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If he were going to write a diary, or a blog, or some kind of autobiography, he thinks he could start it pretty poignantly. He’d sell himself as some kind of spiritual guru, zen as fuck and absolutely in control of his emotions. He’d never write about those stupid moments where he loses his shit; he could twist the truth around so that even his bad decisions looked like they were perfectly logical. He could make himself out to be the kind of steady, stable tactician he’s always like to imagine himself to be, the guy he tricked his best friends into believing for so long.
The truth is that he’s just a stupid kid who falls apart at the slightest provocation. The more people that discover who he is behind the persona, the more out of control his life feels.
He’s not worn out so much as he’s wrung out, and it’s a bit of a revelation to realize that saying something’s been ‘rode hard and hung up wet’ can account for emotional exhaustion as much as it counts for a hard day’s work. He’s been awake for what seems like hours, now, but he’s only moved enough to go from the futon to his own room.
The apartment’s been silent, so Hal and Dave probably went back into the mall after he fell asleep. He’s going to have to figure out how to apologize to Dave for being such a drag, but he doesn’t know how and his thoughts keep taking a wide detour around the subject everytime he starts to think about it.
Like it hadn’t been enough of an embarrassment to experience that in front of Hal, but in front of Dave? The Dave, his Bro? If he’d never want to throw himself into the ocean before, he certainly did now. There’s no way to be even retroactively chill about that whole scene, from Mall to vehicle to shitty apartment.
He’d prefer to go back to sleep if his own mind would cut the whirling, cryptic recriminations for five goddamn minutes. Since he can’t sleep, he should probably do something productive instead. There’s plenty of things he can occupy his mind with - he’s still trying to see about recovering Squarewave and Sawtooth’s program files and rebuilding them, since they don’t seem to have made it to this universe even though Hal did. He’s seen no sign of Seb, either, so he’s got three projects right there he can dig his hands into.
He makes himself sit up, glances towards the desk that he suspects will house his future projects and computers, and then just curls his arm around his knee with a sigh and drops his head. It’s readily apparent that he’s going to achieve nothing today that isn’t significantly lowering people’s opinions of him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting, by the time he hears the entire cavalcade of Striders as they return. Pyrope’s the easiest to hear because of how high her voice is, but the others are definitely present in what seems like laidback conversation - that’s worse, somehow, than if they’d been talking about his screw-up. He doesn’t know why. He’s weirdly offended that they aren’t talking about it, even though it’s the last thing he wants them to talk about.
Any offense is very quick to drop, though, when the door opens and his Bro slips inside, closing the door again behind him.
“Yo,” Dave greets, “feeling better?” Dirk limits himself to derisively snorting, despite the fact that what he wants to do is laugh and throw Dave out and punch someone or punch himself or break something. He would have figured that the fact that he was no longer laid out on the futon like a languishing damsel would have hinted at the fact that he doesn’t want to have this conversation.
Their adult counterparts aren’t very perceptive, sometimes. Dirk says nothing and doesn’t bother to look up again.
“Come on, dude, you’ve gotta talk to me here,” No, he doesn’t, actually, and the implication makes him so suddenly, stupidly angry that he bites off another snort with a scowl, turns his head completely away from Dave and towards the wall, and talks.
“You’re asking me if I feel better after flipping my shit in front of not only the entire Strider clan plus two, but an entire food court of strangers? It’s bad enough that Hal’s a constant reminder of what a complete fuck-up I am, I hadn’t needed to broadcast proof of it to so many people. You know what, let’s really up the ante here and take it to national TV. Maybe I’ll be a global hit, finally good for something.” He tugs at his hair, and then stops because that’s a tell and he’s usually so much better at hiding those.
“I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing. I can’t even keep a hold of my own emotions, who the hell am I even trying to fool anymore?”
“Hey, slow down there, Tinman,” He hears Dave shift, a bit, followed by a silence that sounds too heavy to be natural - Dave has shit to say and for once doesn’t know how to say it, and Dirk finds it so unbearable that he decides to do what he does best and that’s focus on stupid, unimportant details.
“It’s the Tin Woodman,” he says. He turns his face back just a little, just enough to kind of watch Dave from the corner of his eye, and he does it in time to see the older man’s face twist in confusion. He takes pity on him, because it at least keeps them from talking about the elephant in the room, “Assuming you were referencing the character from the Oz series, his title is the Tin Woodman.”
Logically speaking, he knows it’s not likely that Dave was referencing the books rather than the movie, but Dirk doesn’t really care. He’d had Jane send him .pdfs of the books after Roxy had made them stream the movie, and he knows which he prefers.
“Never read the books,” Dave says, slowly, taking the distraction hook-line-and-sinker, “He got a name to with that fine-ass title?” He sounds condescending when he says it like that, but Dirk has other shit to worry about than whether his Guardian thinks he’s a literal five-year-old.
“Nick Chopper. I used to think I empathized with him,” He makes a face as he says it, not sure if he should be ashamed to admit that or not, but Dave’s watching him with interest and not saying anything, so Dirk forges on. “I’m not really sure who I’d empathize with, anymore.”
They go silent, after that, and it’s still not comfortable. Dave’s still hovering, and Dirk’s still not looking directly at him. Dirk picks at his cuticles, and chooses to stay silent this time - maybe if the silences gets too impenetrable, Dave will just leave. Observation tells him that all Daves are awkward, and likely to avoid serious conversations. Today seems to be the exception for that rule, though, and Dirk wishes he could be surprised that Dave decides to break the silence instead of letting it fester.
“What bothers you so much about it?” Dirk could play coy, here. He could pretend that Dave’s talking about the Oz series, about the Tin Woodman’s title, but they both know that he knows what subject his guardian is really breaching here. He’s admittedly a little frustrated that Dave’s choosing to ask a question with such an obvious answer. His fingers curl and clench into the leg of his jeans, and he doesn’t sneer at the man because he still idolizes him a little, but he wants to.
“What’s there to like about it? It’s not a pleasant day trip down Rainbows and Unicorns Lane, Dave. It’d be different if I had uncontrollable giggle fits, but sudden onset paranoia and adrenaline fuck-ups aren’t exactly my ideal way to spend my time. Shitty panic attacks making a scene whenever they goddamn feel like it, with no regards to the fact that there are other people around? You’re right, those seem like completely illogical things to hate. What fucking use am I when I can’t even control my shitty reactions?”
“You know that stoicism shit ain’t for real, right?” Dave’s response is surprisingly abrupt, and Dirk turns to stare at the floor at the man’s feet, “You do what you gotta do to play the other guy, but us Strider’s got your back, dude. It’s not like any of us have got enough of a leg up to stand on.”
Dirk finally let’s his frustration out in a brief noise, because either Dave’s being purposefully dimwitted, or he doesn’t actually understand. It’s not okay to show yourself in front of other Striders - that’s when you have to be strongest, because other Striders are so damn insecure they’ll use anything as ammo against other people. He can’t show it around his friends, because he has to be the strong guy, the guy who knows what to do. And strangers? That’s dangerous as anything can be, because knowing the intentions of people you don’t know is fucking impossible.
Having a panic attack in public is the biggest personal disappointment that Dirk can ever experience, and it’s happened twice now. Why isn’t Dave getting that?
“I’m not trying to be fucking impassive. I’m not having some kind of masculinity crisis over my emotions. That’s not what this is.”
“Alright,” Dave drawls, and Dirk’s back to wondering if Dave’s condescending to him. “Then what is the problem?” There’s another pause as Dirk frowns at his feet, but Dave stays quiet, so...Dirk tries to put it into words.
“Do you know what it’s like to try and catch your breath only to realize you can’t? To move and realize that you want to gag because there’s this endless drop in your stomach that you can’t shake, and it’s just making you nauseous for no reason? Suddenly everything I’m so good at not thinking about comes knocking all at once, and the door opens without my consent. I can’t even help myself. I just have to sit there in my own head flipping out about whatever inconsequential thing I’ve decided to flip out about, marinating in my own shame because my childhood idol and my all-grown-up-thirteen-year-old brain have to drag me out of the goddamn mall. Am I supposed to like that? I don’t- ...I don’t want to be the person everyone else has to take care of.”
And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it? That’s the whole fucking issue, right fucking there. Dirk Strider, ladies and gentleman, the man who can’t be vulnerable enough to accept help from someone else, not even the people he trusts the goddamn most. What a pathetic mess of a person. What a hilarious parody of a human being.
“Not like there’s anything wrong with that.” Dave says, and Dirk finally breaks his vow of steadfastly not looking at the other man just to make sure he really understands what kind of bullshit Dirk thinks he just spouted. It’s a metric fuckton of bullshit, because there is everything wrong with that.
Dave pushes onward, apparently immune to his disgruntled disdain.
“I get where you’re coming from - nobody wants to be the weak link in a chain, or the person holding everyone back. But kid, you’re not the last person on Earth anymore. You’ve got friends - you’ve got me. I’m not saying you should just lay down and let everyone take care of you, but I’m not saying it’s bad, either, if sometimes you need them to. No one’s gonna blame you if you decide to take a kitkat break and take that load off your shoulders for a day.”
It’s probably good advice, but Dirk stops listening to it the minute Dave mentions his friends. The gut-clenching horror of them knowing anything about this, the idea of them seeing him fuck up any more than he already did during the game - no. Just no. The last people he wants to know anything about this are his friends. It’s done, it’s over, goodbye.
“Yeah, let’s not ever mention this to my friends. Look, Roxy is going to get this out of me somehow anyway, but Jane and Jake...they don’t need to know. They just don’t. So do me a solid and don’t tell anyone.”
Dave sighs, and Dirk can actually hear the moment Dave resigns himself from this conversation. Something in Dirk’s ribcage twinges painfully at the sound, at the expression he’s almost sure is on Dave’s face, but he’s so used to being disappointed in himself. What the hell does it matter if someone else joins in on the fun?
“Dirk, even if I knew what ‘this’ was, I don’t exactly know how to get in contact with your friends.”
The silence that follows goes unresolved this time. Dave finally clears his throat and mutters something about leftovers in the fridge if he gets hungry, and Dirk lets him escape the situation without a word. He glances across the room to the desk again, before he lays back down and tugs the blanket over. By the time that the younger Dave comes in and gets to sleep, Dirk’s still hasn’t moved - he hasn’t slept, either. It takes a long time before he does.