Work Text:
tentacleTherapist [TT]
began pestering
timaeusTestified [TT]
TT: Hello there, Dirk.
TT: 'Sup Rose. How's life treating you?
TT: It's treating me, to say the least. It's been a while since we've spoken.
TT: Life is normal, or at least normal as things get around here. Which is to say off the fucking rails, but then again I can't complain.
TT: True that.
TT: I'll be honest, I've been pretty much spending all of my time cooped up here in my workshop.
TT: So, yeah actually fucking normal for me, too.
TT: I would suggest you get some sun, but I don't fancy myself a hypocrite. Still, you're always free to visit, should leaving the shop strike your fancy.
TT: No, you're certainly not wrong, and I appreciate the sentiment.
TT: Dave comes in sometimes and proverbially smokes me out to go eat something, so it could be worse?
TT: I certainly don't mind my weird ectobiological family banging me over the head with self-care every once in a while.
TT: Ah, Dave. I always forget your unshakeable bro-bond; glad to hear he's keeping you in good health, to the best of his abilities. How is he, lately?
TT: You haven't been talking to him? Damn, I thought your equally unshakeable creepy twin bond would always have me beat.
TT: He's fine, or at least I hope he is. I haven't been able to tell otherwise, and he hasn't said so either, so I don't know I might be dead wrong.
TT: While the creepy twin bond is strong, we haven't been talking nearly as much these last couple years.
TT: Oh.
TT: Well, I probably don't have to tell you that Karkat is making him pretty damn happy.
TT: The guy is head over shitty cowboy boots for that angry little man, not that I can blame him. Neither of us could hope to win over whatever bond those two have.
TT: It's actually kind of...cute?
TT: He's been talking to me a little more, lately. It's nice, but it still gives me hardly any substantial insight as to what's going on with the guy.
TT: Maybe I should let you loose on him, shake some of his deep inner emotions out of him like you hit dust out of a broom.
TT: Turn 'im over to the resident family psychiatrist, just to see what happens.
TT: Hah. I figured something to that end, in terms of Karkat. They spent the better half of three years making goo-goo eyes at one another, the freaks.
TT: As for insight as to what's going on inside his head, I wish I could say I ever fully grasped Dave, or that he ever fully grasped me. Still, I wouldn't mind being let loose on him, so to speak. I enjoy talking to Dave, believe it or not.
TT: Ha. Believing that isn't exactly a massive stretch.
TT: So, what's the deal then? What happened to your regular sibling tea parties, or whatever you got up to on your family outings.
TT: Nothing in particular. I'm simply, to paraphrase the man himself, a busy ass guy. For a while it felt very static, as if there was nothing for us to do here, but now that the broods are running I'm busier than ever- which is good, mind you. I can't stand not having a goal of some importance to work at.
TT: Makes sense to me.
TT: I guess I just miss having more free time? I miss Dave, Roxy and yes, you too, Dirk. Hanging out with you was fun. And that's not even considering my other friends.
TT: Despite being immortal, it still feels like we don't have time for anything anymore.
TT: Well that just means you're doing something right. I mean, not to be a huge fucking cynic.
TT: But your work, what you're doing? It's important, Rose.
TT: What you were doing, I guess. And what you're continuing to maintain and manage. I can't say the same for most of us, at the moment. Everyone is pursuing personal ventures, getting jobs and stuff, but they aren't the same.
TT: I'm trying to say you can't really beat the whole baby thing.
TT: Jesus Christ, I'm dismissing your problems, what the fuck.
TT: Take some free time, okay? Nothing's gonna fall flat on its ass in your absence.
TT: Dirk, calm your tits. You're doing fine.
TT: Thanks. The boys are calm as ever, completely sublime as we await your response.
TT: I'll take a break soon enough, Dirk and friends. But, I do enjoy the baby work- having purpose is good. I sense that's something you might lack, at the moment?
TT: Damn, you got my ass good.
TT: Yeah, well, robot work.
TT: Not that I should call it work, I guess. It's great fun for me.
TT: Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to come off as insulting. It was more so an observation.
TT: Robot work, then?
TT: What robot work are you doing, exactly?
TT: You're good.
TT: Well, not to sound shamelessly aimless, but I've got a mutant Furby competition going on with Jade right now.
TT: Oh, that's truly wonderful.
TT: Yep.
TT: Furbies. That's what my time goes into these days.
TT: And freak rombaas and whatever the fuck other disasterous ideas I'm plagued with on a daily basis.
TT: But mostly monster Furbies, when it comes down to it.
TT: Plagued. You say that as if you aren't a genius.
TT: No, I say that like it's a damn curse.
TT: You said you enjoy robotics, yet you think your prodigious level skills are a curse? The tendency to create new life aside, your skill is admirable.
TT: Thanks, Lalonde, but you're missing the point here. I didn't come out of the womb with a wrench in hand, I just learned how to do this shit over the span of sixteen years that I spent having free time.
TT: True.
TT: And even then, my experience somehow still isn't enough to satisfy whatever the fuck is going on inside my head. This is probably the closest I'll ever come to admitting the hilarious incongruence between pretty much every facet of myself, period. What goes on in my mind and the result of my hands are different beasts entirely.
TT: I'll shut up now. Sorry, I probably sound like a massive bitch here.
TT: No, don't apologise. I needed to be bitched out.
TT: I wasn't trying to bitch you out, Rose.
TT: It would have been fair, if you were, then.
TT: The resulting abilities that years worth of trauma gave you can't always be considered something of pride. I'd be a hypocrite to say otherwise.
TT: Trauma?
TT: Dirk.
TT: You spent your entire childhood completely alone.
TT: That's a deeply traumatic experience.
TT: It's not like I was in any danger, though.
TT: I wasn't starving; daddy packed me plenty of food to last until the game. I also had a sick pony and, though it goes without saying, Cal.
TT: Neither of whom were people.
TT: But it's not like I didn't have people at all. My friends were sure as hell around, it's pretty much impossible to disregard them.
TT: Sure it's not the same as a "proper" social life, but I don't know where my ass would have ended up without them. Actually, I had such a social life that for a while not getting overwhelmed was a huge balancing act.
TT: The problems with that argument aside, what about your formative years? What, did your friends raise you too? Did they teach you to read and write and help you gain emotional stability?
TT: I think the fuck not.
TT: My mother didn't hit me. I had friends. But I was also neglected and abused by her, and that was still traumatizing.
TT: I highly doubt someone could walk away from a childhood like yours completely unscathed.
TT: Hm.
TT: You're failing to account for the fact that I adapted. I was born that way, so there was no higher standard to move down from. No parent to be negligent at all.
TT: ...
TT: I'm talking myself into a corner here, huh?
TT: Slightly, yes.
TT: You're also getting more verbose, which is a self-defense mechanism that doesn't work on me because I invented it.
TT: I can't believe Dave hasn't hounded you to see a therapist.
TT: ... He has.
TT: Oh my Lord.
TT: I mean, to varying degrees of sincerity.
TT: Sometimes it's literally fucking impossible to tell, even for me.
TT: I tend to assume everything either of you say ironically has at least some degree of sincerity. The sarcasm and sincerity tend to scale in accordance with one another.
TT: Either way, he was right.
TT: Well, sure. He has told me to get a shrink both after I criticized his rhymes, and after a certain incident we have mutually elected to leave behind us.
TT: I don't inquire further, out of respect for the power of democracy.
TT: Thank you. I only mean to imply it was kind of a whole ass thing. An ordeal to end all ordeals.
TT: We pulled out all the emotional stops for that bad boy. I'm talking tears, vulnerability, the whole works. We put every angsty kicked dog movie to shame with the sheer pathos of that scene.
TT: Which is to say it was serious shit.
TT: When is it ever not serious shit with this family?
TT: More often than you might think. Roxy is actually the antithesis of serious shit, most of the time, and Dave really only busts out the emotional support when desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm still peeling Sanrio stickers off the depths of my toolbox.
TT: Roxy is certainly one of our more cheerful family members, that's for sure.
TT: Would you even consider seeing someone, you know, professionally trained in the field of mental health?
TT: Back on track. Gotcha.
TT: Well, hold tight, because I'm about to blow your socks off:
TT: I would have no clue how the shit I'd even begin with that.
TT: Like, seeing a therapist or whatever. I have genuinely not a single idea how it would even work. How do you find psychiatrists? Do I need a ritual? Some black candles and a Sigil of Baphomet?
TT: Sorry, I know this is hard to believe.
TT: Well guess what?
TT: I believe it.
TT: In honor of the boy himself, I'll chalk one up on laugh-o-meter.
TT: I could help you, you know?...
TT: Find a therapist, that is. I know a bit more about the process than you might think, considering I intended to be one once upon a time.
TT: Hm.
TT: Well, I'll have to get back to you on that.
TT: That's fine.
TT: Just. Please consider it, Dirk. This may come as a great shock, but I worry for you sometimes.
TT: Well, it's not completely unprecedented, seeing you started this conversation and proceeded to tell me to get a therapist.
TT: But, uh.
TT: To shock you right back, I give a fuck. That you give a fuck. Like, a lot actually.
TT: Wait yeah okay this is weird. Obviously I give a fuck. What is family but a miserable pile of fucks to give?
TT: My heart swells with pride.
TT: Thank you for giving a fuck.
TT: But, I suppose I've bothered you enough.
TT: Oh. Right.
TT: Busy woman. I'll let you get back to building the worlds' next generations and whatnot.
TT: Well, who am I to get in the way of the world's most monstrous Furby?
TT: Goodbye, Dirk.
TT: Wait, hold up.
TT: Holding up.
TT: You're gonna take some free time, right?
TT: We're doing that cheesy family reunion shit, I've decided. We're making this happen.
TT: Just tell me when, I guess.
TT: Well. I'm free for most of the day tomorrow, because of a routine maintenance check. Sometime after noon, probably?
TT: Fuck yeah.
TT: I'll tell Dave to get his shit together and get ahold of you then.
TT: Oh.
TT: If you wanna go, that is.
TT: There's no guarantee that will work, but I doubt he'll decline to show.
TT: And of course I do.
TT: I'll get in touch with Roxy, then.
TT: Cool. I'm pretty hyped, actually.
TT: Catch you then?
TT: Catch you then, coolkid.
TT: 'Course, goth chick.
timaeusTestified [TT]
ceased pestering
tentacleTherapist [TT]