Chapter Text
Dirk
This particular Thursday should have been like no other, just another day passing by, an uneventful breeze really, gently wafting through the open windows and letting Dirk and Todd have a nice, relaxing, uneventful lazy-day in the office.
Dirk had locked the door and duct-taped a small whiteboard with ‘Incredibly urgent matters being dealt with, please come back later unless you have food, beverages or something equally as pleasant.’ messily scrawled on it with a blue marker, and was planning to spend the day letting Todd show him the various films he always enthused about, eating takeaway pizza and swaddled in blankets on the lumpy brown leather sofa that was usually reserved for clients - and sometimes a dozing Dirk, probably claiming that he deserved a break at least every two hours to ‘connect things’ in his sleep.
That morning, Dirk had woken up at 8am (early for him) with his head swimming, almost as if a cloud had filled his brain overnight and was settling itself in there, precipitation leaking into his thoughts and wobbling them about like ripples in a puddle. At first he wasn't fussed, he had, over time, accepted the fact that he had to let the universe do its thing, and that he was simply a leaf in the stream of creation left to follow in its wake.
But today was different, he didn’t feel like he was having one of his usual ‘hunches’. There was a feeling; deep in his stomach, that sent chills down him, made his breathing heavy, and filled his body and mind with a sensation that you could call dread, but it was much more than that. It felt like what Dirk would imagine how it felt when Pandora was about to open her box. It was building up to something, something Dirk was unsure of, and frankly, just a little bit afraid of.
He decided to call it his ‘Dread With A Purpose’, and thought that it would be best to simply try to get about his day ignoring it. Though he was sure that that was something he probably wasn’t going to be able to do, and in his mind, past all the confused thoughts that he very loudly remarked to Todd about the films they were watching (such as ‘But why do the toys talk?’), Dirk knew that there was something very, very wrong.
As he and Todd settled down to watch another film, Dirk felt the familiar, yet this time unsettling, pull of the universe.
Taking in a deep breath, he slowly stood up from the sofa.
“Todd?” He said airily, his words leaving his mouth without a thought.
Todd looked up from the bowl he was pouring a bag of popcorn into. “Yeah?”
“I um, I need to go to the shop? I just remembered I need some more... Tea…”
Todd fixed him with an untrusting look. “Dirk, we have a cupboard full of it, you literally went out to buy more yesterday.” Dirk bit his lip and Todd narrowed his eyes, cocking his head a little, like a confused dog.
“Is this like... another hunch or something?”
Dirk shook his head (maybe a little too quickly), and smiled brightly at him, hoping that it just quite reached his eyes. “Of course not! I just thought that we may need more, you can... never have too much?” He bit his lip as he phrased his last sentence as more of a question than a statement, but he corrected himself, keeping up his shit-eating grin and hoping that he looked as sincere as possible until Todd finally gave in.
Todd groaned, running his hand through his hair. “Ugh, alright, but try and be fast, okay? I personally think that Toy Story 2 is a lot better than the first.” He said, smirking.
“I promise I’ll be faster than... Buzz Mcking.”
Todd sighed, “Buzz Mc-? Ugh.” he said, a look of defeat washing over him.
“Alright, bye Todd!” Dirk said, turning around to open the door.
“Dirk, wait,” Todd called, and Dirk turned around to see Todd suddenly serious. “Look, try and be careful yeah? Farah’s at some convention and the last thing either of us want right now is a… Well, a repeat of the thing at the diner.”
Dirk nodded and swallowed nervously, remembering Mr Friedkin’s smug face, and trying not to remember everything that had happened afterwards. He had had a very narrow escape then, and he knew to try and not put himself in any sort of spotlight for the time being, though something in the back of his mind had told him that Blackwing was laying low for a while.
Even so, he made a quick mental note to keep his wits about him once he left.
The feeling that he’d had before he left the diner that day was definitely a lot more different than his current one,but after everything that had happened, he knew it wasn’t a bad thing to doubt his hunches, being aware that ninety-nine percent of the time they didn’t lead to anything pleasant.
“I’ll be careful, you don’t need to worry.” He said softly, nodding once more to reassure Todd, who still looked unsure, and left the office, closing the door behind him and standing against it for a couple of seconds, taking in a deep breath to compose his nerves.
He felt absolutely terrible, the twisting feeling in his gut was even stronger now. He didn’t want to comply, but he was helpless as he felt a familiar pull, the invisible force dragging him away from the door, away from his safe place.
When the universe sent him on a trail, he couldn’t turn back. His hunches made him much like a child being lured into a forest by a trail of sweets on the ground, with a light feeling of optimism and hope in his stomach, and a slight lingering sense that as he got deeper into the forest the trail of sweets may lead to something possibly bad. But he would always ignore it anyway and carry on, eventually ending up at a gingerbread house (Usually some death or destruction) and being eaten by a witch (Cause of said death or destruction).
Brilliant.
He didn’t feel like this was his one of his usual intuitions though, this feeling was colder, darker. It was different, almost like it had an alternative flow to it. He was on a path to somewhere, he knew that, but this time it was like the path he was on led to an ending and not a corner.
He wasn’t used to this.
He walked down the corridor to the stairs as if in a daze, staring straight ahead of him and listening to nothing but his heavy footfalls as they echoed around him. He took in a deep breath as he got to the top step, sighing heavily. He tried one more time to just turn back, get to the office again and give Todd a white lie about realising that he had enough tea, but the pull of the universe was just too strong, and his stomach lurched.
He had to give in.
He walked, rather reluctantly, down the stairs, his hand limply gripping the handrail all the way down. His mind felt practically empty, and it felt like forever until he was out of the door of the main lobby and on the street, squinting at the sunlight after being stuck inside all day.
As his mind gathered itself together again, Dirk realised that there was something very unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Great, he’d stepped in gum. He sighed and cursed out loud, immediately apologising profusely to an annoyed looking mum walking with her child. He groaned and started looking around for a stick to peel the gum off with, when he noticed an innocent looking pink piggy bank sitting on a low wall.
He chuckled to himself, scraping his shoe on the pavement to get the gum off of it. ‘Very funny Universe,’ he thought, and was about to walk away from it, when the familiar pangs in his stomach came flooding back. This didn’t look like anything of much importance at all, and yet, something was telling Dirk to pick it up.
“Nuts.” He whispered to himself.
As he picked it up, gently shaking it to see if anything was inside - there wasn’t, Dirk began to wonder about all of the mixed signals he was getting. This was a piggy bank, just a simple piggy bank, but the feelings he was having were alluding to something else, something darker.
He tried to hypothesise what on earth the piggy bank could be for. Maybe a child had lost it, and the universe was sending him on his way to return it to them? That sounded rational, didn’t it? The deep dread chilling his bones and mushing up his insides suggested otherwise, but Dirk felt a comfort of sorts with his own optimism.
He walked to the corner of the street with the piggy bank tucked under his arm. Standing with the front ends of his feet just perched over the kerb he looked around, searching for something to follow, something just slightly out of the ordinary that might cause the universe to drag him in what he hoped was the right direction. His vision latched onto a shady looking man, a hood hiding most of his face, lurking outside of an alley. That was who the universe wanted him to go after.
He gulped and started walking again, but a strange sensation began to fall over him, and he found it hard to focus on anything other than figure in front of him. He strode straight across the road, with no regard for the sounds of the fast-breaking cars, nor the yelled curse words that followed them.
Now, there was nothing that could distract him from his prey. He was a sniper, locked onto its target and ready to strike. Dangerous thoughts were beginning to seep into his mind, things beginning to muddle up inside of his brain; intelligible whispers, little malicious hisses mixing into his thoughts, ripping apart all forms of reason and ethical ideology, all jumbling themselves up like the colourful scrambled alphabet letters on a fridge.
The man looked around him, his paranoia obvious, and slipped into the dark alley just as Dirk reached it.
As as his shaking hands gripped the piggy bank tighter, he stood at the entrance of it, his breaths becoming longer, slower.
And as he breathed, the mess of thoughts parted in his mind, suddenly all making sense now, finally helping everything come together and connect. He knew what the universe wanted him to do. As far as he was concerned, the identity of ‘Dirk Gently’ and all of its morales was currently locked in the back of his conscience, and he was now the universe’s hitman, a being that existed to do something that the essence of poor, confused Dirk Gently, little Svlad Cjelli, would beg and plead against given the chance.
He was a rapidly buzzing mind in a meaningless shell with one aim set by the universe.
To kill.
He was down that alley faster than he could think - that is if he was thinking at all. He speed walked towards the man, who by now was standing against the graffiti covered wall, eyes closed, with a spliff in one hand and the other fiddling mindlessly with the toggles of his hoodie. His greasy hair hung nearly over his sunken eyes, and his face was thin, unnaturally so, from what looked like many years of drug use. He took a long drag from the spliff and sniffed in satisfaction after he slowly blew the smoke from his mouth.
Through the mind of Dirk Gently, he would have looked like any other person, if not a little shifty, but at that moment his mind wasn’t Dirk’s, and he certainly wasn't in a state to worry about his own safety. In fact, he wasn’t really in any state at all, his head was blank, apart from the thumping migraine of the awareness that this man didn’t belong here, in the world, in the universe.
The man opened his eyes groggily, blinking as if to adjust his vision as he was approached. He was sneering slightly but still seemed wary, no doubt confused as he looked the lanky man in the yellow jacket in front of him up and down.
His bloodshot eyes widened and as he stared at Dirk’s face he began to look more and more uncomfortable. Dirk knew of the rabid look in his eyes, of his windswept hair probably forming some sort of an alarming quiff. He definitely didn't look sane. He stood in silence, staring the man dead in the eyes and smirking at his uneasiness, before taking a step towards him.
He knew what he had to do.
The man spoke up nervously, clearing his throat first but still speaking in a gruff voice. Dirk’s eyes locked onto his shaking right hand, reaching instinctively into his back pocket for something that Dirk knew wasn’t going to give him any favours.
“H-Hey man I don’t know who’s told you bout me, but I’m not dealin’ right no-”
His sentence was cut off as Dirk lunged towards him with a vicious snarl and brought the piggy bank down onto his head, smashing it into sharp-edged pieces that shattered on the floor around them. The man groaned in pain and tried to fight back, aiming weak punches at Dirk before pulling a small pistol out of his pocket and desperately waving it in front of him, pulling the trigger repeatedly to try and shoot him with it. But somehow, it seemed to be jammed, and the dismay on his face was obvious.
Dirk grinned at him and simply batted it away, and the man stared helplessly as the gun was knocked to the ground with a clatter.
The man was shorter than him, so Dirk had no problem getting him down on the floor, despite usually being a weak man himself. They wrestled with each other before Dirk got the upper hand and ended up practically lying on top of him, punching him wherever he could, whilst trying to get the smaller man to stop scratching him with his sharp, untrimmed nails. He grabbed one of his hands and twisted it hard, feeling the bones shift under his grip. The other was left free.
His victim saw a chance and scrabbled around in despair with his uninjured hand for one of the pieces of the piggy bank, but alas, he was just out of reach. Noticing his attempts, Dirk picked up one of the pink shards and repeatedly stabbed him in the arm until it looked like a bloody pulp.
The man started screaming for help but was swiftly stabbed in the throat, his pleas being replaced by frothy pink blood beginning to bubble out of his mouth.
His teary, hollow eyes stared up at Dirk as he started to bleed out, his blood turning the cheery yellow of the detective’s jacket a deep red, and for a second, Dirk felt a note of what could be called sympathy, but looking into his eyes it was soon replaced by a deeper determination to end his life. Though they were pained and desperate, there was a strange emptiness in them that somehow prohibited any further feeling towards the individual.
With what felt like a push from the universe, Dirk continued to wildly slash the man’s body wherever he could, until a last, hoarse breath of air left his bloodied mouth and his body went limp, his head slowly falling back onto the ground.
Dirk got off of him and sat cross legged next to the body.
‘So much for the child with the lost piggy bank.’ He thought, fingering the edge of the bloody shard before closing the man's expressionless eyes, wiping the blood on his eyelids.
Dirk stood up, realising that he was now out of breath and panting, trying to get some fresh air into his lungs.
He stared with satisfaction at the scene laid out in front of him. His mind was still an empty vessel, but he was feeling a slight note of what could be... Euphoria?
He smiled widely, letting out a deep breath, his arms falling loosely to his sides.
The man was dead.
Oh.
Suddenly his thoughts came back to him with a force that felt like a whack on the back of his shull. He let out an unnatural shriek and dropped the shard before staggering backwards, clutching his hands to his head. His migraine was intense, even more intense than what he had felt after being shocked at Blackwing all those years ago. Tears pricked his eyes and he at first tried to blink them away, but let them blur his vision so as to mask the body in front of him.
The body of the man that he, Dirk Gently, had murdered.
The tears began to fall, but he couldn’t feel them on his face. He was numb all over. Throughout his life, Dirk had certainly witnessed a lot of deaths. They seemed to follow him around wherever he went. For him, death was inescapable. But he had never caused a death, not even accidentally. Being in the right place at the wrong time was practically his thing, but he had never gone out of his way to kill somebody before.
Panicked thoughts came flooding into his mind, and Dirk didn't try and stop them as he slowly sank down against the wall to the floor.
What would become of him? Would the police catch him? What would Todd say?
“Oh, Todd.” He cried out, and he let out a strained whimper at the very thought of his friend knowing what he’d done. His friend who thought that he, Dirk, could do no harm to anyone, who didn’t understand the capabilities of the universe and probably still thought that Dirk was out getting bloody tea.
Poor, clueless, normal Todd who didn’t know that his best friend was a murderer.
Vomit began to rise up in his throat and he retched, going to cover his mouth with his hands but stopping when he saw that they were stained red with blood. He stared at them with horror as everything in his mind began to connect in ways he couldn’t comprehend and he started to hyperventilate. Using the wall as a support, he stood up shakily, and tried to steady his erratic breathing. He couldn’t think straight, everything was a mess, but he was aware of one thing. He had to get out of there.
Still trying to lean against the bloodied bricks, he started to stagger away from the scene before one last instruction from the universe crossed his mind. Without really thinking he grabbed the shard of the piggy bank - and the pistol of the dead man, and with trembling hands shoved them into the pocket of his now blood-spattered jacket. He shook his head as a last attempt to try and stop anymore of his wretched thoughts from surfacing before he let out a loud, shaken sob, and ran out of the alley before he could let his mind fully fathom what had just happened.