So Many Striders - Now With Illustrations!

Hal grins and although he kind of feels bad for thinking it, dizzy maybe-concussed (oops he should probably look up how to check for that?) Dirk is adorable. "I'm pretty fucking nice, yeah. But don't worry I'm saving up a lot of nurse roleplay jokes for when you're less out of your head." He lifts the towel off Dirk's head to check the dryness levels of his hair, and yeah that's probably dry enough and it looks really fluffy and soft but he should get something on Dirk's cut rather than nuzzle his hair. Nuzzling can come after maybe. He touches the cut lightly with his finger, murmuring a pre-emptive apology, and ok feels like it's closed up by itself, that's good, it doesn't need anything to hold it together or soak up blood.

 

"Oh hey, you're talking again." Dirk flinches just a bit when Hal touches his head, but more out of the anticipation of pain than the actual experience of it. His hair feels ticklish and slightly damp against his neck so he pulls his towel more snugly around him.

"Can I have a bit of tissue or gauze for the standing up bit? I don't want it to start bleeding again and get all over the everything."

 

"Oh- yeah, huh. Guess I didn't notice when that came back." Hal strokes his knuckles lightly down the side of Dirk's head, then heads over to fetch some gauze, bringing it back. "We did just get you cleaned up and all, that'd be pretty annoying yeah." He presses the gauze over the scab. "Wanna hold this yourself? Or I could tape it down maybe, but you'd have to pull your hair out to get it off then."

 

Dirk doesn't know if he wants Hal touching him like that. It feels very shivery and with everything all muddled together he can't tell if it's good shivery or bad. The scientist in him wants to get Hal to do it more so that he can figure it out, but most of him just wants to be allowed to sleep.

When Hal touches his cut the second time he manages to hold still. "Ow, yeah, no. No tape. I'll hold it." His fingers brush Hal's as he takes charge of the gauze and ugh, what is this, a shoujo manga? He does not need to be noticing each time their fingers brush. A little voice whispers 'but Hal almost died' in his mind and it feels like his heart is being squeezed in a fist. Okay, sure, dumb shoujo manga shit it is.

He slowly leverages himself to his feet and feels significantly less like throwing up or passing out this time. That must mean he's getting better.

 

Hal holds the gauze until Dirk takes over, unfortunately more focussed on making sure the gauze is being held in the right place than on the brief contact between their fingers that gives Dirk the dokis. He would, for reference, be very willing to keep touching Dirk's hair now all the product is taken out. It's not as soft as his own (no doubt because of said product) but it's Dirk's hair and therefore deeply tempting to just bury his fingers into.

Right now, however, what's going on is Dirk standing up by himself. Hal stands nearby with almost matronly concern, hands hovering like he's ready to grab Dirk if he starts falling back down. His hands continue to hover for a bit after Dirk's on his feet and up, but he seems steady enough so he lowers them to a less concerned-looking position.

"I'd like to check you for concussion, if that's ok, but I don't actually know how yet so I'll need to look it up first."

 

"That's probably a good idea. I don't think I have to go to the hospital. I really don't want to go to the hospital and leave you here all by yourself." Dirk's voice wobbles. "You're okay, right?" He coughs, which was bad for his head but good for the absurd, uncalled for wobbling. "You lost your voice but otherwise you seemed okay."

He takes a slightly unsteady step toward the door and puts a hand on Hal's shoulder to steady himself. "Can we do the head check lying down? I'm exhausted."

 

"I'm okay." He slides his arm around Dirk's waist at the hand on his shoulder, leaning in to take some of his weight. "I was mostly just pants-shittingly scared- uh, not that I did that- because of the whole nearly falling off the roof thing. As far as I've noticed you kept me from injury completely, although when you're feeling more yourself you're welcome to give me a thorough examination if you'd like." Grinning, Hal takes a step towards the doorway, waiting to see what pace Dirk will find comfortable before continuing. "You can totally lie down, although I'm pretty sure if you have a concussion you shouldn't go to sleep?"

 

They make it all the way to the doorway before Hal reminding him of the rooftop incident makes Dirk profoundly upset again. He takes his hand off the gauze, it's not bleeding anyway he doesn't think, turns toward Hal and presses himself against him. Dizziness makes him a bit unsteady, and he accidentally puts enough of his weight on Hal that he makes Hal stumble back a step and bump into the door frame. He wants to wrap his arms around Hal but doesn't want to make him feel trapped, so instead he just holds onto the front of Hal's shirt. Dirk is as unsteady as a baby horse anyway, Hal could push him away if he needed to.

He takes a minute to breathe into Hal's shoulder (he wants to bury his face in Hal's neck but that's incredibly forward, even if Hal doesn't realize it), trying to get himself under control. "You're okay." He meant to sound reassuring, but instead it came out more like he was begging for reassurance himself. Which is stupid, of course. He's right there, he's not even a little bit dead. "'M bein stupid." Dirk continues to be stupid and leans into Hal even more.

 

Everything's going smoothly in the Get Dirk Somewhere He Can Lie Down plan, until all of a sudden it's not and Hal is being bumped back into the door frame of the bathroom and Dirk is clinging to his front. He puts his arms around Dirk rather hesitantly because he's not exactly sure what's going on here, and the fact that he can feel (or is imagining he can feel?) Dirk's breath against his shoulder through his shirt seriously is not helping in the slightest, it's very distracting, real or not. He's confused, but it's not like he isn't enjoying Dirk wanting to be so close to him all of a sudden.

He gets more of a clue when Dirk asks if he's okay. Oh, yeah, the whole nearly dying thing. Which you know, turned out without injury on his part as he just said, but it seems to have seriously freaked Dirk out. Maybe more than it freaked out Hal himself. He wraps his arms tighter around Dirk and squeezes slightly. "I'm okay. I'm fine, Dirk. You saved me." He rubs his hand up and down Dirk's back, trying to reassure him without really having any idea how. "You can hug me, if you wanna. Just in case you wanted to."

 

His throat clicks when he swallows and he tries to crush all of the Suddenly Sad Feels that decided to well up out of nowhere. Being held is both helping and not helping at all, so he takes a moment to wrap an arm around Hal and hug him back before forcing himself to start acting like a grown ass adult again.

"I feel weird? I think I just need to lay down. Are my eyes fucked up? That's the only thing I know about concussions; if your eyes start looking all fucked up you have to go to the hospital." He's still holding on to Hal, one arm around his waist and the other on his shoulder, but he leans away enough that Hal can check his eyes.

 

That sure is a face awfully close to Hal's. Or not awfully, awfully implies it's a bad thing. Hal is not of the opinion that this is a bad thing. He swallows, eyes drawn to Dirks and it's absolutely just because Dirk asked him to check them out. They look gorgeous, which is kind of egotistical as his are exactly the same only with less baggage. The dark circles under Dirk's eyes make them stand out even more than bright orange eyes normally would. "Uh. They look okay?" He wets his own lips, running his teeth briefly over the lower one. "You, um, you wanna go to the couch or to bed? To your bed."

 

He could go lay on the couch, or lay on the bed. His bed. Not Hal's bed, as Hal just clarified. Decisions are hard. "I don't..." He could... not make a decision. He could stay right here. Moving seems like a challenge, what with all the dizzy and the starbursts in front of his eyes. Hal licked and bit his lips again, Dirk watched it happen. It would be a bit difficult to not watch it happen from this distance. He leans back into Hal like before, except instead of lowering his head he brushes his nose against Hal's, chides himself internally for being a copycat, and brushes Hal's lips with his own. It's not a real kiss, he doesn't know if Hal wants to kiss him right now. It's more of a... test, or a question. For both Hal and himself he supposes. Is this okay?

His eyes were most of the way closed, which helped with the renewed lightheadedness. He should probably stop doing things that gave him alternate explanations for symptoms of a head injury or they'd never figure out what was wrong with him.

 

Hal is. Hal is definitely okay with this, kissing, being kissed by Dirk is a fantastic thing and he absolutely wants more of it. He tilts his head a little to the side, lifting the back of it off the door frame to press back into the kiss. His arms are still both around Dirk, and he pulls him a little closer. Dirk should definitely still lie down and get checked out- checked over for a concussion but, you know, it's not like a little bit of kissing first is going to kill him. However, unlike some people Hal doesn't have a fuzzy head, so he pulls back before getting too carried away, resting his head against the door frame again. "Okay, so, that is definitely a thing that I'm enjoying, but head injuries should maybe take priority? We could uh. Always do this some more later, if you'd be up for that, possibly."

 

Hal kisses him back and Dirk's eyes close all the way. It feels lovely, soft and dizzy making in a good way, definitely a good way. He's pulled closer and breaths in through his nose. He wants to see if Hal tastes as good as he smells but the kiss ends and Hal pulls away. Dirk follows for a split second before realizing that would be a bad idea and instead rests his forehead on Hal's shoulder again.

"I should lay in bed. That way I won't have to move when I'm allowed to sleep. I'm really tired." He thinks he's said that a few times already, but it remains true. He needs to stop whining and being weird though so he lets go of Hal almost entirely except for one hand on his shoulder, just in case, and makes his way to his room. Being upright is not fun, he decides.

 

Hal thinks Dirk tried to follow him when he moved his head back, and although he's not sure he wasn't just imagining it, the thought gives him a quiet thrill that Dirk finds him that desirable.

"Yeah, makes sense. Good decision-making skills dude." Dirk straightens up to head on through to his bedroom, tragically reducing the number of points of contact between them, and Hal takes one of his arms away to make walking easier, but the other stays wrapped around Dirk's waist as it had been before. It's like, 90% out of concern for his balance and 10% because he doesn't want to let go. It would be pretty fucking weird if he kept his arm around Dirk once they get to Dirk's bed though, so he lets go completely, although he doesn't reach for his phone to look up how to check for a concussion until Dirk is securely on the bed.

 

Dirk frowns at Hal poking fun at him. He's always good at making decisions. He's fine and doesn't need this mollycoddling. He opens his mouth to say as much and immediately reins himself in because what the fuck, dude, you have no reason to be this annoyed? Hal deposits him on the bed and he desperately hopes Hal is going to leave him alone because he's acting completely ridiculous. That in and of itself is really upsetting and his expression changes from thunderous to anxious and upset all at once. He abandons his towel, scoots back, and carefully lays down with his head on his pillow after kicking off his shoes.

"I don't feel myself." It's lovely to lay down though, feels much less dizzy. He forces himself to keep his eyes open, he's not that out of it.

 

Hal catches just the end of the thunderous face and flinches back slightly, but Dirk's expression quickly changes to upset and it's an extreme enough switch that even Hal can read it. He sits on the edge of the bed, digging his phone out of his sylladex, tapping out quickly for a guide on checking for concussion. "Says here I'm meant to analyse your mental state. Have you been struggling to focus, or keep and make memories? Can you tell me what your name is?" He scrolls a little further down the page, reading the physical symptoms. That's the tiredness, dizziness, and loss of balance accounted for.

 

Hal flinches and Dirk bites his lip to help hold back a whine. He's such an ass, he doesn't know why anyone wants to be around him ever. Anxiety and sadness intensify.

"Um. Focusing is kind of difficult, but I remember kissing your face." He smiles, even though he's still struggling to not fall head first into the yawing pit of sadness that suddenly appeared under his feet. "And of course, I'm Dink and you're Han. Everyone knows that." He laughs a bit and it's not quite as painful for his head as before.

 

Fucking incredible. He leans all the way down to butt his head lightly against Dirk's chest, and then just sort of... stays there, because its kind of comfy but also more importantly he enjoys being close to Dirk. "I'm being serious, you ass, it's what it says to ask. Um... it says to go on to harder memory questions, so name all the 'bots you've built that you gave names to, and tell me Davepeta's typing quirk."

 

The empty, yawning sadness in his chest is helped a bit by the pressure of Hal's head resting on him. "Sawtooth, Squarewave, Brobot, Lil Seb, and does DJ Roomba count even though that's a Parks and Recreation reference? I'm going to say it does since Seb was also a Parks and Rec reference." Dirk rubs his face with both hands and lets one rest on Hal's shoulder when he's done. "And Davepeta's typing quirk is a fucking hot mess deposited right onto my computer screen by the seizure fairy himself. Orange and green and double mouthed cat faces with sunglasses, as little punctuation as possible except for the bits that connote role play actions, in which case completely fucking random punctuation that operates under bizzaro land rules. They do it because they like to make us suffer, but they're too cute and absurdly deadly for anyone to want to object. Is that enough?" He yawns hugely.