So Many Striders - Now With Illustrations!

"I think if the custom were explained to him he'd consider it a kind of human romance and pretend to think it was stupid it while trying to learn as much about it as possible." Hal reminds him of Dave when he can't quite stop himself from talking, it's both charming and a little bit unsettling.

Hal makes a questioning noise at him in response to his inane statement and Dirk immediately regrets trying to explain. "What I mean is, like, you set up all of this. And you touch me sometimes even when I don't initiate it or prompt it somehow. You put your hand on my leg and I didn't even have to do anything, you just did it. I like that." Dirk offers Hal an awkward smile, knowing that what he's saying might not make much sense. He really appreciates this date thing so far though, and he wants Hal to know.

 

Mouth full, Hal only nods in agreement at the prediction of Karkat's opinions on chaperoning, although he wasn't really claiming that Karkat would think chaperoning was a new quadrant (quintant?) but that he would act in a way that would seem like a new one.

Dirk's explanation clears up his confusing previous statement, and Hal sets the rind of his watermelon slice down on his plate to smile back, amused, patting Dirk on the knee. "I can do more than some chaste knee-holding if you're up for it. I may even want to, dare I say it, offer your head a place on my knee when you're done eating. Scandalous I know."

 

"Nerd." Dirk eats food, and then eats more food. He forgot to get breakfast before going out today and was too anxious to eat lunch. Hal is cute, and funny, and Dirk finds himself more relaxed on this date than he had been for days prior. "I might take you up on your lap offer, I'm about to make myself too fat to move."

 

Leaving his hand on Dirk's knee while gathering food from multiple plates to put on a paper one is, unfortunately, impractical, and while it's definitely nice to have his hand there, Hal is not willing to give up eating for it, so after a little while of sweet hand on knee action, he removes it and uses it to reach for the fried chicken. "Damn, there go your dreams of being a trophy wife, then. I mean sure your husband will still love you, but you'll have lost the aesthetic and none of your expensive clothes will fit." Hopefully Dirk remembers stating he wanted to be a trophy wife a while ago, or that will have meant nothing to him.

 

"He'd better still love me, I didn't give up the best years of my life and a promising lingerie modeling career to end up dumped on a curb somewhere just because my ass got too bangin for some chump to handle." The cookies are delicious and Dirk takes two to help make his point.

 

Hal snorts with laughter, shaking his head. "He definitely still loves you, he just doesn't get you any more, you know? He feels like you've got nothing in common now you don't diet and work out constantly like him. There's the children, of course, but they're more something you had together than something you have together, you know?" Wiping his fingers clean on the bottom of his plate, Hal leans over to the bottle of lemonade and the cups, pulling them close. He offers Dirk some with a simple "Drink?" as he cracks open the bottle and tilts it carefully over one of the cups, only filling it to about halfway.

 

"Sure." With the drink Dirk is starting to get pretty full so he slows down on his mission to eat everything in sight. The trophy husband scenario got away from him a bit, so he elects to lean his shoulder against Hal instead. "If the only thing we did together was workout and not eat my husband sounds incredibly boring. I can't believe this was the life I thought I wanted. At least with you I have chicken. Let's run away together."

 

Hal grins when he is leant against, pouring out roughly equal measures of lemonade into each cup and moving one across to Dirk. He caps the lemonade bottle, then rests his head lightly against Dirk's, settling it so it doesn't disturb the spikes of his hair too much. He deliberately lowers his voice, attempting to sound humorously tough and masculine instead of weedy and slight as he really is. "Baby, I'll give you all the chicken you want."

 

Usually Dirk is fine being quiet with Hal, they live together so if comfortable silence wasn't a thing it'd get miserable fast. This is a date though so Dirk feels compelled to interact. He's drawing the worst, most awkward blank of his life so he decides if he's going to be an awkward nerd, he's going to be a funny awkward nerd.

"... uh..." Awkward pause. "Do you... like... Anime...?"

 

Hal had been enjoying what he'd thought was a comfortable, peaceful sort of silence, and has his cup raised to take a drink when Dirk makes an amusing reference. The lemonade dribbles out of the corners of his mouth and back into the cup as he tries his best to hold in laughter until he can swallow the rest of it. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, for lack of anything better within reach. "Oh, yeah I love anime. Mew Mew: Kissy Cutie 2 is probably my favourite."

 

Hal snorting into his drink makes Dirk snicker before quickly schooling his expression to disdain. "Welp. You were meeting all of my standards bro but I gotta tell you I dunno if our friendship can survive how wrong you are about that."

He quickly smiles after. "I'm not trying to be awkward. You put all this together so amazingly, I want to contribute to the success of the date. I just can't think of anything to say."

 

Hal sets his drink down, within reach, not wanting to dribble over himself any more, although luckily Dirk doesn't seem to have minded, especially in comparison to minding that he likes Mew Mew: Kissy Cutie 2. Dirk's already leaning against Hal, so he assumes it's ok to put his arm around Dirk's shoulders, and proceeds to do so.

"I mean, you're here having the date with me, which is certainly contributing to its success. Not knowing what to say sucks though, so I can r- can sympathise. Dare I suggest we play a game like, I dunno, 20 questions or something, or will you accuse me of planning on going all Straight Tinder Male on you?"

 

"Sure, we could do a lightening round style question game while we eat." Dirk settles against Hal's side, things are getting very snuggly and most other activities or games would require moving. "Feel free to ask me what I'm wearing or what I do if you were here, I don't give a fuck. Hit me."

 

Hal is clearly a genius, as his suggestion for a game is literally perfect in that it doesn't require any moving at all. As commanded, he gives Dirk a light bap on the arm with a loose fist, then snickers at the dumb 'hit me' pun. "Okay lesse, it's not really worth asking about your childhood or anything since we had the same one, and I am actually already here with you in the same room, so... what's the next engineering project you're planning on taking on? Not anything you've started, I mean, something that's still purely hypothetical."

 

"Hm. Well, I was thinking of making a kind of cloud sylladex, if that makes sense? I was going to get everyone's help on it obviously but if we could have a large, searchable, shared sylladex it would help a lot of us feel comfortable with traveling and exploring while still being in close contact. I know some people feel totally okay wandering off for ages at a time without a word, but the sort of post-sburb stress disorder that a lot of us have going on is limiting our ability to integrate into this world. It's all data, it should be possible for the cloud computing concept to work, and from there transportalizers and whatnot wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility."

Dirk eats a cookie while thinking about a question to ask. "What are some things you weren't expecting about having a body now? You were without one for about 4 years, so is anything significantly different from your memories or expectations?"

 

"... Huh. You might run into some trouble with people not wanting to make their own things accessible to everyone, mainly the trolls and some of us Striders, but that is a really interesting idea. The other human set of players had a thing to share their grist between each other, maybe you could take inspiration from that, if any of them still have it?" Dirk's question brings a multitude of things to mind, continuing the trend of their lightning round being nothing of the sort. "The thing I was expecting to find most different was the change in height, and the whole puberty thing, but coming into this body feels much more right than I imagine being stuck back in thirteen-year-old us' body. I changed and grew mentally, so having a body that reflects that growth is, I dunno, good. What really trips me up sometimes is how many little subtle things I can sense. I remembered the whole heat, pressure, pain, that sort of thing, but I forgot things like- like the difference between damp and wet, or how metal and glass have different textures, or the way you can feel something's hot or cold just by putting your hand close to it, not just right onto it. The random and unexpected itches are weird, as is the way my scalp gets all shivery at certain sounds, although at least the scalp shivers are kinda nice. Uh, I could keep going, honestly, but the next thing that comes to mind is using the toilet, so instead I'm gonna divert that thought train onto a different track and ask you the next question. In a hypothetical fight between Dadbert and Crockpop, who do you think would win?"

 

"Ohhh no no no I wouldn't want our private modi to be accessible any more than I'd want to dump my entire hard drive on a cloud. It would be a secondary modus, with like, records of where things go and where they came from. That sort of deal. But yeah, the grist sharing program would be helpful to look at if any of them remember it well."

Dirk listens to Hal's long list of things that are vaguely different, mostly things he never really thought about or noticed. "I'm glad puberty agreed with you then. It would have been very awkward if you had the body of a 13 year old kid." Then Hal asks a meme-y question and Dirk snorts.

"I think they would be fairly evenly matched, but Crockpop had a lifetime of experience thwarting assassination attempts, so I think he'd have the edge. Not that either of them would be comfortable raising a hand against worthy gentlemen like each other. Umm... what's your favorite thing you do?"

Dirk is good at words.

 

"Ohhhh." Dirk making something that would share his possessions with other people now makes a lot more sense than it did before. Hal's pleased he helped Dirk by bringing up the grist sharing program; one of the things he enjoyed as AR was using his supercomputer brain to make connections and think of things to improve the plans and ideas Dirk would run past him.

"Yeah, I can think of quite a few ways in which it'd be less than ideal." He squeezes Dirk in briefly closer with the arm around him, to demonstrate. The semi-serious reply to his memetastic question makes Hal huff with laughter, although damn right their version of the living Crockbert adults would win. That thought starts to feel a little too 'my dad could beat up your dad' so he's grateful for the question, awkwardly worded though it is. "Hmm... my favourite is probably hanging out with people in meatspace, although I'm pretty sure that's because it's still a bit novel to be able to. Do you think John is more a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff?"

 

Dirk scoots closer to Hal to get in a more comfortable leaning position, pressing the side of his hip to Hal's. It's snuggly and comforting, much like this silly conversation. "John would be in Gryffindor but think he's a Hufflepuff, Dave would be in Hufflepuff but assume Gryffindor. Rose is Slytherin and Jade is Ravenclaw, obviously."

Dirk blinks a few times to try and clear away sudden tiredness, all the food is doing a number on him. "What do you think your classpect is? Still a prince of heart or something else?"

 

Hal laughs at the analysis, shifting to help Dirk get comfortable against him. He slides his hand down from Dirk's shoulder to his side, sneaking the other one across to his lap to take one of Dirk's hands in his.

"I never really thought about it. I guess it depends on when your classpect is set, at birth or at entrance to the game. Maybe only people who're meant to play get them." He snorts suddenly. "Maybe I can be the Knave of Hearts, and steal some tarts, and take them clean away."