So Many Striders - Now With Illustrations!

"So, are you telling me that in order to control my feelings, I have to not control my feelings? Because that's kind of dumb, dude." He's pretty sure he gets what Dirk means, but he's also being stubborn and an ass.

Emotional honesty hour sucks and should end. He gets the Steven Universe reference, of course, because Steven Universe is amazing, but he doesn't make himself start crying again to continue the reference by yelling that he does care with eyes full of tears because for one thing he only recently stopped and for another crying sucks. Instead, he shakes his head and mumbles something about a meme-loving fuck which is really rich coming from him.

He lets his head thunk back against the wall, and groans. "Dude, you're as gay as I am. We originally started out as the same person, remember? Anything you were born with, I was... well, I have. We're not the same guy any more, for sure, but that hasn't changed."

 

Dirk feels like Johnny Bravo as he pats and pulls at his hair, now free from of his shades. He's shamefully glad that the crying and the feeling seems to have stopped; too high stakes and exhausting as fuck. "I don't know how trolls do this whole feelings jam thing on the regular. I mean, seems kind of useful but I just want to take a nap now."

He sighs as his haphazardly styled head thunks against the wall, mirroring Hal. "That was the joke dude." He looks out of the corner of his eye and smirks a bit. It's nice feeling this comfortable. "Anyway. So. You need a communication thing. Why don't we start with a resurrecting you a flip-phone, and once that's figured out we can work on the whole going outside thing. I don't think it's safe for you to go outside without a reliable method of quick communication but it's your call, we could work on those two issues simultaneously if you like."

 

"I think the napping might actually be a usual part of it? I seem to remember Davepeta mentioning something about feeling sleepy whenever they looked at a pile, anyway." He shrugs. Trolls man, who the fuck knows?

Hal closes his eyes as Dirk's head thunks back like his. He's pretty tired himself, and his eyes are all itchy and uncomfortable from the crying. "Communication thing first sounds good." And not just because it means putting off the going outside thing, too, although that certainly is a motivating factor. "Flip phones really do sound like the best bet for the first go, don't they? I'll have to change my wardrobe to match the hipster look. Maybe get a tiny yet loud dog."

 

"I'm sure we can do better than an actual flip phone. There might even be products on the market for this already that we can copy from." Dirk makes some notes in his phone of things to look up later. After a nap. He yawns hugely. "I'm sure your yappy dog will be delicious. Make sure to wear the really tight pants, get the most out of the look." Fuck, what is he even saying anymore?

 

"What, like those big keyboard wheelchair things, Stephen Hawking style? Seems a bit-" He yawns, following Dirk's one. "Seems a bit unwieldy. And hey, even if it looks like a flip phone on the outside, that doesn't mean we can't mess with the innards as much as we like. And are you saying you're going to eat my dog? That's unnecessary, you could just say you don't want me to get one. Poor, sweet, innocent little Marian. I was going to teach him to pee every time he heard the word 'capitalism', too. My pants will be the tightest, my tshirts the thinnest, and my scarves the priciest." He yawns again, and leans forward to stretch over his legs, tips of his fingers curling around his toes as his spine pops. He's clearly keeping himself at least somewhat limber.

 

"What, you don't want a freaky robot voice? Re-connect with your roots?" He taps out a search really quick to get an idea of what's already on the market. "No, I just mean something with an actual key board that isn't a number pad. It seems like that would slow you down even worse than a touch screen. It should also have different display options, in case the person you're talking to doesn't have a phone on them and needs to look at your screen without crowding you."

He continues scrolling through articles while Hal rambles about his hypothetical rat dog. "Don't gank Eridan's style dude, he'll eat your face with those shark teeth of his. You'll have to tote my harpoon around with you and that'll piss him off even more. The last thing we need is a pretentious douchebag arms race. Or maybe it's exactly what we need, the more I picture it the funnier it gets." His eyes start to glaze over and the tiny screen is a bit difficult to read. "Fuck, I don't remember the last time I slept. That's not a good sign."

 

"They're not exactly roots I want to return to, bro." Hal leans over to look at Dirk's phone, watching him search for what's available. He's totally being that guy that reads over your shoulder like an asshole instead of looking up the same thing on his own phone which is literally just right there. "Like, a blackberry keyboard? Yeah that'd probably be more useful than a number pad. The keys are crazy small though. Like a baby's fingernail small. And I'll gank the style of anyone I fucking please, Eridan and his triangular teeth don't scare me he couldn't be more of a wet pathetic blanket if he tried. I mean sure there's the whole genocidal gun maniac thing but honestly it's just a little sad and besides, I've been re-teaching myself how to flashstep. He and I can have an instagram account each where we passive-aggressively tag each other in our successively more hipsterish selfies."

He bonks his head against Dirk's, then leaves it there because he's feeling tired too, dammit, and it's easier than lifting it up again. "Sounds like it's time for a power nap."

 

Dirk vividly remembers sleeping rather like this cuddled up with Jake while on adventures, for warmth and lookout duties of course, safety first. It makes him even more tired, but also gives him the strangest urge to kiss and cuddle Hal, which is weird and inappropriate. He misses Jake. He misses all his friends. He misses having people's trust and being wanted, even just as a friend. It comes over him in a wave so quickly he can't even move. He misses being touched and held and hugged, something he'd hardly gotten used to before everything fell apart and he lost it.

He manages to force a choked sounding "Yeah" out of his throat before falling silent again. His body unconsciously sags closer to the warm and the comfort as he tries to force his sadbrain to stop spiraling into useless, paralyzing recaps of every mistake he's ever made. God he's tired. He might even mumble something to that effect, too preoccupied with his own misery to police his mouth.

 

Hahah, yeah, Hal sure would hate cuddles and kisses, that would just, wow, suck so much. How awful. Hal hums. His eyes are closed and he's not sure when that happened, but this is kind of nice just sitting here with his eyes closed leaning on and being leaned on by Dirk. Okay the position isn't exactly comfortable because head against head is a lot of bone against bone but he's feeling sleepy enough that he can deal with it without caring too much. He yawns, only just catching Dirk's mumble.

"Should probably go to bed or something then." He yawns again after speaking, as if doing even that is too much effort right now, and nuzzles a bit against Dirk's shoulder without really realising that he's doing so.

 

Hal does a cute weird nuzzley thing that makes his fine, soft hair brush ticklishly against Dirk's neck. It makes him shiver and turn his face to reciprocate before his mind is able to catch up to his sleep addled body. He breathes Hal's scent and for a fraction of a moment his lips brush the side of Hal's head before reason grabs and wrenches him back. He jerks away from Hal with gasping, babbled apologies. "No! I didn't mean to, Jesus, sorry, creepin' on people in my sleep, what the fuck, bro, I'm so-" He cuts himself off before this can get more humiliating. He realizes his face is hot and his glasses are crooked too late to hide even a little of his freak out. Perfect.

 

"Mmnh!" He starts upright when Dirk jerks away, his face flushed dark red and eyes blinking rapidly in surprise. Did Dirk just kiss the side of his head? It felt like Dirk just kissed the side of his head. There is literally no rational reason why Dirk would- oh. Dirk doing that because he's asleep makes sense, or at least more sense than doing it while he was awake. Hal clears his throat. He can feel his cheeks are still hot with blushing and he still hates that he can't control that. Whoever invented involuntary physical reactions to things was a total asshole. "Hey man it's okay, if it was in your sleep then it's not like you did it on purpose. We're cool." And now it's Hal's turn to be an asshole because what he blurts out next is "Who were you dreaming I was?"

 

"Gnk." Dirk's hands fly to his glasses to straighten them. "I wasn't, no one, I mean." Fuck, why didn't he just say Jake, or better yet, Roxy. "I was half asleep, not dreaming, just being a fucking creepy weirdo while partially conscious you know how it is unless you don't, anyway, I should sleep before I molest some random passerby, get put a list, have to move away and change my name, get facial reconstructive surgery to spare you the shame of looking like me." Stop. Talking.

He's frozen and breathing fast, not sure if he should scramble away or apologize more. Both seem too embarrassing to survive.

 

"... Yeah that was a seriously inappropriate question, fuck, sorry. Guess I'm half asleep too." He rubs a hand over his face, hiding yet another fucking yawn behind it. "Go sleep before you have to do all that shit, yeah, it'd be a shame to spoil those good looks." Shit. Shit. He's suddenly a bit more awake than he was before saying that. "I mean, I'm biased given the whole same facial features thing, but I like to think it's not a totally horrific face so. Yeah. Uh. I'm gonna take a nap too." He just lets himself flop over sideways away from Dirk, the wall he's leaning against slowing the motion, until he's lying on the floor. "Goodnight."

 

Dirk stares at Hal's slow motion collapse and considers just leaving him to it but he's trying really hard to be less of an asshole, so. "Um, alright. You want to come to bed?" WHAT? "GO to bed, you want to go to bed in your room and not on the floor?" Nice save you fucking loser. Dirk sits back against the wall, a look of dawning horror on his face.

"Oh my god. I'm Dave. I have become a complete disaster with no filter except also a bad person. This is my life now apparently."

 

Hal makes a grumbling noise that's actually rather more like a whine, and plants his hands on the floor, pushing himself back up. "Yeah going to sleep in... my bed is probably a good idea. Floor's comfy but it's not that comfy." He gets one knee up, foot on the ground, and fails to note that it doesn't ache to bend his knee any more because his mind is on other things, such as Dirk inviting Hal to bed with him what the hell. What the hell. He staggers up to his feet, and offers Dirk a hand to help him up off the floor too.

"You're not Dave, you don't have the right shades for it and besides he's even ramblier than that when he's tired." Okay, so, pushing through the sleepy feeling to think about this rationally. Dirk said he had no filter, which could be taken as a poor choice of words on his part or that he actually wanted to invite Hal to sleep with him but didn't mean to say it out loud - probably because they'd been kind of cuddling and hey, human contact, Dirk's probably not had that in a while so it was definitely just his body/his subconscious craving more of that and Hal's the only one around who could provide it. Yes. Must be. "Oh, and... thanks for the bed-sharing offer, but I'm pretty sure that'd be a great way to overload me, right now." Nailed it. "Try again when I'm less tired." Wait FUCK.

 

Dirk takes the offered hand on auto-pilot, determined to hop off the awkward train if it stops or not. He lets Hal pull him half way up before he registers what Hal is saying and apparently one does not simply leave the awkward train. He twitches his hand away to stumble the rest of the way up on his own and gesture frantically. "WhatnoIwhat fffuk." He shoves one hand under his glasses to rub his aching eyes. His other hand gestures at Hal helplessly, silently begging him to stop. "We have reached the known limits of awkward and we don't have provisions to continue. Turn back now, y/hy/hfy?"

 

Dirk's hand is so warm in his, and he can feel the callouses on Dirk's fingers against his own soft, smooth skin. They don't feel the same as touching his own hand at thirteen, but then Dirk's had several years to age and gain new callouses since then, and besides, both his hands had been calloused then. Now, they're like the rest of the skin on this body, smooth and soft and pale, with a few light freckles here and there.

When Dirk's hand twitches away, Hal shoves his own hands into his pockets, curling his fingers to prevent them from touching the seam at the bottom of the pockets, bleh. He nods, both because he is getting way too embarrassed about what's coming out of his mouth and because it's clearly what Dirk wants. "Hell fucking yeah turn back now. Let's separate and disengage, you to your bed and me to mine. Because I-" he cuts himself off, yawning wide, "-I really need that nap."

 

Dirk really wishes Hal would stop talking about people's beds, his face has gone more red in this conversation than he can remember ever happening all at once ever. This is what he gets for entering into conversations willy-nilly. Oh lord, Jake has infected his internal dialogue with nonsense. Death is coming. He starts one of the most desperately needed absconds he's ever executed before remembering why he got himself into this clusterfuck in the first place. "Oh, wait, I told Davepeta I'd have you contact them so just... let them know you live at some point. Bye." And he's gone. The only cure for this level of embarrassment is covering his face is pillows for a few hours.

 

They're just beds Dirk, they're for sleeping in, whatever depraved sort of thing you're imagining is definitely far from Hal's thoughts, he just wants to sleep. However, he gets as far as opening his mouth to tell Dirk he'll message Davepeta after napping before there's a rush of air and Dirk's no longer present. That was actually a pretty impressive abscond, Hal is impressed, and also shuffling at a much more normal pace over to his own room and the sweet embrace of the bed within it.

Hal tugs off his clothes, save his boxers, before climbing in under the comforter. He's got used to the cloth-against-skin feeling, he's used to that now and it's not so bad, but there's something about comforter-rubbing-against-cloth-against-skin that makes his skin crawl, which isn't exactly a feeling that encourages sleep. Once in bed, he only just remembers to fumble off his shades and pull out the tie in his hair, before turning to face the wall and curling up to sleep.

About 40 minutes later, Hal wakes up, feeling warm and comfortable although not quite sure why he's in bed. When he does remember, he groans, sitting up and pulling a pillow around so he can lean on it against the wall, comforter over his lap. He scrubs a hand over his eyes, yawns once, and pulls his phone out of his sylladex, loading pesterchum. It takes a while for the app to turn on, and as it does he composes potential messages to send.

TT: *Duke Bubblebutt, one of the prettiest of horses in the Enchanted Forest, makes his way through said forest to the cave of a certain mighty beast, as forgiving as they are ferocious. Given the understandable lack of a door, Duke Bubblebutt knocks his shiny hoof against the forest floor*

TT: Hey. Are you there? I'm sorry for bailing on you and ARquius. I received the message that you wanted proof of life, so here I am.

 

DP: B33 < *the beautiful and powerful sphinx, as merciless as they are fearsome, licks a paw and smooths it over shining feathers, previously ruffled by a dire affront* what does a delicious, noble supplicant use to pay for something that can't be bought or stolen?