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For all that he's a master ninja—you'd know, you've observed his sweet moves in person now—Dirk isn't actually very quiet. You hear him ages before you he comes into view, the quiet scuffling scrape of his sneakers against the rough pavement that weaves between your land's towering structures. You don't say anything, though, out of courtesy to his ego. When he shows up you even have the decency to give a squeak of surprise and topple backwards off the low stone wall you've been sitting on.
Dirk immediately lunges forward, offering a hand to help you right yourself. “Sorry,” he says. His hand is much larger than yours, and very warm. “I, um. I didn't mean to startle you.”
Sand bubbles up between your fingers as you push yourself off the desert floor. “Well, well, well!” you say, beaming up at him. You tug your hand away from his to brush at your skirt, and he moves back to give you space. “If this isn't a surprise! I thought you'd be too busy with Jakey to come see me.”
“I'm never too busy for you,” Dirk says. His tone is flat, like always, but there's a quirk of movement at the corner of his mouth that might be a frown.
“Aww, Dirk!” you say, playfully smacking his arm. He flinches. “If you keep up with that sweet talk you're gonna make me swan. Swoon.” You make a grand sweeping gesture of dismissal, nearly thwapping him in the chest again. Dirk sways out of the way of your arm; he's always made room for you. “Whatever,” you say.
You don't have to see his eyes to know that he's giving you a once-over. His frown reappears, and stays this time. “I thought you were going to give up drinking.”
Your answering laugh is automatic. “Rome was not built in a day,” you pronounce. “Baby steps. I am a work in progress.”
Dirk's frown persists. “Yeah,” he says.
He sits down on the stone wall you've so recently vacated, and you step over it to plunk down beside him. The surrounding pyramids are stark shadows that dwarf the two of you, and the sky is a light show of neon pink and blue, bright enough to make your eyes hurt.
Then an idea occurs to you. “Hey, do you have a spare?”
“Of what?” You can't see his face, but his voice is calm.
“Your shades.”
“You know that could alchemize your own,” he says. “Some sweet eyewear that's more suited to your own style.”
“Want yours,” you say.
He glances at you, considering. A beat passes before he shrugs, and a pair of pointy anime shades appears in his hand before he passes them over. “It's not like I can't alchemize more myself,” he says. “Here.”
You plunk them onto the bridge of your nose and instantly the sky's colors soften to something more bearable. You breathe a sigh of relief.
“You know,” Dirk says after another moment, “I wonder if you could use those as the basis for a gas mask.”
“What'd I need one of those for?”
“There are some side quests on my planet that give a lot of really good XP, but the air is toxic. You'd need a gas mask if you wanted to complete them.”
You turn to him slowly, grinning. “Dirk,” you ask, “are you asking me on a date?”
He gives a jerky shrug. “I'm just saying, if you ever want to visit my planet, you should come prepared.”
You loop an arm around his shoulder and pull him against your side. He tenses up the minute you grab him, but when you don't let go you can feel him relaxing, one muscle group at a time.
“Give me another pair, then,” you say. “I want to keep these.”
You feel Dirk's sigh against you, rather than hear it. “Okay,” he says.