hand is super distracting, but when water starts to trickle toward his neck he gets what Hal is trying to make him do. Dirk shuffles up onto his knees and leans farther forward into the tub. He tries really really hard not to laugh about having his ass in the air with Hal behind him, mostly because he's pretty sure he'd get disgusting blood/hair product water in his mouth. He does snicker quietly and wiggle his butt a little though.

That's all well and good until the whole being upside down thing catches up to him and makes his head throb. He gasps in pain and then sputters as nasty water does, indeed, get into his mouth. He whimpers quietly and holds onto the edge of the tub with white knuckles, hoping it'll be over soon.

 

Hal grins at the butt wiggle and nudges Dirk lightly in the shoulder, huffing out a quiet laugh. When he's still, Hal takes hold of a clump of blood-stained hair (ew) between his fingers and thumb and runs the water over it, rubbing it to get the blood out then sluicing it off the side of Dirk's neck when it threatens to trickle down his back anyway. Fucking rude, blood, how dare you. He gets most of the blood out of that clump and starts to move higher up when Dirk gasps in pain, then whimpers. His hands pause, but Dirk isn't trying to pull away so he gets back to it, working the blood out of Dirk's hair as quickly as he can without sacrificing care for speed. When he's got most of it out, he can see the cut's not nearly so bad as he was thinking. Dirk's hair is thoroughly wet now, and he gently pushes it away from the cut. Don't want to get a hair caught in the scab, that's not fun.

 

Eventually the water runs lighter and lighter pink and the cool temperature is actually helping sooth his headache. Hal's fingers carding through his hair are also really nice despite his awkward position and he's able to relax a little bit.

"Before you finish, can you rinse the rest of my hair really quick? I don't want it to be all wet and sticky with the shit I put in it. That would be really miserable." It hits him that, really, he doesn't need help with this. "Or I could do it if you're getting tired of playing triage nurse hair dresser." He knows that Hal can't talk but they've been doing remarkably well at communicating so far so he's not really worried about it.

 

Hal hums in agreement, because like hell he's giving up the opportunity to run his hand through Dirk's not blood-stained hair. He keeps on at the blood until the water is running near enough to clear that he can't tell the difference, then runs the shower head just over his hand for a moment before sliding his fingers into Dirk's hair above the cut. It's sticky with product at first, but as Hal runs his fingers through it it gets smoother and more pleasant to the touch. He keeps stroking his fingers through Dirk's hair a couple more times after he's sure he's got all the product out, because it's pretty damn nice to be standing over Dirk and stroking his hair (and Dirk kissed him earlier! Then kind of maybe went to kiss him again?) but Dirk's going to catch on if he does it too much longer. He leans forward, shutting off the water, and puts the shower head back into place. There's some blood marks still in the bath, and some roof grit too which is lovely, but he or Dirk can deal with that later. He steps back, giving Dirk room to stand up if he feels up to it.

 

More fingers in his hair, and soothing water sounds, and quiet, and clean feeling... The inside of his head starts to go fuzzy despite the now waning headache. Did he really kiss Hal earlier? Did he want to do that? He remembers wanting to do that so he'll likely thank himself later for rolling with that decision. Or maybe not. He's really unsure right now about most things except that he really really wants to take a nap. Hal stops doing all the things and draws away from him. Time to do stuff again.

"Okay. Um." It's really difficult for him to put his thoughts in order, he's so tired. He slowly sits up a bit and immediately his head protests and droplets of water make a break for it. "I need some gauze to put pressure on the cut, just in case, because when I stand up I imagine the head rush could make it start bleeding again. And a towel. Or a towel first? My hair is wet, that's, that's um. Bad for gauze." He shivers once and then shudders as he realizes how cold he is now with his hair, neck, and part of his exposed back all wet. It's miserable. He carefully raises his head a bit and looks at Hal through his sodden hair. "Everything is terrible."

 

Oh god Dirk looks like a cat that just took a surprise bath. Hal bites his lip to hide a smile and nods, turning quickly away from him. Towel, towel, he grabs a big one and a little one, throwing the first around Dirk's shoulders to keep him warm and placing the second more gently on Dirk's head, rubbing it. Could Dirk dry his own hair? Yes, absolutely Dirk could dry his own hair, he's been doing it ever since he stopped letting it drip dry. Does Hal want to take the opportunity to dry it for Dirk anyway? Yes, absolutely. He's super careful around the cut, dabbing repeatedly more than rubbing, then dries firmer further away from it. It's not as fun as stroking his fingers through Dirk's hair, but maybe he can do that later. To, uh, check whether it's dry yet or something.

 

It's honestly a relief that he doesn't have to do anything. He could do things, loads of things. There are so many things that he does. All the things. He leans sleepily against Hal while he's gently toweling his hair dry. He could be more coherent and take care of himself and do all the things.

It's kind of nice to not have to though, when something like this happens. He's going to be appalled later. Maybe even a few minutes later when he's not in this warm, fuzzy, pain dizzy head space. But right now he turns his face into one of Hal's hands and mumbles "You're nice" into his palm.