Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dirk opens his eyes and he can’t remember.

He looks up at the vibrant blue sky and tilts his head to peer at the dark brown trunks of pine trees zipping past.

Well, he can remember some things; smoke, a truck. He’s definitely lying in a truck. He doesn’t remember any pain, which is strange, because his head keeps clattering against the side of it. There are half remembered echoes of pain though, and something that might feel like electricity, so he decides that just for now he doesn’t need to remember. He’s actually fine with not remembering, his not remembering is probably what the universe wants anyway.

Still— an uneasy feeling tightens his stomach.

Perhaps he should try to remember something else. He is a detective after all.

He is a detective.

He’s a detective!

His stomach relaxes. He remembers being a detective. He remembers he used to solve cases and fight crime and, no that doesn’t feel right, but he feels like a detective— Or, no, no, right now he feels sort of like a pebble tumbling down a cliff, or a leaf being whipped by the wind. A leaf in the stream of creation…

The truck clatters over a pothole and Dirk’s head slams into the harsh metal side. He squeaks a weak protest.

“Dirk?” A female voice calls.

Dirk. He rolls the name around in his head. It feels familiar, friendly, like warm water and thick hot chocolate and cosy jackets that fit perfectly but with an echo of newness. Dirk Gently.

“Dirk? We’re out, we’ve got you out. Blackwing aren’t looking for you anymore. We...” the voice says.

Dirk tries to listen, but the words keep slipping away. Still, he forces his heavy head to move and is rewarded with the face of a girl.

It’s a nice face. There are dark eyes that he thinks might twinkle under the right circumstances, and dark hair and pale skin. Something about her seems familiar, safe. Dirk thinks he might know her.

Only there’s something cluttered in his head — like a herd of sharks have trampled through his memories and jumbled them all up, but then, do sharks come in herds? Sharks probably don’t come in herds. In fact sharks don’t herd at all and they probably don’t trample—

Maybe cats? Tiny black kittens, unravelling his brain like a ball of wool. He feels sort of woolly.

“S’ry,” he tries. And then, “cat,” because it seems important that she knows what’s going on in his head.

She frowns at him, so he tries again.

Only his mouth isn’t working so well and the world is starting to look rather dark. I’m trying-- he opens his mouth to say. But then, something strikes him in a flash of cold surety and he knows like nothing he’s ever known before that trying his best isn’t good enough.

He tries again anyway… But now his head is starting to spin and his body feels strange and his heart is beating too fast and everything is imponderable and intangible and immaterial and—

“Shark,” he says, as the world goes dark.

*

Dirk wiggles his toes and everything hurts. Still, it’s a soft hurt. The kind of hurt where your wounds are bandaged and your body is lying on something comfortable. He’s been awake for several seconds now and he’s pretty impressed with what he’s been able to catalogue — room (not hospital), daytime, bed (probably), not alone.

He allows his head to turn fully to focus on the dark haired man with the extremely blue eyes who’s fidgeting incessantly and staring at him with an intensity that makes Dirk squirm. Blue eyes, he’s going to call him blue eyes.

“Dirk?” Blue eyes’ voice cracks on his name. “You’re awake?”

“Hi,” Dirk manages.

Blue eyes frowns and Dirk takes a second to consider the situation: clearly they know each other, because blue eyes is leaning uncomfortably close in a way that would be a terrible bedside manner for a stranger. Anyway, he feels familiar like the girl felt familiar, like this room feels familiar.

Blue eyes slumps. “God Dirk, I’m so sorry. We got you out as fast as we could. We were so worried. We looked for weeks but you just disappeared, and every time we found you they moved you and we lost you again. It was the Rowdy 3 who tracked you down — Amanda convinced them and then all of us got you out.”

He pauses for breath, those bright eyes watering alarmingly. “Blackwing thinks you’re dead so we should be safe for tonight. Tomorrow we can find somewhere better. Together.”

Together.

Dirk’s throat is tight. He doesn’t know what those words mean; the significance of the names, but something like hysteria is bubbling in his chest, so Dirk presses his lips shut to stop it breaking free.

The room is silent as they stare at each other. Dirk needs to deal with the present, that’s the trick.

And in the present, what he knows is that there’s a friendly man who actually wants to help him. So his main goal for now, is to keep blue eyes happy. Which probably means that Dirk shouldn’t bring up the fact that he doesn’t remember him. People probably don’t like that.

Something clenches in his chest.

“How do you feel?” Blue eyes asks hesitantly.

“Fine, thank you,” Dirk answers. Big blue eyes. And he saved Dirk. Prince Charming, he decides. Prince Charming is a much better name than blue eyes.

“Well — I mean — does anything hurt?” The Prince asks.

“No, everything’s fine,” Dirk lies pleasantly. “Thank you.” His voice is rough but it’s coming back and his body feels a bit like it’s on fire but it probably isn’t. And he feels—sort of sick. Sort of like something is fundamentally wrong with the universe.

Which it is, really. In that Dirk isn’t in it anymore. Not really. Not the Dirk that was.

“Oh. Are you sure? I mean... Well that’s good. Do you want something? Some water?”

“Oh,” Dirk’s mouth is parched. He opens it to agree— and then shuts it again when an unsettling sort of panic clenches at his chest. “No thank you,” he says.

The Prince winces. “Dirk, we got you out as soon as we could.”

Dirk nods. “I’m grateful. Thank you.” He tries for a smile. A grateful smile.

Prince stares at him a bit longer. “I’ll be right back,” he says.

*

The problem with his plan to pretend that nothing’s wrong, Dirk realises, is that he doesn’t remember how to act normal. He could probably guess a sort of normal, but somehow the normal he’s guessing and the normal that Prince seems to expect aren’t the same thing.

Still, Dirk’s feeling slightly more cheerful, because it’s suddenly occurred to him that he has a case.

The case of Dirk Gently.

He grins — or he would, if it didn’t take so much effort. It’s simple: Dirk’s a detective, and Dirk doesn’t know who he is, ergo, all he needs to do is to solve the case to find out who he is.

It’s a working plan, but that’s ok because a working plan implies that it’s going to work.

He looks around the apartment for his first clue: the carpet is grey and looks new, and the furniture seems new as well. The door, when he manages to stumble to the bathroom, is also new, and he gets a few grateful gulps of water from the tap before the Prince shows up to herd him back to bed.

Something’s telling him that clues aren’t really his forte though, and that maybe what he really needs to do is just go with his instincts. Of course, it’s probably his instincts telling him that, so he’s not sure — in a sort of circular way — if he should be trusting them at all.

“Dirk?” Prince pokes his head around the door frame suddenly, startling him out of his thoughts. “I’m going out to get some supplies. I won’t be long, will you be ok here?”

“Yes thank you, I’ll be fine. I have a case!” Dirk says thoughtlessly.

He’s not at all prepared for the pale, terrified look he receives in response. “No!” Prince throws out a hand and Dirk recoils back instinctively. He tries to ignore the hurt that flickers across Prince’s face. “No. I mean...That’s great Dirk. But not yet, ok? Please not yet. You just got here and you’re injured. You need to rest.”

Oh.

“Just stay here Dirk. Please? No cases. No solving anything. No letting the universe take you where it wants to. Not right now, not until you’re healed. We’ve only just got you back. You aren’t a leaf in the stream of creation right now, ok?”

The words are like a punch to the gut. Oh.

Dirk nods blankly.

“Right.” Prince seems to hesitate, and something in his eyes looks sad and a little bit desperate. “Just, please stay here Dirk, we just got you back. Please just stay?”

The back of his eyes start to burn. He nods again.

“Dirk, I can’t lose you again,” Prince says.

Oh.

*

It’s all too much for Dirk’s exhausted brain to process, so instead, he turns back to the case.

Prince has gone to the shops, so it’s time to get to work.

He looks around himself; clearly, he’s been here before. There’s a battered yellow jacket thrown over the sofa that he’d been wearing when he’d escaped, and he’s absolutely certain that he’s cooked in this very kitchen. So maybe he lives here? Prince has been sleeping on the sofa after all, so it stands to reason that it must be Dirk’s flat.

He’s wearing a black t-shirt with the words ‘Mexican Funeral’ on it and some grey jogging bottoms that are a few inches too short which is a bit odd, because that means that they are either not his or- he’s grown? He’d been captured by someone, he’s worked out that much, and he’d been rescued. Maybe he had grown? Perhaps they’d been performing some super secret, suspicious, experi-governmental research on him? Maybe he would grow feathers next? Or wings! Dirk runs his hands hurriedly over the bits of his body that he can reach but no non-human features are apparent. Or maybe, he thinks as guilt prickles at him uncomfortably, maybe this isn’t his flat at all. And maybe, these aren’t even his clothes.

He fingers the hem of the t-shirt absentmindedly as he hobbles uneasily into the living room. There’s a blue denim jacket next to the yellow one, and this one Dirk doesn’t think is his. Still, he pretends that it might be as he rifles quickly through both sets of pockets: there’s a lighter and a few quarters in the blue and nothing at all in the yellow. He puts it all back and drags his knuckles reverently over the soft leather before limping into the kitchen.

The counter has a few coins and some bits of paper and Dirk should really read them for his investigation but he just can’t bring himself to. The guilt is finally starting to outweigh the benefits of a solid investigation, and his legs feel like hyperextended rubber. This is useless. He might as well just go back to bed, wait for Prince to come back and confess everything. He’ll just have to hope that he doesn’t get thrown out on the street.

Dirk sighs, feeling lighter somehow now that the decision has been made and relieved that he doesn’t have to keep dragging his exhausted body around. He’ll just grab himself a proper drink and then he’s going straight back to bed.

He manages to get behind the kitchen counter before his legs give out.

It feels sort of like fate, as he slides to the floor.

*

He’s dozing on the cold kitchen tile when he finally hears Prince calling his name.

“Dirk!? Dirk! No, no, no!” It’s quite loud, as if he’d been calling for a little while before Dirk had woken up.

Dirk’s just gearing himself up to shout back when the shouting morphs suddenly to yelling, and then to screaming. Panic jumps up his throat and he slams his head back into the counter in surprise and—

Pain. He remembers this. Pain and screaming and heat and— electricity. He remembers electricity, and men, scary men, men dressed in black and even worse, the blonde woman. He waits for the men to come, but nothing happens, there are no sounds of feet, no voices, no one coming to get him. Only the Prince’s desperate whimpering.

Oh. Prince. He’s in the kitchen. Something’s wrong with Prince.

It takes him a moment to shake himself out of it, and then another to build up his courage. He takes a steadying breath as he peers around the counter.

“Prince?” He calls. “Prince?”

Prince is on his knees, curled over himself in what looks like pain, and as Dirk scrambles laboriously over he turns his head and there’s a flash of relief in his blue eyes and then of fear, and then the pain seems to take back over and he turns away.

“My hands,” Prince grits out. “Dirk, my hands!”

Dirk searches frantically for something to see but there’s nothing, no wounds, no injury. “Wh—”

Dirk’s just about to drag him to the sink to try and wash off whatever must be on his hands when four men in leather jackets burst through the front door.

It’s— it’s strange is what it is. A desperately familiar sort of terror starts to crawl up Dirk’s throat and he can’t help but scramble back. And yet, he knows that they aren’t the ones that took him. And he knows that they won’t really hurt him. They look like they wouldn’t be out of place at a riot and one of them is holding a bat that Dirk has a feeling isn’t for sports, but...

He stares nervously as the three, no four, surround Prince, and fear is still closing his throat even though his instincts are telling him it’s ok, and he’s fairly sure he’s trembling now, but he might have been before. He should stop them. He should do something.

The men keep leaning, keep hovering, and then they’re breathing and then there’s a blue mist pouring up and out of Prince and even that seems familiar somehow. Dirk takes the last of his energy, shakily gathering the scraps of his courage together and begins to inch forwards.

The three— four turn to face Dirk in one, fluid motion.

“Ah.” Dirk edges back again as they approach. “Right. Now I don’t know if—”

They circle up and gather round him, and then the air is blue and— It’s like rain; melting the snow and leaving no traces behind, no— it’s like ketchup being squeezed out of a bottle, it’s like paint, scraped off a wall—

Dirk can see blue mist pouring out of himself and it’s carrying everything with it — fear, pain, tension. The tightness is pulled from his throat and it should feel relaxing, he should feel better now, but all he feels is... empty. Dirk blinks and the men are heading cheerfully out of the door, one of them stopping to smash the hall light with his baseball bat before disappearing from sight.

Dirk shifts experimentally and suddenly he’s very, very tired. He frowns. So that was basically magic then, and definitely weird, and now that the men are gone his brain is trying to rationalize them away, wondering if they were ever there to begin with.

The door is still open though, so it probably, definitely, almost certainly did happen.

He blinks again, and this time when he opens his eyes two women have burst into the apartment and Dirk sighs in exhausted resignation. One’s wearing a jacket that looks like it might belong to the same gang as the others and Dirk isn’t about to let them get to Prince a second time so he drags himself dutifully forwards, not stopping until he’s managed to scoot his knees under Prince’s head.

He looks back up at the unwanted visitors: one’s dark with big hair and what Dirk thinks are intelligent eyes, and the one with the jacket— oh. The one with the jacket is the girl from the truck. The one who rescued him.

Dirk lets himself relax a fraction, cradling Prince’s head in his lap.

The women stare. Dirk stares back.

Dirk counts a full thirty seconds in his head before he takes it upon himself to break the silence. “Something happened to him?” He offers. “His hands. I think he’s ok now though?”

Prince stirs in his lap and Dirk reluctantly lets him go as he sits up carefully. Still, he stays close as Prince stretches his back and settles himself more comfortably on the floor.

“God, Amanda, how do you deal with that all the time? It’s like having your bones scraped out,” Prince says.

“Better than the alternative,” Truck-rescue girl says, and Dirk feels something click into place because this must be Amanda, and if that’s Amanda then maybe the other one is Farah? There’s a Farah in his head. He feels like he knows a Farah.

Prince sighs and slumps forwards, seemingly content to remain cross-legged on the carpet. “Yeah... ok.”

“It’s good to have you back, Dirk,” Amanda says, nodding at him with serious eyes. “Sorry you had to find out like that.”

Dirk swallows hard and something twists in his stomach and for some reason he just feels—sad. Desperately, horribly sad. He takes a deep breath and searches for some more of his courage. “Find out what?” He says slowly, when the silence is starting to get loud.

“That I have Pararibulitis.” Prince says quietly.

Dirk shakes his head. “What’s that?” He frowns, still not understanding, because that’s an impressive word but Dirk’s never heard it before.

Or maybe he has, he realises with a sinking feeling as three pairs of eyes turn to stare at him sharply.

“Pararibulitis,” Probably-Farah says slowly.

“Oh,” Dirk whispers as Amanda takes a step backwards and Probably-Farah takes a step forwards and Prince pushes himself back to stare at him with a look of dawning horror on his face.

Dirk’s chest tightens and his eyes start to prickle. He’s got something wrong. He’s got something really wrong. He’s messed up.

“You called me Prince,” Prince says. “Before, when I was having the attack. You called me Prince.”

“I—” No. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s never been good with people, or at least he thinks he hasn’t, he doesn’t know how to deal with people. He doesn’t know how to deal with anything. Dirk pushes himself back shakily. “I didn’t— I don’t— That is to say, I—”

“My name is Todd.”

“I didn’t— don’t— I—”

When Dirk looks up, there’s a gun pointed at his head.

Chapter Text

“Where’s Dirk Gently?” Are the first words Todd says after they’ve strapped the imposter to a chair. They hadn’t been able to find rope, but the man hadn’t fought as they’d bound him down with a few shirts.

Whoever it is is still pretending to be Dirk though, and it’s making his skin crawl.

He’d known something wasn’t right, he’d known it from the first moment the stranger had woken up.

The imposter looks around himself nervously. “I— Well I don’t really know exactly where I am right now but I was figuring it out, and I think if you give me a bit more time I might be able to sort through it?”

Todd’s breath catches at how Dirk the man is being. But it’s not him. It can’t be him. The frustration grates on his frayed nerves. “What have you done with Dirk?” He growls. “Where is he? What body is he in? Is he still with Blackwing?”

The man’s eyes are wide and fearful but he opens his mouth hurriedly. “Umm— Mine? At least, I think it’s mine?” His frowns suddenly. “Oh! Am I in the wrong body? It that why my clothes don’t fit properly? Because now that you mention it I had noticed that my arms and legs were sort of all over the place and I kept thinking that nothing quite felt right and everything hurts and I did check for feathers you know, because I thought I might have been in some sort of experi-gover-mental type situation and obviously I needed saving from there because you saved me, but I don’t have any feathers so this certainly makes more sense! —What’s a Blackwing?”

The words hang in the air for a moment and Todd’s chest clenches. He’s just so… Dirk. But he can’t be Dirk. But—

He steps back and takes a slow breath, studying the nervous-looking man in front of him. He’s got Dirk’s body, no question, but then that doesn’t mean anything these days. But there’s more than that… The nervous rambling, the overly-expressive face, the fear interrupted with bursts of reckless courage, and the way he moves, the way he looks at Todd like he’s desperate—

It is Dirk. It has to be Dirk. Only Dirk doesn’t know who he is.

Todd feels sick.

“Dirk?” He says quietly, pausing until the other man finally meets his eyes. “It is you.”

“I... think so?” Dirk says slowly.

“You’ve forgotten us?”

Dirk jumps in his chair. Jumps like he’s been electrocuted and shakes his head rapidly. “No! No. I could never— I— There’s just this mess in my head and there’s some sort of wriggling wiggly worm in my stomach and if this is really me like you say it is then this must be my actual real body which is a bit of a blow if I’m honest, but I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t say forget, I’m sure I haven’t forgotten, I couldn’t. It’s just—”

“No,” Farah’s soft voice cuts him off and Dirk sags back nervously. “His level of confusion, his lack of knowledge of where he’s been, he doesn’t even know what Blackwing is—” She shakes her head.

Todd feels hollow, numb. He can’t take his eyes off his friend. His best friend. Who doesn’t remember him.

“So is this Dirk or not?” Amanda asks.

“I think it’s him,” Farah says slowly. ”But he’s forgotten more than just us. I think it might be full, episodic, retrograde amnesia. Probably brought on by some sort of stimulus, a traumatic event maybe?” She turns her considering gaze on Dirk and frowns as he shrinks back.

“Meaning?” Todd says quietly.

“He doesn’t know who we are,” Farah says, “and he doesn’t know who he is either.”

Todd turns back slowly, his stomach turning at the fearful look in Dirk’s eyes. “You don’t know who you are?”

Dirk shakes his head slowly.

“You said everything hurt?” Amanda asks gently.

Dirk nods hesitantly.

“Oh Dirk,” Todd says, and lays a hand on Dirk’s shoulder.

And after everything that’s happened since Dirk had woken up, somehow that’s what makes the man cry.

*

It’s a while after Farah and Amanda leave before Todd thinks he might be able to talk to Dirk again, and he feels guilty about that, sure, only, it’s just that— they’ve finally gotten him back.

Only they haven’t.

“Farah says you should start remembering things over the next few days. She says that you probably have dissociative amnesia brought on by a combination of physical and emotional trauma,” he says at last.

Yes thank you, I know that Todd. I was in the room when she said it. Todd mentally fills in for him.

Dirk only nods. His eyes are still red-rimmed but at least he’s not crying anymore. The real problem is that Todd doesn’t know how to comfort him. He doesn’t know how this Dirk will respond. He doesn’t even know what’s been done to him, and Dirk’s picked up a nervous flinch that’s just not ok.

Anyway, Todd himself isn’t much better. It hadn’t been easy, breaking Dirk out, and he’s so exhausted, so strung out— He’s pretty sure that if Dirk bursts into tears again he’ll be coming along for the ride.

“It would be better to stay somewhere you recognise, but we’ll have to leave here in the morning,” Todd presses on. “Farah says Blackwing aren’t looking for you for now, but they’ll notice there isn’t a body soon. They’ll probably come here.”

Dirk nods, still silent.

“So we just have to keep moving and make sure that you feel safe and that you’re looked after,” he finishes.

Farah had spent a few minutes googling amnesia and seemed relatively confident that taking him to the hospital would only stress him more. She’d also decided that too many people too soon would be a bad thing, so they’d agreed to find each other in a few days. Until then, Todd was on Dirk watch. Only he doesn’t think he’s going to make it if he can’t get Dirk at least a little bit more relaxed.

“Talk to me Dirk,” he tries.

“I— What do you want me to say?” Dirk asks quietly, and it isn’t an accusation, it’s just a simple question and somehow that hurts more.

“Tell me what you remember.”

Dirk hesitates, so Todd just waits, testing his own pitiful patience. He wants to reach out and touch, to make sure it’s really Dirk and they’ve really got him back. Only he doesn’t think Dirk with his memory would know what to do with that, and Dirk without his memory could only be worse. Besides, last time he’d tried physical comfort Dirk had cried.  

“My name is Dirk Gently,” Dirk says at last. “I’m a detective.”

Todd frowns, a thought sparking at that. “Before, when I talked to you, you said you had a new case?”

Dirk looks a little shifty at that, and it’s such a Dirk expression that he feels a tiny buzz of hope.

“Ah. Yes. About that—” Dirk pauses. “Err, well it was me.”

“You?”

“Yes. Me in fact. I just thought that maybe if I investigated me it might solve the problem of me not remembering because I would know the information that I didn’t remember?”

Todd waits for a moment for that to sink in.

“And it might help the stupid cat-shark that’s ruined my brain,” Dirk finishes.

“Cat shark,” Todd repeats stupidly, the buzz of hope bursting back to life, and it’s such a relief that he’s fairly certain that there’s a loopy grin suddenly sprung up on his face. Cat shark.

“Well, sort of more like kittens really, tearing up the inside of my brain,” Dirk says nervously.

“Kitten shark,” Todd nods, “it was a kitten shark,” he shakes his head. There’s a new resolve creeping through him, something solid and definite. Something he can work with. “Ok, look Dirk. You need to rest as much as possible, and clearly you can’t seem to do that, so here’s what we’re going to do.”

“Ok,” Dirk shifts slightly, looking up cautiously.

“We’re going to solve the case,” Todd finishes, and is rewarded by a bright smile that finally loosens the aching nerves that had been vibrating through him ever since Dirk had come back and he’d known. He’d just known that something was very, very wrong. “And we’re going to solve it together.” He says.

Dirk’s beams.

*

Dirk says he’s hungry, so they start there.

He wants to cook for some strange reason that Todd can’t work out, so Todd sets up a chair in the kitchen and forces Dirk to sit on it and direct. It’s not like Dirk’s case solving methods made sense before, so he isn’t going to question it.

It’s actually, really nice…

Todd wanders around preparing ingredients to Dirk’s instruction and blatantly ignoring them when he’s certain they’ll lead to inedible food. He’s not sure why Dirk seems to insist on adding cinnamon and cilantro to everything but he has a suspicion that it’s because Dirk likes the names rather than the taste.

Still, they negotiate over the celery, and Todd ultimately wins because they don’t have any and he isn’t about to go and get some to pander to Dirk’s weird love of foods beginning with ‘c’.

“But we’re making curry!” Dirk protests, and a deeply troubling, alphabet-shaped lightbulb flickers to life in Todd’s head.

He snorts and shrugs, dishing out their dinner and putting the bowls on his new table — the rowdy three had damaged almost everything but Farah had paid to have it replaced. He’s finally got a good job, a nice apartment, good friends, and his sister talking to him again. But all of that means nothing if they’ve lost the one person who’d pulled them all together.

Still, Todd supposes, if Dirk never remembers then they’ll just have to start again. He puts his head down and focuses on his food, trying not to think about it.

Dirk’s halfway through his meal before he starts fidgeting nervously in his chair. “Todd,” he begins finally, hunching slightly over his food. “What are— I mean, do we— Do I live here?”

Todd frowns, thinking about the question.

“No, this is my flat.”

“Oh.”

Dirk looks a little bit lost at that so Todd tries again. “You’re here a lot though. You’ve cooked here and we— hang out,” he finishes lamely. They aren’t the right words for the wild, hair-raising near-death adventures that seem to happen around the man, but it’ll do for now.

Dirk seems to ponder this some more.

“And are we— I mean, do you—” Dirk huffs. “We hang out?”

“Well yeah, we’re friends,” Todd says, and that isn’t right either somehow. It doesn’t match the magnetic, desperate sort of pull that throws them both together.

“Friends?” The incredulity in Dirk’s voice echoes uncomfortably with the word friends and suddenly Todd is seeing red.

“Yes, Dirk. Friends,” he snaps. “Something wrong with that?”

“What— no!” Dirk recoils with such ferocity that his chair almost tips over and Todd is left feeling slightly guilty and strangely confused. “No, no, not at all. I would be incredibly lucky to have a friend like you Todd, it’s just, you see, you seem like a very nice person and it just doesn’t seem likely that I—” He trails off, leaving Todd to fill in the blanks.

“We’re friends Dirk,” Todd says, the irritation washing away to leave him hopelessly tired and missing his friend. Something in his chest aches. “Best friends.”

Dirk gives him an accepting nod that is probably meant to look like someone ‘acknowledging a curious fact with interest’, but to Todd resembles a child pretending to agree with a command that they have no intention of obeying.

“You don’t believe me,” he sighs.

Dirk looks up quickly. “No! No I do believe you I just don’t understand. Todd, why are we friends?”

Because you made me? Because I like you? Because I have to keep ignoring the part of me that wants to go along with your stupid plans just to make you smile?

“Because we are, Dirk,” he says finally. Dirk wisely shuts his mouth and stares down at his plate. “And— Because we work together, ok? We just fit. You do crazy things and I try and stop you and I do stupid shit and you help me through it.”

“You... like me.” Dirk says slowly.

Todd frowns. “Of course I like you.”

“Well yes but, you actually like me. We’re not just friends because you feel responsible for me? Or because I made you?”

“Well you did kind of make me,” Todd smiles, and then immediately regrets it when Dirk’s face falls.

“No! Dirk no,” he reaches over and takes a warm hand in his and there’s a fine tremble going through Dirk’s fingers which suddenly reminds Todd that he’s been at Blackwing for weeks and they have no idea of what was actually done to him and he’s probably hurt and stressed and maybe even in pain. “Dirk no. You did pressure me at first, but I didn’t let you ok? And we fought and then we made up and then we fought again— We’ve been through some stuff Dirk. We’re friends. Real friends.”

Dirk’s still trembling, but slowly he curls his wrist back and Todd obediently moves his hand with him, slotting their fingers together, and when he looks up there’s a faint smile at the corners of Dirk’s lips.

“I wish I could remember.” Dirk says quietly.

“I wish you could too.”

Chapter Text

Dirk enjoyed the dinner, he enjoyed the cooking even more, and he enjoyed the fact that Todd let him hold his hand the most. He isn’t sure why he’s drawn to wanting physical comfort from Todd yet, but something squirms in excited confusion as he’s tugged unceremoniously towards the bedroom after dinner, and he’s starting to get an inkling of what it might be.

The bedroom, he realises with a flush, is actually Todd’s bedroom, and he suddenly wonders if he should offer to share the bed, if that’s something that friends do?

Friends. Something warm and just a little bit shivery curls in his stomach. He’s pretty sure that he hasn’t had many of those in his forgotten life.

He would offer to take the sofa of course, but it’s a long way back across the living room and he honestly isn’t sure he can make it.

“I think the corgi took the time machine,” he says, and then frowns because those weren’t the words he meant to say.

“You need to rest Dirk, It’s been a long day,” Todd says in a way that almost seems fond, and there’s a smile on his face, so that’s good.

“Sofa not comfy,” Dirk tries.

“You’re not on the sofa Dirk, you get the bed tonight.”

Dirks feeling awfully tired and Todd’s awfully warm, and really that’s the only excuse for his behaviour. “Not comfy for you. Share?” He mutters, his brain just a fraction too slow to stop his mouth.

He isn’t sure if he imagines the “not tonight,” as he slowly fades out.

*

In the morning he’s feeling a little bit stronger and a little bit safer, and for some reason he has an overwhelming urge to visit the woods. And stranger still, Todd agrees to it with a blinding smile.

“We’re nearly there,” Todd says, breaking the silence of the car.

Dirk looks out of the window curiously, but they’re still passing through row after row of battered single storey houses. Todd keeps turning to glance at him and Dirk gets the feeling that he’s not usually this silent.

The problem is, he’s got a lot of questions. A lot. But most of them seem to settle around what Dirk and Todd actually are to each other, and Dirk doesn’t have the courage to ask just yet. Todd might say friends again, and something in Dirk’s chest aches uncomfortably at that, or he might say they’re more than friends, and that’s an entirely different beast. A nervous, trembly sort of beast that seems to be growing bigger and bigger.

Dirk swallows dryly. “We’ve been here before?”

Todd nods and stares at him with a raised eyebrow. “Anything look familiar?”

Dirk shrugs. It doesn’t, but he doesn’t want to disappoint.

“That’s ok Dirk. You’ll remember.”

Dirk wishes he could be so confident. “You said yesterday we worked cases together?”

Todd had, he’d also said that Farah employed them but Dirk considered himself the boss.

“Yeah, we did. Well not officially yet, but we still solved a case.”

“Were we—I mean, was I—any good?” Dirk says carefully.

“Yeah Dirk, you were.” Todd’s smile makes his heart leap.

Dirk sits back and watches as the houses finally give way to sparse pine trees and then to more dense forest. He still doesn’t recognise anything, but Todd doesn’t seem to mind.

It’s trees, trees and more trees before finally, Todd pulls into a motel car park. “We can stay here tonight.”

Dirk looks around them in confusion. “It’s still morning.”

“Yeah, but we need to sort you out before we go any further. We can go to the woods tomorrow.”

“Sort me out?”

Todd’s voice becomes suddenly serious. “Dirk you’re hurt. I know we’re not talking about it but we don’t know what Blackwing did to you. I can’t drive any further until I know you’re ok. We need to check you over, make sure you don’t have any hidden injuries that we missed. It wasn’t easy to check when you were unconscious.”

“Check me over,” Dirk says slowly.

Todd gives him an amused glance and says nothing, leading them into the motel. He pays for the room in cash from an overly cheerful woman who seems far too interested in Todd’s blue eyes for Dirk’s liking. She points them towards a corridor that’s too dark and they go through a door that’s too stiff and into a room that’s too dirty.

Todd drops an overstuffed gym bag onto one of the two beds and Dirk isn’t sure if he’s relieved or disappointed that they aren’t sharing.

He considers the strange idea that’s somehow taken root in his head. Todd had said they were friends, but it doesn’t feel right. But then, surely he would know if they’d been something—more? And anyway, he doesn’t seem like the type of person that someone like Todd would be interested in. His limbs are too gangly and his face is too mobile and his head is too confused.

“Right, shirt off.” Todd says matter-of-factly.

Dirk stares blankly.

Todd frowns. “Do you need a hand?”

“No!” Dirk thinks he might have been a little too forceful there, judging by Todd’s wince. “I mean; I need to know if I can do it on my own.”

Todd nods patiently, and Dirk only hesitates for a moment before he shrugs out of the yellow jacket that he’d thrown over the Mexican funeral shirt. Todd had flinched when he’d seen Dirk in it that morning and Dirk still doesn’t understand why. He’d thought the combination looked quite smart.

The movement reveals some sore muscles and Dirk has a miserable realization that he probably does need help if he has any hope of getting the shirt off. He manages to get it halfway before Todd steps in and efficiently tugs it over his head. His hands are warm and they leave little trails of raised skin as they brush over Dirk’s sides.

Dirk doesn’t look down at his chest. The look of worried panic that briefly flashes over Todd’s face is enough.

“Is it bad?” Dirk asks brusquely.

“You’re—a bit thin.” Todd says slowly. “They had you for a month, I don’t think they fed you much and there’s quite a lot of bruising.”

Gentle fingers poke at his ribs and he has to hold back a yelp—for a moment there are shadows standing all around him and he’s lying on his back, and there’s a boot on his chest and there are questions. Endless, endless questions.

“Dirk?”

And then the questions are gone and the moment shatters and he’s back with a concerned looking Todd. “Hmm?”

“Did that hurt?”

Dirk shakes his head. “Just the surprise.”

Todd nods, apparently believing him, or willing to let it go at least. “Can you take a deep breath?”

Dirk does. It aches, but nothing too bad.

“They probably aren’t broken then,” Todd says, looking relieved.

Todd slips around behind him and lets out a hiss like an angry kitten. “You’re pretty scraped up. I think it must have been from the escape, Amanda said it was rough? Me and Farah were checking out a different site when she found you.”

Smoke. Smoke and tarmac and a moving truck. That’s all Dirk really remembers from the escape, though his shoulder blades are tingling in a familiar way and maybe he remembers more? Maybe he remembers running and shouting and falling.

He jerks away as warm fingers prod at his spine.

“Sorry,” Todd sighs. “Ok, let’s get this cleaned up. You’ve got dirt in these scrapes. Come on.”

Dirk follows obediently into the bathroom and stands with his back to the door as Todd wets a towel in the sink.

The first touch stings a bit, and the second stings more. He holds back a hiss and jams his eyes shut, but there are the edges of a blonde woman in the corners of his mind and he furiously pushes them away, burrowing them down beneath the rest of his jumbled memories.

“Dirk? Dirk?” He tunes back in to Todd’s worried voice. “Dirk you’re shaking. I think you need to sit down.”

He nods numbly, letting himself be guided onto a small stool, Todd perches behind him on the edge of the bath.

“Dirk what did they do to you?” Todd whispers.

“I don’t remember.”

“Or maybe you just don’t want to remember?” Todd’s voice is quiet, and there’s no accusation there.

Dirk nods in reluctant agreement. He shuts his eyes as he’s carefully sponged down, letting the quiet motions comfort him. He’s not always been great with touch, but somehow Todd’s slow hands are ok.

Todd moves on to unblemished stretches of skin and Dirk’s starting to feel tingly and calm when he speaks again. “Feeling better?” Todd asks, moving round to kneel in front of him, lifting the sponge to Dirk’s chest.

“Mhmm.” Dirk manages.

Todd’s shoulder is right there and looking all warm and inviting so he lets his head drop onto it. Todd stiffens, but keeps moving.

“No forest for you today Dirk.”

“Got to dig,” Dirk mutters, struck suddenly by a vivid image of Todd standing in a hole with a shovel. It’s a strange sort of memory—it feels happy and angry and desperate and excited all at once.

No wonder Dirk can’t remember, if he used to feel all that.

There was a car, he thinks. A red one. And he slept in it. They both had. Dirk tilts his head to the side, puffing his breath lightly onto Todd’s neck. He’s close enough to smell Todd’s cologne, but he’s still not sure he’s allowed. But—they’re sharing clothes and Dirk’s obviously spent a lot of time in Todd’s apartment and they slept in a car together.

Dirk’s not sure why that last one is important but he feels like it should be. And then there’s the contact - Dirk doesn’t like to be touched, he’s fairly sure of that. But with Todd he doesn’t seem to mind it.

On the other hand, Dirk in any kind of relationship seems extremely unlikely.

He turns his head back to face the other direction and Todd’s shoulders falls with a strange sort of shake.

Who would want to date Dirk anyway? Really it wouldn’t make sense for them to be together.

*

Todd insists they nap and Dirk insists he’s not a child, but he loses the argument anyway when Todd grins at him with his wide smile and piercing eyes. They’re basically a weapon, Dirk thinks, and that’s really not fair because he doesn’t have one of his own.

When he wakes up again, the room is hushed and the sky outside is dark and Todd’s sitting up in his bed, picking at the strings of an acoustic guitar that must have been in the back of the van.

“You’re a musician?” Dirk asks.

Something tight and painful flashes across Todd’s face. “Yeah Dirk.”

“Am I?”

Todd snorts. “I don’t think so. Would you like to try?”

Dirk pulls the guitar to himself, holding it hesitantly. His fingers don’t seem to know where to go, there’s no muscle memory there.

“Maybe I could teach you?” Todd says, after a few horrendous strums. “That’s Lydia’s guitar, Farah lent it to me when you were in hospital. Umm, that was before you were captured.”

Dirk winces and hands the guitar back, thinking instead about Farah--he hadn’t noticed Farah and Todd acting particularly close, but he hadn’t really been looking. He adds it to the list of reasons why Todd and he probably aren’t together.

“She must trust you.” Dirk says quietly.

“She’s starting to.”

They sit in silence for a few moments whilst Dirk tries not to think about any of it. He doesn’t know who Lydia is but for some reason he’s got the image of a small corgi in his head. A corgi probably wouldn’t own a guitar though.

“So, food?” Todd says finally.

Dirk nods.

*

Dirk looks down at his stack of pancakes with an almost happy smile after two days of pain and confusion. He might not have his memories but at least he has food.

He should have known that brief flicker of peace was too much to hope for when the first armed man comes bursting through the door.

“Dirk get down!” Todd shouts somewhat uselessly as Dirk’s already sliding hurriedly beneath the table.

Four people in dark clothing burst through the diner door and sweep the area with laser-sighted automatic rifles.

“They haven’t seen us yet,” Todd hisses.

Dirk glances around desperately - Todd’s right. The confusion and panic of the rest of the clientele are proving to be a distraction. So far they’ve spread out either side of the door they’d come in but they haven’t surrounded the room yet.

“Go!” Todd whispers, giving Dirk a gentle push. They dart beneath the next table, and the next.

“Icarus!” Comes a loud shout.

And then Todd’s dragging him up and they’re running towards the back and through into the kitchens. Dirk’s ribs are hurting and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe and his legs are shaking but Todd’s still running so he presses on.

Something loud crashes behind them and there’s a sharp zip of a bullet through the air. They duck behind a metal counter, Dirk trying his best to wish away the dark spots in front of his eyes.

“Capture only! Capture only!” A voice calls.

“There are two?” Another voice calls.

“Capture Icarus, kill the associate.”

Dirk’s blood goes cold. He looks around the room desperately, and there, there’s a door, a metal door leading to some sort of storage room that’s open just a fraction. He just needs a distraction.

“Todd,” he hisses.

Todd turns to look at him.

“In there,” he nods towards the door, “when I say.”

Todd nods.

Their attackers are inching closer again, spreading out and starting to sweep the room. Dirk looks around himself desperately, looking for a distraction, for anything -- there’s a large pan on the stove above him. He shuts his eyes for a moment, hoping for the best, and then with a nod to Todd, he jumps up and flings the pan in a wide arc, spraying the contents in front of them as they dash towards the door.

He’s a meter from it, a foot, and then there’s a black-gloved hand on his shoulder and breath on his neck, and he’s shouting and struggling and it’s not making the slightest bit of difference--

And then suddenly there’s another voice, Todd’s voice, and he’s slamming another pan into Dirk’s attacker’s face and the hands have loosened and he’s pushing Dirk through the door, letting him go first, and then throwing himself in after. And as Dirk takes a stumbling step backwards Todd slams the door shut and wedges a long stick through the handle.

The handle rattles. There’s a bang on the door, and another, and another. The stick holds.

“I’ll call Farah,” Todd pants, “she’ll bring Amanda and the Rowdy 3. Blackwing isn’t back to full strength yet, they won’t have reinforcements ready. It should be ok.”

Dirk shakes his head, trying to force out words that his aching body won’t manage.

“And now?” He manages.

“Now we wait,” Todd says.

Chapter Text

They’re in a meat freezer and the door’s been wedged with a strong-looking bone that Todd had seen on the counter. He doesn’t think that Dirk’s noticed yet. The man is shivering beside him, but his eyes are pressed firmly shut.

He makes the phone call and is relieved to hear that the rest of the gang aren’t too far away. Twenty minutes, Farah says.

He tries to make out some details in the dim light of the freezer - there’s a window at one end but it’s too tiny to crawl through and it’s painted over carelessly with streaks of dark brown paint. It’s more of a fridge really and Todd’s grateful that it isn’t colder because he can see Dirk shaking even in the low light. Exertion as well as cold, he reasons. Todd had had to bite back some pretty undignified noises when he’d seen the state of Dirk’s chest - scars both recent and much older. And he was thin, far too thin.

He shivers at the memory. He might not be much of the caring type, but Dirk’s just--Dirk. It’s not right that the universe keeps hurting him.

“Dirk?” He whispers into the darkness, relieved when Dirk spins immediately around. He takes a thin wrist gently and leads him to an empty spot at the back of the room, away from the packed meat that’s filling the cabinets that Dirk still hasn’t noticed. “C’mon, let's get you sat down,” he pulls Dirk carefully to the ground and then presses up beside him, their shoulders and knees the warmest things in there.

They’re silent for a while as he listens for any sounds from outside but there’s nothing.

“You came back for me,” Dirk says finally, when the heat along Todd’s leg is almost burning.

The words throw Todd off balance. “At Blackwing?” He asks.

“Just now.” Dirk frowns.

“Well yeah Dirk, they were trying to capture you again. That’s kind of directly the opposite of what I want.”

“What do you want?” Dirk asks curiously.

Todd freezes. It sounds like such an easy question when Dirk asks it, but even when Dirk had known who he was they’d been awkward around one another, unable to address whatever was happening between them. He’s not even been letting himself think about it since then. He’s tried his best to be clinical, detached. Get Dirk back. Get Dirk well again. Anything else would be—too much.

“I just want you to be ok Dirk,” he says with a sigh, “that’s all I want right now. For everyone to be ok and safe and back home.”

Dirk is silent for a while, shivering beside him.   

Outside is silent too and Todd briefly considers making a break for it. The Rowdy three aren’t too far away, but he can’t risk Dirk being captured again. On the other hand, Dirk’s shivering is getting stronger and he can’t just sit here.

“Todd?” Dirk asks, shaking him out of his worrying. “Are we--are we in a freezer?”

Todd shakes his head, snorting quietly. “Yeah Dirk.”

“It’s cold.” Dirk points out.

Todd shifts slightly, not letting himself think as he reaches out, going on instinct and blocking out everything else. He’s not taking advantage, Dirk’s cold and he needs to be warm. “Come here.”

He shuffles them around, pulling and tugging until Dirk’s pressed against his chest. It’s cliché, but he’s not really sure how else to warm him up and he’s only got movies for his point of reference. It’s either this or they start packing meat around themselves and he’s pretty sure that he’s not going to get that desperate in the 20 minutes it takes his sister to rescue them.

He ignores the twisting in his chest, the deep aching that started up sometime just after he met the man and has only gotten worse. Now’s not the time. Maybe they can discuss everything if—when Dirk gets his memories back. Maybe Todd will actually start the conversation that he’s wanted to have for the past few months. It’s just, he hadn’t known what he wanted.

No, that’s not true. He hadn’t known what Dirk wanted, and he hadn’t been brave enough to ask.

Dirk is warm against his front and gradually the shaking calms down to something that Todd finds acceptable. It’s not stopped completely, but at least Dirk is only faintly trembling rather than the harsh tremors of before.

His own body stays tense.  

“Is this my life?” Dirk asks suddenly, breaking the silence.

“Is what your life?”

“Being shot at, chased, trapped in places. Is this my life?”

“Sort of,” Todd admits, grateful for the distraction, “you have hunches and they don’t always help you. Well--they never help you really, but following them is usually the right thing to do.”

“I follow hunches even if they don’t help me?”

“It’s hard to explain Dirk,” he sighs, “they don’t help you, but if you don’t follow them then no one else does.”

“And that’s... bad?”

He smiles ruefully. “It’s bad for the people who need help, yeah.”

You’re a good person, he wants to say. You help people even though it hurts you. You do what you think is right and you always, always do your best. You push yourself to the very edge of what you can take, just so that someone else can have a happy ending.

Dirk nods, clearly thinking. “These hunches,” he says, “are they like instincts?”

“I’m not sure,” Todd’s arms are wrapped around Dirk and as he sits there the man’s hands come up and start fiddling with them, playing with the cuffs of his shirt. It makes a warmth curl in his stomach that’s quickly chased away by guilt. You’re not taking advantage, he tells himself, but it doesn’t help. “You usually just go places and things happen. You have a talent for falling into things,” he says.

“I don’t sound like a very good detective,” Dirk says doubtfully.

“You’re--tenacious,” he tries, “you keep going until you know what’s going on, and--sometimes you just know things. You have these hunches and you just know things that other people might not know.”

You help people and you don’t give up, you finish the case. Unlike Todd, who’s pervious existence had been centred around nothing but his own short comings and a selfish desire to protect his sister even when she didn’t want it.

You make me try to be a better person, he wants to say.

“You sort of sense things,” he says instead.  

“I’m psychic?” Dirk asks, and a sudden tension springs through him.

“No,” he says hurriedly, “you’re not a psychic, but you are--something.”

Dirk nods as his body relaxes again and Todd makes a note of another small victory. There’s something there, something that Dirk remembers, even if he doesn’t remember that he remembers it.

“Is that why the government was after me?” Dirk asks.

Todd nods again, “yeah, that’s why.” He’d been waiting for Dirk to ask, been wondering why he hadn’t, but then, if Todd had been tortured for months and couldn’t remember why then he might not want to know either.

“Dirk?” He says slowly, another thought suddenly coming to him in the quiet dark.

Dirk hums and he takes it as permission to go on.

“I know you might not want to think about what happened,” he hesitates, “but I think that maybe you need to if you want to remember who you are. You said before that you didn’t want to remember--I think maybe we need to find something that you do want to remember?”

Dirk’s sloughed against him, his back solid and strong and warm and Todd doesn’t want to move his arms, doesn’t think he’ll be able to let him up even when Amanda and the rescue team get here. He’s never had this before, this comfortable, easy closeness, but still, he’d give it all up to get back a Dirk that remembers.

If Dirk wants to remember.

Dirk is still for a moment, “I remember some things,” he says slowly, “but none of it makes any sense. I remember digging holes in a forest, and I remember a shark in a hotel room, but I know that’s nonsense, and I remember a car. We--we’ve--we slept in a car?”

There’s a catch in his voice that Todd can’t really understand, so he ignores it for now to focus on the positives, hope growing at the words. “We did,” he smiles faintly, “we dug so many holes, and we slept in the car that night. I can’t believe that’s what you remembered.” He leans his head against the wall. “The shark bit was a little of complicated, we should probably get to that later, when you remember a bit more.”

His chest is tight with a nervous sort of warmth and he doesn’t know what else to say. It’s up to Dirk to remember, it’s up to Dirk to want to remember and for once Todd isn’t willing to be selfish. Just this once he’s going to wait and hope.

They fall into silence again and it seems like only seconds go by before there’s a loud clanging sounds and some shouting, and then his phone is buzzing and Amanda’s sending them the all-clear. They leave in a hurry, rushing out of the building before Blackwing can send more people, not getting a chance to catch their breath until the cavalry has left again and they’re once more on the road.

It’s all rather anticlimactic, really.

*

Something’s niggling at Dirk--something to do with the way Todd had talked about their sleeping in the car. Or maybe it had been his lack of talking about it. It was significant in Dirk’s head, that much was clear. They’d been digging holes in the forest, and now that Todd’s talked about it he can feel how the memories fit together, he can remember them as part of a whole, but he’s sure that there’s more to it than that.

Still, Todd hadn’t reacted to the car memory, so maybe it’s only significant to Dirk?

There’s something else as well, somehow Dirk thinks that he’s starting to feel more--Dirky? More like Dirk, or more like he might imagine himself to be like.

He gets a strange feeling that they shouldn’t stay at the next motel, and when he says as much Todd nods with a faint smile and drives on to the next one. He’s getting flashes of his life too, small things from when he was a young. The Dirk from his childhood is permanently in a grey hoodie and spends a worrying amount of time alone in a small room with a narrow grey cot. It’s all grey, everything about the memory is grey, even the feelings--sadness and hollowness and just, grey.

His feelings about Todd are even more confusing--something’s telling him that he’s allowed to touch, that Todd wants him to be closer, and yet Dirk can’t work out what exactly--if anything--they used to share. It’s frustrating, and it’s baffling and it’s making his brain hurt.

Todd hadn’t hesitated to wrap him up when they were trapped in the freezer, but that was special circumstances wasn’t it? Dirk’s just not very good at this, and the more he remembers of himself the more he’s certain that he’s never been very good at this.

They reach the next motel before he really gets the chance to work it through in his head.

The room this time has only one bed, but it’s a big one. It’s also slightly cleaner than the last one. Maybe that’s a sign. But then, maybe it isn’t. Todd had said that he got hunches, but if that’s true then they’re being annoyingly absent right now.

They arrive in the dark and stumble gracelessly into their pyjamas--Todd once again helping Dirk to get his clothes over his head and it’s somehow even more intimate in the low orange light of the bedside lamp. But it helps somehow, it makes him feel brave.

“Todd--” He tries.

Todd tilts his head up patiently and the glow of the light makes his eyes look impossibly huge. Patient isn’t a word that fits very well in his head, he thinks that maybe Todd isn’t usually the patient sort, but he’s silent now.

“Do you--Do we--?” He shakes his head and tries an easier question. “How am I supposed to remember?”

Todd cocks his head to the side and then motions to the bed. “Sit.”

Dirk sits obediently, crossing his legs and Todd climbs up to mirror him, their knees almost touching.

“What do you remember?” Todd asks.

Dirk shrugs. “The car, the holes, the shark. I remember being a child, some of it.”

“Ok,” Todd nods encouragingly, “tell me more about when you were a kid.”

“I don’t-- I don’t think I had many friends?” Something cold and lonely clenches in Dirk’s chest. “Mostly I remember being alone, and I remember feeling frustrated a lot.”

“Do you remember where you were?”

Dirk shakes his head. “It wasn’t home--I don’t think.” There’s an empty box in the chaos of Dirk’s head that’s labelled ‘home’ but he’s not sure what--if anything--used to fit in there. “It was always dark and I remember being cold a lot. There was a man I think--a man with a moustache?”

Todd nods. “Blackwing,” he says simply.

Dirk’s heard that name before. The people who took me, the experi-governmental-lab, he realizes with a jolt. But how did they have him as a child? And how could he know Todd if he’s been there since he was a child? The memories of being constantly on edge, constantly alone in his grey, hopeless confinement start to rush at him all at once, filling in blanks--his parents had left him there, they’d just left him. He’d been promised answers, he’d been promised control. He’d gotten nothing. And then there was a man--Riggins, his name was Riggins, and he’d tried to help Dirk a little, tried to make things a bit better, but he was a liar too, they were all liars with their white coats and curious expression and--electricity.

“No!” Dirk pushes himself back, jumping painfully off the bed and dragging his hands down his arms. As if he could claw the feeling from himself. As if he could pull the echoes of pain right off his skin.

“Dirk, Dirk!” Todd’s in front of him, worried blue eyes looking up, clutching at his hands, stopping him from the frenetic motions.

“They electrocuted me,” he croaks, “there was electricity, they--”

“Dirk.” Todd’s voice is gentle and it helps, it pulls him back. Their hands are intertwined and Dirk takes a risk, pulling Todd a fraction closer.

“I don’t want to remember,” he says in a small voice.

“I know,” Todd says sadly, squeezing his hands. “But there are good things too, I promise.”

Dirk takes a moment, gathering himself together, taking a deep breath and trying to let go of the feeling of shocks on his skin. “I believe you. Just--not yet?”

“Not yet.” Todd agrees. “But you’re going to remember, and it’s going to be ok. I’m not going to leave you, Dirk.”

A wash of heat warms Dirk down to his fingertips and on some brave, desperate impulse he drags Todd into a hug. “Thank you.”

*

After that, touching gets more frequent and Dirk gets even more confused.

They spend their night in the single bed and Dirk uses the time that he is most definitely not sleeping to feel every twitch and movement that Todd makes. Judging by the tired look he gets in the morning, he isn’t the only one.

It’s just that, he doesn’t know where they stand anymore.

Todd had looked surprised after The Hug but he hadn’t pulled away, and he had risked himself to save Dirk back in the restaurant--

But that didn’t mean that there was something going on between them, it didn’t have to mean anything at all.

They spend the next day driving around and Todd takes him through a few sections of the woods and then back to the motel again. He seems confused about their route and finally admits to Dirk that they had a treasure map last time, and he isn’t sure of the exact spot he’s trying to get to.

Dirk himself stays quiet as they check out of their room and move on to a small house. This one has two beds and its own kitchen, but neither of them sleep again. Todd even gets up at one point and Dirk spends a breathless, shaky few minutes waiting to see if he’ll come over, but he just goes into the kitchen instead.

They’re getting worn down and the only concession is that Blackwing hasn’t found the yet. But then, how could they? Todd doesn’t even seem to know where they are. They pay with cash and they move around in circles all day as tiny shadows of Dirk’s memory come back and he resolutely pushes the painful memories away.

Only something’s changed, something's definitely changed.

It’s little things at first. The brush of a hand, leaning a little bit too close, knees knocking together. It winds Dirk up and settles him down all at the same time. His front is healing and he’s not sure if he’s happy or sad when Todd jokingly declares that he should be able to put on his own shirts from now on.

He’s fairly determined to just let things be though, to wait until his memory comes back and he knows for sure where they stand--

It’s just, he’s never been very good at sticking to plans. Least of all his own.

They’re grocery shopping when he makes his mistake.

It’s nothing really. They’re pushing the cart around, bickering fondly about who is going to cook. Dirk thinks he should because Todd rescued him so it’s only fair, but Todd doesn’t seem to have proper faith in his cooking skills.

And then Todd is leaning over him to grab a pack of pasta and something warm fires in Dirk’s chest and he just--leans in.

It’s like a bolt from the blue. There’s no words really. He should have asked, he should have waited. It wasn’t even that he wanted to kiss Todd, although he did, it was more like, he had to. Like the universe was yelling at him and he was more than happy to oblige. He wanted to kiss Todd. The universe needed him to kiss Todd.  

So, he did.

It’s perfect and warm for just a second, and then Todd is pulling back with wide and horrified eyes and something in Dirk shatters. “I’m sorry,” he splutters. “I’m sorry.”

“Dirk, I--”

“I’m sorry.”

And then he runs. Down the aisle and out of the store as the people part before him.

*

Stupid! Todd pushes desperately between bodies but there’s too many and every step he takes he’s in someone else’s way.

He’d let down his guard. Every little thing that Dirk had remembered, every tiny memory, he’d been hanging onto, convincing himself that Dirk was basically back to normal. Convincing himself that Dirk knew exactly what he was doing when he hugged him, that he was only missing a few little bits at this point.

But Dirk had kissed him. He’d kissed him.

And a Dirk that remembered would not have kissed him. Not out of nowhere.

So, it wasn’t really Dirk, was it? But then, he was Dirk. He is Dirk. Just because he’s forgotten things doesn’t make him any less Dirk, does it?

Todd’s head is spinning as he finally battles his way outside. Dirk had kissed him, and he’d pushed him away. The look of pain on Dirks face before he ran is something that Todd won’t ever forget.     

But what should he have done? Dirk’s never been affectionate, never been one to touch unprompted, or to know how to approach it if he wanted to. He’s all awkward pats and careful gestures. But he’d been remembering things, so many little things, and so when they’d started to get closer, to bridge the distance that Todd had always wanted to close, he’d just gone with it.

But then Dirk kissed him, and he suddenly saw it all in harsh, clear light.  

He’d taken advantage.

He never even stopped to think about what Dirk thought their relationship was. This Dirk, the Dirk who didn’t remember him. He might think they’re together.

Dirk might think they’re together.

The implications make his stomach roll. Dirk probably thinks they’re together. He probably thinks it’s his duty to hug him, to kiss him.

He probably thinks he has to.

Todd’s sitting in the parking lot with his head on his knees when the Rowdy 3 pull up.

*

Afternoon crawls into evening and Dirk doesn’t know how far he’s run or how far he’s going. All he knows is that his chest is aching and his throat is burning and his legs are shaking. He stops to look around himself in confusion. He’s in a forest, a big one by the looks of things, and now he’s lost as well as horrified.

He’d kissed Todd and he hadn’t even asked. He’d forced himself on him, and now everything is awful and he’s tired and injured and lost.

He trudges on, cursing his own stupidity; out loud at first and then silently as he starts to get exhausted by the sound of his own voice. Stupid government and stupid Dirk and stupid playing at being a detective. He kicks at the floor and then yelps as his foot catches and he goes down.

And down.

“Well that’s just perfect,” he mutters.

It’s starting to get dark now, and he’s fallen into a hole.

He’s fallen into a hole.

A familiar hole.

He drags himself to his feet, taking the last of his energy to haul himself out. He knows this place. All of it. Here’s where they found a piece of the machine.

The machine!

And there is where the car was parked, the car that they’d driven there in, the car that they’d slept in, that day in the forest.

There are memories there, and they hurt, every last one of them. The good all interwoven with the bad, the government and the pain and the death, the cases and losing people and finding friends and losing them again.

And Amanda.

And Farah.

And Todd.

A part of him wants to push the memories down again, to squash them away before they can take him over, but--he’d kissed Todd. He’d kissed Todd and then ran away, and if he ever needs to understand what’s going on then it’s now. He needs to remember for Todd—no, he needs to remember for himself.

Dirk lowers himself to the ground and lets the memories come, sharp and harsh and vibrant.

He sits there as tears stream down his face, and as he does, something small and dark slinks onto his knee.

*

The moon is out and Dirk’s cold and numb when someone sits down beside him.

They keep the silence for a while before he can’t take it anymore. “How did you find me?”

Todd stays where he is, his legs dangling over the side of the hole. “Farah slapped some sense into me and the Rowdy 3 found you again, when they said you were in the forest I knew where you’d be.”

“I didn’t come here on purpose,” Dirk says sulkily, embarrassment chasing hot up his neck. He’d kissed his asiss-friend. Like that was ok. Like he was allowed. He’d thought they were together. As if Todd could ever think of him that way. “I found the shark-kitten,” he says, holding up the fuzzy bundle that had wandered into his lap, giving something tangible to anchor to as the memories flooded him.

“How did it--” Todd shakes his head. “Never mind. Do you remember?”

“It’s a cat with a shark’s soul in it,” Dirk replies. “There was a time machine, Patrick Spring, a corgi. You like Farah, Lydia is gone, Amanda rides around with the Rowdy 3 and Blackwing captured me just after we’d decided to start a detective agency together.” He winces away from the memories of his capture. There had been electricity. A lot of it.

“You remember,” Todd says.

Dirk nods and the silence settles around them again, broken only by the quiet purring of the kitten.

“You kissed me,” Todd says simply.

Dirk nods.

“I need to apologise to you,” Todd says.

“You need to apologise?” Dirk blurts out incredulously.

Todd twists towards him, the moonlight shining on his frowning face. “I took advantage of you, and I’m sorry.”

Dirk shakes his head. “I don’t--understand.”

Todd sighs. “It’s just, you don’t usually touch people, not you, you. But you kept touching me because you didn’t remember that you don’t usually do that and I let you because I liked it. I liked that you wanted to hug me Dirk, so I took advantage and let you believe that that was the way we usually acted. I did that, and I’m sorry.”

The moonlight is bright and the cat in his lap is warm and soft and the air is cold as Dirk sits. Todd had let him think they were together on purpose? Or, sort of, subconsciously? Todd had liked hugging him.

He shakes his head, focusing on that part. “So, you--liked--hugging me?”

“Yeah Dirk,” Todd’s smile is tinged with guilt.

“And, you wanted to do--more of it?” He continues.

“Always.”

“So--you wanted us to--be together?” Dirk asks slowly, his stomach flipping.

“I--” Todd shifts again, taking a deep breath, and it suddenly occurs to Dirk that he’s not the only one having to be brave right now. “Yeah, Dirk. I-- That’s what I wanted.”

“And what if--I wanted that as well?” The shaky nervous feeling in his chest is almost unbearable and it’s like he’s on a precipice, like one move will send them both falling. But then, maybe that’s supposed to be the point? Both of them, leaves in the stream of creation?

“Then we can do that.”

We can do that.

Just like that. Just simple and easy and like that? Dirk doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to think and he doesn’t know where to be and he doesn’t know what to feel.

“But, slowly.” Todd’s voice comes out of the dark and it’s warm and careful and familiar. “There’s no rush, ok Dirk? It’s just us, just you and me.”

Dirk swallows, his chest tight with excitement and apprehension and far too much fear. “But what if it all goes wrong?”

“Then we’ll work it out.”

“And what if we can’t? I can’t lose you, and what about Farah, and Amanda? I don’t--”

“It’s ok, Dirk. However things work out, it’ll be ok.”

“Because the universe wants us together?” Dirk hazards.

Todd smiles. “No, because we’re family.”

“Oh.” Dirk frowns. He’s been in pieces these past few days. In tiny pieces with sharp edges and no pattern and no incentive to build himself back up. He’d known that he was missing something big, but maybe it was something that even with his memories he’d missed? Warmth fills him as the empty box in his head labelled family finally fills itself. 

The word rolls around in his head. Family. And something solid and definite and safe starts building. Something strong. Something to drag himself back with if he were to shatter again. “We’re family,” he says.

“Whatever happens,” Todd smiles, and he leans forwards until he’s just a breath away, a silent offer that Dirk suddenly understands that he can take, or not, but whatever happens, they’ll still be family.

“Hey Dirk?” Todd asks suddenly. “When you didn’t know who I was, why did you all me Prince?”

Dirk feels the blush right up to his ears.

He leans forwards with a rush, bumping their noses together in his hurry and making Todd hum with laughter. And this time when their lips slide against each other it’s comfortable and exciting, and Dirk can feel himself smiling as they press themselves together. Closer and closer, until their chests are a warm line and Dirk has forgotten about everything else in the world.

Until there’s a yelp from between them as the poor, squashed cat leaps up indignantly, and the soul of a shark in a kitten lights up the sky.