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While it wasn’t unusual for him to stay up far too late, it seemed that recently something weighed heavily on Dirk’s mind. For all they’d been through, Roxy couldn’t really blame him; even she had trouble sleeping, memories and thoughts tugging at her mind far longer than she would like (you would think void powers would be useful with intrusive worries, but apparently not). During one of those particular nights, she had finally resigned herself to wakefulness and traveled to the kitchen for some water when she found Dirk rummaging through the fridge for some remaining orange soda.
“You might sleep better if you don’t drink that shit at like 2 am, jus’ sayin’,” Roxy said. Dirk jumped, betraying that he didn’t hear her coming.
“Oh. Hey, Roxy,” he responded, quickly regaining composure. “You’re up late.”
“Speak for yourself,” Roxy replied. She didn’t comment on his reaction, although how easy it was to spook him sent up additional red flags. Instead, she walked to the sink to fill up a glass of water while he finished contemplating which brand of beverage he wanted. Before he had a chance to leave, however, she sat down at the single small table in the room, indicating for him to join her and saying, “Pull up a seat and shoot the shit with me for a while.” When he hesitated, she reminded him, “It’s not like you’re actually going to sleep right now.”
He resigned himself with a small nod, sinking into the chair opposite hers. Even behind the shades, he seemed tired somehow, although it would take a familiar eye to catch the signs. They sat in silence for a brief period, and Roxy grappled with how to open a conversation that might bring his guard down.
“So,” Roxy began idly. “How’s life treating you?”
Dirk snorted softly, thumbing at the condensation on his bottle before casually shrugging and looking away. “Not bad. Can’t complain.”
“Yeah,” Roxy said, matching his posture and looking vacantly away. She exhaled, turning her attention towards him in an effort to boost the morale between them. “So hey, have you had a chance to chat much with the other kids? I mean aside from all the kicking the crap out of the ultimate evil shit we had goin’ on earlier. I know we haven’t had much r-and-r since all that went down, and you don’t seem to hang much, which I totally get because, you know, you’re you, I guess…” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, Rose’s absolutely precious, but she’s super smart and kind of serious in a way that reminds me of you, which I guess, since she’s kind of our weird slime kid, that would make sense. And John (well, you know I like John anyway wink wonk), John’s been hitting it off really well with Jane, and he’s even been getting to know her dad! And Jake and Jade are nothing short of fuckin’ adorable, lemme tell you--he’s been so much more chipper and gung-ho and all those other Jake-isms, and she’s flipping her proverbial shit just as much.”
She paused to see if Dirk had some sort of response, but he just listened with a sort of vague stillness. She decided to push her luck a bit further. “So, I don’t know how much you’ve been involved in all that. You talk to Dave at all, maybe?”
Dirk looked down at his bottle and shrugged again, nonchalant. “Yeah, a little bit. Not much.” He seemed on the verge of saying more, his mouth open, before the words died on his tongue and the thoughts escaped back into him. Bingo--that was as much an indication of underlying concerns as he ever showed. Roxy leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands attentively.
“He seems like a cool kid. Won’t shut up if you get him going, either. You should try to chill in his general vicinity more frequently, jus’ sayin’,” Roxy ventured.
Dirk shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly, before replying, “I think I need to sort some of my own shit out first, you know? I don’t...really know what to do with myself. And I sure as hell don’t know what I’m supposed to be to any of them.”
Roxy was still for a second before offering a small nod, a little afraid of accidentally discouraging him. “How do you figure?”
“I mean…” He furrowed his brow in the struggle to find a way to express himself. “There’s still a lot of things I haven’t worked out. I don’t want to ruin anything for Jake by...I don’t know, being around, I guess. And I don’t know what to be or say to Dave.” His pauses were filled with unsaid thoughts, and Roxy stayed hushed, carefully monitoring her demeanor in an attempt not to derail him. “I never knew my Bro, but Dave grew up with whatever fucked up version of me that he had. I don’t know how to deal with that.”
Roxy waited for a beat longer before speaking. “Just ‘cause he was a little odd, or…? I mean, I know there was the weird porn fetish site thing, but Dave didn’t seem all that fussed about that.”
The corner of Dirk’s mouth twitched at the mention of the smuppets. “Yeah. That. And the fact that he basically beat the crap out of the kid on a regular basis.” Dirk huffed a bit, but once he started talking about it, his thoughts seemed to bubble insistently to the surface. “It’s like I can’t catch a break, you know? I can’t get away from myself, and even now, after I finally have some peace from all that shit, a version of myself is there, somewhere, to remind me of what a shitty person I’m capable of being. No matter what I do, there’s always some reminder that on some level, I’m just intrinsically fucked up.”
Silence returned to the room as Dirk fidgeted with his soda bottle. Roxy nodded slowly, trying not to betray that she didn’t really know what to say to that. She worked to appear sympathetic without coming across as pitying, and even though she attempted to look casual, she felt stiff and kind of awkward. She really hoped he didn’t notice, though, especially because as rare as it was for Dirk to actually open up, she didn’t want to botch the whole thing. “I think...that I kind of get what you’re saying? I mean we had totally different roles and divine destinies, but...yeah.” She shrugged, sitting back in her seat and staring at her hands in her lap. “I mean, hell. Rose talked about her version of me, and...yeah, she was all the shitty things I was before we started. I mean, she was a boozed-up floozy that ditched her kid the moment a dude was around to mack on.”
Some of Dirk’s irritable energy faded at that. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but...you conquered that. I admire the hell out of you because you saw what was wrong, and you did what you had to in order to fix it. I…” He sighed again, glancing around. “Even when I tried to figure out what the fuck to do about myself, I never felt like I got it. I’ve tried not to be how I am, but even when I mean the best for people, I fuck it up. There’s just a part of me that feels like it’ll never fit right. Like--” He shifted in his seat, agitated, his brow furrowed over his shades and his hand fidgeting with his bottle. “The worst part is I can understand the rationale. I can listen to stories about Bro and understand why he would do all that shit. I can imagine thinking about how the best thing for my kid would be strength, would be autonomy and steadfastness, and how I could foster those values through training.” He paused, almost long enough for Roxy to break the silence, before continuing, tense and with carefully chosen words, “When I care for people, I care a lot, and for me, part of that means making sure they’re capable of taking care of themselves, even in tough circumstances. But if you can justify being a douche as caring for people, then how do you know if you’re ever actually doing the right thing?”
During the pause that followed, Roxy opened and closed her mouth several times before she offered an answer. “For one, you have to remember that this guy wasn’t you. Well, I mean, he was, but he grew up under different circumstances and all that. And also with a possessed, possibly mind-controlling puppet.”
“Who was also kind of me.”
“Yeah, sort of, but also a bunch of other randos that are probably way more creepy and evil than Lil Hal was. Let’s be real, A.R. was a manipulative tool, but he wasn’t purposefully malicious...mostly…” Roxy waved her hands in front of her before Dirk could respond. “Not the point! The point is, you have basically forever to work this shit out. If there’s one thing all your iterations have in common, it’s that you wanted people to be the best they could be, and that’s def not a bad thing! It’s just something you gotta figure out with time, right?”
Dirk sighed heavily, sinking into his chair. “That’s what keeps me up at night. Eternity is a long time, Roxy. It scares the living shit out of me. What if I don’t figure anything out at all? What if I just end up pushing you all away and spend the rest of time miserable and alone with no one to blame by myself?”
Roxy felt a sinking in her stomach, and she watched Dirk for a little while before she could respond. “You won’t. In case you haven’t noticed, we all like you for who you are, fuck up or not. You ain’t gettin’ rid of us that easily. And forever might be a long time, but that means you got time to fix any mistakes you make along the way.” Dirk looked up at her from over the top of his shades, his jaw set in an effort to keep his emotions contained. “We’ll help you. We want to help you! I know you’ve got that whole lone wolf dealio going on, but if you need it, we’re here to support you all the way.”
For a while, Dirk said nothing. He just nodded and then stared at the table space between them. Roxy finished her water, unsure of whether she should say more or try to defuse the heaviness of emotions between them, or if that would just be an intrusion on his thoughts. Regardless, she was determined to neither rush him nor leave him if her presence was somehow a comfort. After a while, he glanced away with a soft sniff. “I think I need to be alone for a little while longer.” Roxy nodded and quietly rose to deposit her glass in the sink. Before she left, Dirk’s voice stopped her one last time. “And hey. Thanks. I hope that…someday I can be as good of a friend to you as you are to me.”
Roxy smiled and nodded before quietly slipping through the door.