Archive of Our Own

He was able to keep his composure… sort of… until flopping into the front seat of that bright blue sports car he’d rented. The overhead light flicked off with the slam of the door, and the instant he was surrounded by the dark, he could feel the hot burn of tears sliding down his cheeks like they were carving tracks into his skin.

Riggins’ voice echoed in his ears like a horrible ghost from a nightmare… or the condescending voice on the intercom in the grocery store after you accidentally stumbled into the display at the end of the aisle and sent about a thousand cans of soda to the floor in a big, sticky, and noisy explosion.

‘Hello Project Icarus.’

‘Svlad. We need to talk.’

Dirk clenched his jaw hard, focusing on the ache of his teeth as they ground together in his mouth, and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. 

Not Svlad. Not Project Icarus. Not my name.

Dirk Gently. Dirk Gently. I am Dirk Gently. I am Dirk Gently, and I am not going anywhere. I’m not going back there. I’m not going back.

He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times around the steering wheel. The keys weren’t in the ignition and that ever-present pull in his chest wasn’t currently screaming at him to go, so he was pretty sure he was in the right place for now… Nowhere to speed off in this car to, but just having a hold around the fake leather wheel helped ease his panic the tiniest amount. 

He was in the driver’s seat. He was driving the car. He was steering the wheel, this wheel that was clutched in his hands. Nobody else.

Not Riggins, not that stupid soldier guy that tackled him to the stairs, not Farah or Todd or the universe or Patrick Spring.

I’m choosing my moves. I’m playing the game, but I’m choosing my moves. Hear that, universe?

Riggins and that soldier guy were leaving the Ridgely building. He wasn’t looking directly at them, wouldn’t give them the satisfaction, but could see their movement out of the corner of his eye, the two stiffly walking figures, clad in black, stalking down to the sidewalk. He could hear their muffled voices through the window, only enough to know that they were talking, but not enough to know what they were saying. Dirk held his breath when they made it down the stairs, Riggins stopping and looking across the street and the soldier guy just wandering forward. Dirk heard Riggins shout something, the sound of it making him tense up, but then the soldier guy stopped and trotted back towards him, and they started walking in the other direction.

Dirk closed his eyes. 

Sixteen years. He’d been out for sixteen goddamn years… and now? They decide to make contact now?

Images of small, dark rooms flickered through his mind. Endless tests and blaring alarms, and disappointment and shame and resentment that boiled painfully in his chest. The ache of isolation, the desperation for freedom, the hunger for some kind of meaning to put to the years spent in that nightmare.

And they wanted him to go back.

Asked him to go back.

Asked like it was his choice, like he’d ever chosen anything in his whole life, rather than just dealing with the cards the universe threw at his face like his head was one of those watermelons that those crazy card trick guys threw cards at and somehow sliced into it like they were little card-shaped knives and not just… playing cards. He wondered if Farah could do that. She seemed like the kind of person that could slice someone’s face open with a playing card. Though she also seemed like the kind of person who would have to spend twenty minutes trying to choose the exact right playing card to use to slice a person’s face open, which depending on whether the person was tied to a chair or not, could be horrifyingly intimidating, or horrendously ineffective.

He kept his eyes shut. 

It was part of the game and there was no way to react that wasn’t playing along. Running, hiding, begging, arguing, fighting, waiting. He’d waited sixteen years knowing that they were hanging around just out of reach, biding time until he let his guard down enough to hope that he was actually free this time. They’d never given him this long before, back when he’d run off as a younger person, a couple weeks maybe, once almost three months, but they always came, they always found him, dragged him back and slammed him back into that dark little room, deep underground again. 

He hated the waiting, and he refused to watch this time.

He’d had hope again, something he was looking forward to, something that wasn’t just him and death and bad things over and over and he’d thought, maybe this time, it could end differently. That it wouldn’t just be him, alone, tired and hurt, wandering off to the next thing, the next case. That maybe the universe would be kind and he’d have people this time that would follow him, that were standing on the edge of that rapidly flowing stream of creation with life preservers, there to keep him from sinking too far into the water.

He couldn’t bear watching that get ripped away.

An engine rumbled down the street, the sound of a vehicle sped past his car, and then, there was silence.

Dirk squeezed his fingers around the steering wheel, pressure building behind his eyelids. His teeth chattered anxiously in his mouth. His heart pounded dramatically.

A few seconds passed. 

Then a few more. 

And another minute or so, just for the fun of dragging out the painful suspense.

Then, Dirk drew in a long and heavy breath and opened his eyes. He immediately darted his head around, the empty passenger seat, the empty back seat, nobody standing and grinning dangerously out the windows, no black vans waiting across the street.

He was alone.

Dirk let out a desperate gasp, hands shaking too hard to keep them clutched around the steering wheel. 

Maybe he had more time. Maybe this time he’d be able to stay.

He shoved his hands down along the sides of his legs, digging his fingers into his thighs as his muscles clenched up. 

He felt so wound up, emotions radiating under his skin that he didn’t want to think about because feeling them didn’t change anything. It didn’t matter how scared he was, or angry, or sad; things always just happened, and it didn’t matter how he felt about it. He just had to keep going.

Keep going, Dirk. Just keep going.

He smoothed his hands down his legs, trying to soothe some of the jagged edges in his nerves and his right hand brushed against something in the center console of the car, and Dirk squawked as a flash of light filled the dark. He jerked his hand away in surprise before realizing the object was the exact reason he’d come out here in the first place.

He glared at the light bulb. If he hadn’t needed to go out to his car to get this stupid thing… 

He shook his head, knowing by now that the what ifs never led him anywhere good. Things happened and once they happened, there was no way of them unhappening, so it was best to just have them happen and then move forward just in time for the next happening.

He let out a breath, picking it up.

The light was bright, and he had to squint as his eyes adjusted from the dark. It buzzed softly as it illuminated at his touch. 

It brought his mind back again to Blackwing.

The air in the car was too hot, and it felt big in his lungs, sinking to the bottom of his chest, and not quite satisfying his need to breathe. He tried keeping his breaths small, shallow, wanting to avoid that full chest ache, but each tiny breath, coming faster and faster than the last, made it worse. His vision spun and his hands clutched around the base of the light bulb so tight it hurt.

Too bright. Too hot.

Trapped. Stuck. Locked away again.

He desperately scrabbled for the door handle, shoving it open with a relieved gasp. The cool summer night air wafted in the car, replacing the stale slightly pizza-scented heat. He inhaled hungrily, dropping his head back against the headrest. 

His grip loosened around the bulb, letting it settle into his lap. The light went out, but the dark felt almost worse, reminding him of those nights, days, hours, and weeks of time when he was in Blackwing, and they’d had enough of his ‘uncooperative behavior’ and forced him to sit in the dark until he learned his lesson. 

Light is a privilege, Icarus. Start actually trying and maybe we’ll give you your light back.

He breathed shakily, nudging his finger against the bulb. Light on. 

You’re doing well, Icarus. Maybe you’ll get to go home soon.

Then away. Light off. 

Stop messing around. You can do better than this.

Back again. Light on. 

Why can’t you do this every day?

And away again. Light off.

This is unacceptable, and I know you know that. Finish the test, Icarus. You don’t want me calling Mr. Priest in again.

He absently shifted his finger every few seconds; light on, light off, light on, light off, light on, light off-

"Morse code?"

“Shit!” Dirk flinched, nearly launching the light bulb across the street, just keeping a hold on it. He jerked his head up, immediately finding Todd leaning against the side of the car, an eyebrow quirked up as he looked down at him through the open driver’s door.

"Todd! That’s… how’d you get over here?" he breathed out, trying to relax his racing pulse. He hadn’t heard Todd walk up at all, wasn’t sure how long he’d been… playing with the light.

“I used my feet. It’s this cool new thing called walking. You should try it sometime.” Todd smirked and cocked his head. 

Dirk took a second to glance around the quiet road, peering into shadows for the silhouettes of black vans and gun-toting scary government people. Nothing obvious stuck out to him, and he relaxed… just a little bit. He looked back up at Todd, frowning. 

“What did you say?”

"Walking?”

“No… you, before… you said something when you walked up.” Dirk’s frown deepened. He did, didn’t he? Unless he didn’t… those echoed voices in his head were making him feel a little bit… off balance.

“Oh… Morse Code. Your, uh, light flashing? You've been sitting out here for like... ten minutes doing that, and we were trying to figure out if you were sending some coded messages. Signaling your alien siblings or something…” Todd shrugged, letting his rambling trail off. There was the faintest beginning of a smile on his face, not quite there, but close, and he seemed less… irritated than he had when Dirk had followed him out of his apartment earlier. Probably due to Dirk’s extremely convincing and motivating speech in the hallway. He always did have a knack for a good big sexy speech. 

Dirk would have usually had something to throw back at Todd, something weird and odd and mostly nonsensical, but significant in some way that they wouldn’t know until later, but… his hands were still shaking, and he couldn’t brush off the prickling sensation of being watched, the throbbing ache in his back where he was surely going to have a bruise where that airhead soldier tackled him into the stairs.

Dirk huffed softly and shook his head. “Don’t think I know Morse Code actually, so no… no-“ He muttered, his mind rewinding through Todd’s words. “Er, wait, alien siblings?”

Todd smirked, letting out a quiet chuckle. “Uh, yeah, because you’re like way too weird to be a normal human. I’m pretty sure Amanda thinks you escaped from Area 51 or something.”

“I don’t… what the hell is that…?”

“Area 51?”

Dirk nodded with a confused frown. Todd raised an eyebrow, leaning back.

“You really don’t know about that? Sort of seems like the kind of stuff you’d get into,” he said, laughing breathily. “But it’s just this like… government compound place in the middle of nowhere Nevada that’s supposedly hiding evidence of aliens or something. You know like UFOs, abductions, experimentation type of stuff.”

Dirk’s stomach twisted as Todd explained. His lungs felt tight in his chest, like the air in this car just got sucked out by a big vacuum cleaner, and he was about to get sucked in with it. He shook his head, forcing the wave of nausea deep, deep down.

“I am not an alien, Todd,” Dirk said firmly, his scalp prickling with the irritation that had been buzzing under his skin since Riggins had startled him in the foyer. “I am a regular human detective man, who solves cases in totally normal and not strange ways, and if I had siblings, they wouldn’t be aliens, they’d be real normal human people, like me. I wasn’t sending messages to aliens, and I certainly didn’t escape from Area 42 or whatever, so don’t… you can just tell Amanda that it’s not true and I don’t appreciate the implication that I escaped from some government prison.” He huffed and puffed, heart racing as he glared up at Todd, feeling like he’d just sliced himself open in the driver’s seat of this car.

Todd frowned, furrowing his brows, and pushing himself up away from where he’d been leaning on the side of the car. He held his hand up, placatingly, shaking his head.

“Whoa, hey, relax, Dirk. It was a stupid joke. We obviously don’t think you’re really an alien. Weird, but probably definitely human.”

Dirk clenched his jaw, squeezing the base of the light bulb in his fingers, trying to focus on the warmth of the metal.

“Right.” Dirk forced a breath out, trying to make it sound enough like a laugh that Todd would stop looking at him like how he was right now. A strange indecipherable expression that made Dirk feel very exposed. “Sorry.” Dirk swallowed. He spared another glance down both sides of the street and then sighed, turning his eyes up past Todd to the dark expanse of the sky. He thought he spotted a star but realized a few seconds later that it was an airplane as it slowly shifted past a patch of clouds. He let out a sigh, feeling disappointed by the lack of stars. He’d always enjoyed looking up at the sky. It was a privilege he’d been careful to appreciate when he had the chance, after going so many years as a child being unable to see it, but he enjoyed it much more when he could actually see the stars.

“Are you okay?” Todd’s tone was gentle and careful, and it grated over Dirk’s skin like sandpaper. He felt like his entire body was covered in bees, itching and squirming and buzzing, the constant threat of being stung lingering as he sat and anxiously boiled in the driver’s seat of the car. Todd shifted a bit closer, letting out a groan as he kneeled next to the car, now looking up at him from the ground. “Dirk? Did something happen? You seem… quiet?” Dirk clenched his jaw, feeling put on the spot. He kept his eyes from looking directly at Todd, not sure what his new companion would find in his expression if he did.

"You’ve known me for like three days, Todd. Maybe I’m just quiet on Thursday nights. You’ve never seen me on a Thursday night before.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “True. Though I still haven’t since it’s Wednesday night.”

“It’s…” Dirk scrunched his face up. “No, it’s not.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “Dude, it’s fucking Wednesday, I know what day it… no wait… I think it’s Friday.” He scrunched his face up in a way that Dirk felt like matched his own expression, then shook his head. “This week’s been so weird. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. But, yeah, sure I haven’t known you that long, but that doesn’t change the fact that you were like… fine up in the hallway… I mean like a little intense, but you weren’t like… sitting in your car alone for ten minutes playing with a light bulb and acting like you just watched a kitten get diagnosed with cancer.”

Dirk raised an eyebrow, trying to hold back a small smile. “I’m not acting like that.”

“I mean, you kind of are.” Todd huffed. “Look, I know we just met, and I literally just agreed to sort of help you or whatever, so we’re not like… I don’t know, just we’re doing this all together, so if something is going on, you can like… talk to me, I guess? I’m not like… great at problems and feelings and stuff, but I guess you don’t really have a lot of options right now so…” He held his hands out to his sides in a pathetic ‘ta-da’ sort of move.

That did get a laugh out of Dirk. A soft one, not like when he’s trying to put on a show to make himself seem like something else, or to cover up how he’s actually feeling, but because he sincerely was amused by Todd’s attempt at connecting with him on an emotional level.

And wasn’t that so nice. Someone asking if he was okay in a way that didn’t feel like they just wanted to get past the question until he was good enough to give them what they wanted from him. Almost like he could pretend they were actually fr-… no, he couldn’t even think that word, not yet. But that they were something, the kind of people that could tell each other stuff and then the other person would say something like, ‘wow, man, that sounds rough,’ and then pat you on the back and then… well, he wasn’t exactly sure what came after that… Pizza? Maybe pizza…

But as much as he enjoyed the sentiment, it wasn’t like he could just explain to Todd the real reason he was all… weird right now. Todd had only just barely agreed to help him with the Spring case. The whole ‘I’m a former CIA child prisoner and my captors just sprang up out of the blue for the first time in sixteen years to take me back and I’ve got this whole weird relationship with Riggins who at one point acted like my father, but also manipulated me and lied to me for the entire time he was working with me and now I’m feeling very vulnerable and exposed and also it might possibly be putting all of them and this whole case in danger because those Blackwing assholes have never cared about the whims of the universe or how my whole thing worked in the first place, so they might just mess everything up before we find Lydia and solve the murder and do whatever else came up in the next however many days or weeks or hours or minutes until this was done’ doesn’t really make for a casual getting to know you conversation, and he’d probably just scare Todd away after just getting him on his side… which would be not so great.

Todd's face was drawn, eyebrows furrowed together in a way that made his forehead wrinkle up, an expression that Dirk had come to understand meant someone was concerned… that or they really needed to use the toilet. He was about fifty percent sure Todd probably didn’t need the bathroom, which meant he was probably getting worried because he was being weird right now, and worried people ask questions, so Todd needed to be not worried… or at least less worried or worried, but in a different direction and not about Dirk’s weird behavior, considering that a lot of the things that have happened the last couple of days would have any normal person freaking out to a significant degree, which Todd had been fairly restrained about… for the most part.

Dirk forced out a light sigh, masking the lingering fear from his Blackwing visit before answering. "I just... uh… well, I was thinking… and-“ he loosened the grip on his mind and just let his mouth dribble out whatever it wanted to. “-do you think a shark could fit in an elevator?"

“Seriously?” Todd's shoulders slumped.

“What?” Dirk let out an overdramatic huff. “I don’t know what else I should be thinking about. I should think that it’s quite a relevant question, Todd. Honestly, if you’re going to be my assistant, this is something you’re going to have to get used to.” Todd opened his mouth, probably to express how excited he was to be working as his assistant and how eager he was to do all the fun assisting things that Dirk needed him to do, but Dirk thundered on, not giving him a chance to say anything. “Because, anyways, we know that the bites were from a hammerhead shark because of all the-“ Dirk waved his hand and made some word-like noises that meant nothing- “and the shark bites were in the penthouse at the hotel, and I feel like it’s slightly more reasonable that a shark would use an elevator rather than going up like a thousand flights of stairs because… well…  I don’t know how much you know about sharks, Todd, but they don’t actually have legs, and I’ve heard that fins aren’t that useful in going up stairs… going down, one would assume that it might be easier, even without legs… you could probably just like… roll, or do sort of a little wiggle thing-“ he shimmied in his seat- “But we’re not talking about the down direction right now because that would have come after the whole murder biting blood thing… and well, I’m not a shark expert, other than knowing that they don’t have legs, so I’m not as familiar with the size comparison of sharks to elevators, and you worked there and used the elevator, and you’re maybe like… I don’t know… you’re a bit of a small guy… so maybe five percent of a shark? Maybe more? How big are sharks… what do you think?” Todd opened his mouth, an incredulous look on his face, but Dirk kept talking again. “Oh… no, but what if it wasn’t even a normal shark?! Maybe it was some other thing, but it just had shark teeth and a really big mouth… like… some sort of mutant shark… or a shark bird… like a shark with wings, so it flew in the window? Like one of those winged dinosaur things. Do the windows in the penthouse open? I need some input here, Todd, I can’t come up with all the ideas on my own, this is part of the assisting process.”

Todd let out a heavy breath and Dirk was about to start talking again when a hand pressed over his mouth. He jerked back in surprise, a spark of fear returning until his mind caught up to the fact that it was Todd’s hand and not… someone else’s.

“Can you like… shut it for two seconds? Please?”

Dirk nodded, Todd’s hand following the movement where it stuck over his face. Todd narrowed his eyes and then slowly removed his hand.

“Okay, great, because I followed like… none of that.”

Dirk huffed, slumping in his seat. “Todd, I said-“

“No, like, I heard the words, dude, but none of what you just said makes any sense. Maybe in like… crazy TV world where random crap just… happens, but this is real life. Sharks just… don’t kill people in hotel penthouses, and they don’t fit in elevators.”

“So, what you’re saying… is… there’s a bigger shark-sized elevator somewhere and we have to find it…”

“No.” Todd glared at him and let out a huff. “I’m saying that I don’t think we should be putting a shark down as our lead suspect… and also sharks need water to live, and there usually isn’t a whole lot of water in an elevator. Plus, they would have had to get a shark in and out of the hotel without anyone noticing, and… that seems more than difficult considering that there were a lot of people around that morning.”

Dirk frowned and nodded. “Hmm. Yes, well, you may be right… It does seem rather impractical. Unless-“ Dirk snatched the light bulb out of his lap, holding it up next to his head as it lit up- “it teleported into the penthouse!”

“I’m not going to think that’s a smart idea just because you’re using the light bulb.” Todd rolled his eyes. “And I literally just said no crazy TV show ideas. Teleporting is like… Star Trek crap. This is real life. We need real life ideas. You know… human people with bad intentions, normal murderer guys.”

Dirk narrowed his eyes. “What’s Dardreck crap? Is that like Arena 61 too?”

“It’s Area 51, Dirk, and n-… well, I guess, sort of? It does have aliens, at least. It’s also not called Dardreck. It’s Star Trek. It’s a show on TV. A fake show on TV. They have teleportation stuff in the show.”

“Oh… like the UFOs and abductions and government prison type of aliens?” Dirk asked hesitantly.

Todd shook his head. “No, it’s like… uh… like space, like exploring other planets and stuff like that. Nobody getting abducted just because they’re an alien and locked up or anything like that… at least I don’t think so. I haven’t watched the show in like… a long time.”

“Hmm. Interesting. But they have information about teleporting? Do they teleport sharks? Maybe we could-“ 

Todd cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. “No, Dirk. We’re not watching it. Murder, Patrick Spring, missing teenager, remember? We don’t have time for TV shows.”

Dirk huffed, turning so that his feet were outside of the car, leaning in towards Todd. “Todd. Which one of us here is the private detective?”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “You really want me to answer that?”

Dirk narrowed his eyes. “I have business cards, Todd.”

“No. You don’t… you threw all of them at that guy, right before you stole his dog and burned down his house.”

Dirk narrowed his eyes. “That… was an accident, Todd, and I’d like to think that dog is happier now being away from that creepy weird man.”

“I did throw it off a bridge, so-“

Dirk ignored that, continuing to ramble on. “Aaaannnnd-“ Dirk whipped his hand into his jacket, snatching up the first thick cardstock rectangle in his inner pocket. “Ha Ha! No business cards,” he scoffed. “What’s this then?!”

Todd leaned in, squinting at the card before smirking. “Uh, looks like you’re two purchases away from a free frozen yogurt at KrazyKreations Yogurt. Pretty exciting… They’re expensive.” 

Dirk flipped the card around, finding that it was, in fact, a stamp card for that ridiculously overpriced frozen yogurt place next to the hotel. He tossed it behind him in the car, and dug back into his pocket, pulling out a card for a laundromat, a taxi service, a record company, a furniture store, and a wallet sized photo of that muscly man from the lifeguard TV show that he’d written several different phone numbers in permanent ink on the front of (numbers he knew he’d never remember who or what they connected to), but not his own perfectly designed business cards… He let out a frustrated huff and shook his head. 

“Whatever. The card… isn’t important. I don’t need cards to know that I am the more experienced detective of the two of us, and as the experienced professional, I know the value of background research. What if it turns out the people behind all this are teleporting dog psychics with a pet bird-shark and while we’re investigating, we get teleported somewhere, but because you refused to let me watch the show for research, we have no idea what to do and then we die, and Lydia Spring is missing forever and it’s all your fault?” He raised his eyebrows, smirking deviously. “How could you ever… ever live with yourself then?”

Todd gave him a withering look. It was an expression he was… very familiar with on a wide number of faces. 

“Okay, first of all, that question is kind of fucked up; second, I strongly doubt that anything we’d see in Star Trek would help us in our current situation; third, we definitely don’t have time for TV; and fourth, I know I’ve only known you for like… three days, Dirk, but you don’t really strike me as the background research type of detective… no offense. Didn’t you say you just kind of follow people around and stumble into shit to solve cases?”

Dirk bit his lips, narrowing his eyes. “That’s a rather… crude way of putting it… I mean, yes, but also no. There is some system, just because I’m not technically aware of what it is, doesn’t mean I’m not doing it. And I do just sort of end up in the right place doing the right thing… most of the time, so I think that if we did watch the Star Shrek show then it would turn out that I was supposed to watch it all along.”

There was a tiny nudge in his gut that he was casually ignoring that was telling him that watching some TV show tonight or any night soon was not actually the right direction to take to solve this case, not that he was really planning on watching it anyways. He was mostly just arguing because it was keeping Todd’s attention off his earlier unusual unusualness, as well as keeping him from thinking about why he’d been acting unusually unusual earlier in the first place.

“Fine,” Todd said, rolling his eyes. “If we go back upstairs and my destroyed TV is magically back in place and functioning, and just happens to now have the full DVD set of every Star Trek episode, then we’ll ignore doing anything and everything else and we’ll watch the entire show. I’ll even make you popcorn.”

Dirk pressed his lips into a tight line, narrowing his eyes. He darted his eyes up towards Todd’s window. “You promise?”

Todd snorted and shook his head. “Yes. I promise. If in the unlikely event all that happens, we’ll watch the stupid show. Now, are you coming back inside at some point? You don’t have to sleep in your car… or your spaceship, you do have a whole apartment up there, remember?” He smiled, cocking his head, and raising an eyebrow, then frowned and shook his head. “And I don’t mean mine. You’re not trying to steal my couch again.”

Dirk huffed. “Like I’d want to sleep on that thing. It smelled like you dragged it out of a dirty cat infested alleyway. Plus, your lock doesn’t even work. I literally just walked right in earlier.”

Todd rolled his eyes at him. “You say that like I intentionally broke my own lock. Those crazy weirdos weren’t there because they were looking for me, dude.” He rubbed his hand over his neck and pushed back up to his feet, jerking his back towards the building. “Anyway, let’s go. Farah probably thinks we got kidnapped or something.”

Dirk flinched, his back still aching where that stupid CIA man had tackled him into the stairs. He wondered if he had been kidnapped earlier, if they would have looked for him. Probably not. They might for a day or two, at most a week, but then they’d let Dirk fade into just a weird distant memory, all while he’s rotting away underground for the rest of his life.

His stomach twisted again, like it was scolding him for the incredibly depressing thoughts.

He pushed them away because there was no use wallowing when it hadn’t happened. This time. They’d left. He was still free. He was still okay. And he had people. Here. Up there.

He looked up at the apartment building, seeing a vaguely familiar shadowy silhouette in the window he’d fallen through a few nights ago. The shadow shifted and the window gave a loud shriek as Amanda shoved the pane up as far as she could move it, which was just barely enough to stick her head and shoulders under to peer outside.

“Hey loser… and Dirk.”

Todd made a muffled noise of protest, rolling his eyes.

“Hi Amanda.” Dirk gave a tentative wave. He liked Amanda. Amanda was cool and interesting, and she reminded him of someone else, another spirited girl (sometimes chair) that ran by the beat of her own drum. Todd was lucky he had her, that he knew where she was, and that she was… mostly okay.

“Farah’s losing her shit after opening your fridge, Todd, so-“

“Ask if he has bleach!” They heard Farah yell somewhere inside the apartment.

Amanda just laughed and cocked her head, holding her hands out in a ‘what’d I tell you’ gesture.

“Oh my god.” Todd shook his head, letting out a sigh. “We’ll be up in a minute!”

The window clunked shut again and Todd turned back to Dirk, slumping his shoulders.

“What the hell was in your fridge?”

Todd raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Fuck if I know. I don’t like throwing stuff away, so it sort of just… sits. And grows. Stuff.”

Dirk grimaced. “That’s a bit gross, Todd.”

“Yeah, well…” he trailed off, then jabbed his thumb back towards the building, taking a step back. “Ready?”

Dirk scrunched his face up as he glanced around the car to make sure he hadn’t left anything important inside. He wished he knew for sure when things were important enough to bring along or not. That torn receipt in the cupholder could be the key to solving the entire case, and he wouldn’t know until precisely the second that he was supposed to, but he also didn’t like being the kind of person carting around rubbish in his pockets at all times.

“Dirk, I’m not just gonna stand out here all night, so unless you want to be left alone then-“

A surge of panic gripped his chest, and he waved his hands out.

“No!”

Todd frowned, pausing as he turned. Dirk swallowed the panic down, forcing a light laugh and shaking his head.

“Sorry, uh, no. I… I’m coming, just… keep your horses in the bag, Todd.” He stood, his foot catching on the edge of the door and nearly falling onto his face. Todd caught him before his face got that far, which he was very grateful for. "Ugh. Thank you. It's already coming in handy having you around," he said with a breathless laugh. Todd shook his head.

“Horses in a bag? Where’d you hear that one?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Dirk said, huffily. He carefully steadied his feet on the ground as Todd helped to tug him up the rest of the way before letting go of his arm. Part of him wished he had the forethought to stumble a little bit more, drawn out the brief, fleeting contact between them, but another part was thankful that he didn’t have someone grabbing onto him anymore. Even his jacket was feeling too tight and constricting at the moment.

“That is why I asked. You know the thing people do when they want to find out information…”

Dirk rolled his eyes. “Oh really? Well, isn’t that interesting? I’ve never heard of that before,” he replied sarcastically, nudging Todd in the side.

“Wow,” Todd said, shaking his head. “And you’re the professional detective?” He clicked his tongue in disappointment before smirking.

Dirk didn’t answer Todd’s question, mostly because he’d mostly forgotten the threads of the conversation and it didn’t feel important to continue anyways. He turned back, grabbing the light bulb out of the front seat, bringing it between them, the light casting weird shadows on their faces. Todd gave it a nod.

"That the so-called magic lightbulb?"

Dirk raised an eyebrow. "This? Oh, no, this is just one I picked up at the local hardware store, nothing special about it at all."

Todd rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

"You wanna hold it?” Dirk grinned, enticingly. 

Todd's lips pressed into a tight line. "Uh, no.” He huffed a laugh. “I think I'm good." He was still looking down at it, his expression not hiding how much he really, really wanted to hold the thing at all. Dirk cocked his head.

"Oh yes, you do, Todd. I’ve sussed you out, you silly boy. Think you’re too cool for magic light bulbs…" Dirk shook his head, wiggling the bulb between them.

Todd scrunched his face up at the name. "Why would I want to hold it? It's just a dumb lightbulb."

"A dumb magic lightbulb, Todd. A dumb magic lightbulb that you really want to put your little tiny silly boy fingers all over. Look-" he placed the bulb on the roof of the car as he knocked the driver door closed with his hip. The light went out when his skin lost contact, leaving them back in the dim light again. He pushed the tip of his finger against the very edge and the light flicked back on again. "-it's fun... see?" He touched it off and on a dozen more times, his eyebrows raising higher with each cycle. Todd groaned.

"Oh my god! Fine. If I hold it, will you stop?!”

Dirk grinned and nodded excitedly, snatching the bulb back up and grabbing Todd's hand. The contact of their skin buzzed in his nerves almost like the electric hum of the lightbulb. He could feel his chest lighting up, brighter and warmer, shoving away the chill he'd been left with since walking away from Riggins. He gently placed the bulb into Todd's palm, folding Todd’s fingers around the base, and then reluctantly pulled his hand away. Todd looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Now... uh... what do I... how do I do it?"

Dirk snorted softly. "Here." He grabbed Todd's other hand and tugged his sleeve down over his palm. Once his skin was covered, he grabbed the lightbulb and settled it into the small nest of Todd's flannel and then pulled his hand away. The light went out again. Todd hesitantly raised his finger, glancing up at Dirk for a second, and then pressed it to the light.

It lit up again.

“Shit,” Todd whispered, a soft gasp in his voice.

Dirk smiled, not looking at the light, unable to take his eyes away from Todd's face. He swallowed tightly, his heart feeling oddly fluttery. Todd's lips curved into a smile. 

"That is so weird."

Dirk nodded. "Yeah."

Todd looked back up, shaking his head. "You're not like fucking with me, right? Like if I cracked this thing open, some batteries aren't going to pop out?"

Dirk frowned, reaching for the lightbulb. "Todd! No! Don’t break the clues! This is a… it’s a thing! And we need it, probably, for something, at some point, and that means not cracking it open. Unless it turns out we’re supposed to crack it open because there’s some sort of key, or magic dust, or another map, or something in there.” His eyes widened. “What if we are supposed to crack it open?!” He jumped a little then frowned. “No, I don’t think so, I don’t really feel any ‘break the light bulb’ feelings… but, I mean, do you think something is in there? What do you think would fit inside of there, like-“

"Oh my god, Dirk. No smashing the bulb. Not right now, at least." He pulled the lightbulb out of Dirk's reach, rolling his eyes. Dirk couldn't help feeling a wave of worry as Todd swung it around. "I was just saying... how do I know you didn't just like... have this weird, seemingly magical item already and now you brought it around to make it seem like there’s something weird and mysterious going on when it’s just like… normal murder shit?”

Dirk huffed, darting his hand out quick enough to finally snatch the bulb back. "Because, Todd, I never... ever... think far enough ahead to do anything like that. Ever. You really need to lower your expectations of my capabilities now that you’re my assistant.”

Dirk shook his head, taking one last nervous look around the street and any lingering secret government military CIA eyes that might be watching, and then ran back towards the apartment building. He could hear Todd let out an annoyed breath and then footsteps thudding to the asphalt as he followed after him. Dirk smiled at the sound of it. He didn't really mind being tailed when it was this guy doing it.

“Hey! Wait! I only agreed to help you! I didn’t agree to being your assistant!”

Dirk practically skipped up the stairs. “I really don’t see the difference!” He shouted, laughing lightly as Todd spluttered back at him from a few steps behind.

The lightbulb from the Ridgely sat on the couch next to his leg, a final souvenir from Amanda before she left with her pack of weirdos.

He didn’t feel as bad as he had last time she’d left him, considering that they were… well, not really good, but maybe closer to neutral, fellow humans that exist on the planet together and one of them doesn’t really want anything to do with the other, and the other is a bit sad about that, but understands that some things just can’t be fixed and he just has to deal with that now… and hopefully, this time won’t end with both of them on the run from the evil US government trying to steal them away to some underground secret prison where they’ll never see the light of day again.

Todd brushed his finger over the metal base of the bulb, a gentle puff of air pushing out of his nose in quiet amusement as it lit up under his touch. His mind drifted back to that night in August after Dirk had first found the thing, the night when Todd had finally given in to Dirk’s incessant requests for his help. The way Dirk had been so gentle settling the bulb into his hand, how his eyes lit up when Todd had responded the way he must have wanted him to. There’d been something there, that night, something he couldn’t put his finger on at the time, but now looking back, it was the moment Todd accepted that he wasn’t just going to let Dirk do this on his own, that he wanted to be a part of it, with him.

He glanced over at the other end of the couch where Dirk was currently stretched out, snoring softly with his injured leg propped up on Hobbs’ ottoman and an orange tabby cat on his lap. It still felt strange, seeing him, having him here, present, and mostly okay, apart from the bullet wounds and mental trauma from… literally everything in his life. Todd had spent two months with only Farah for company, imagining exactly what would happen when they finally found Dirk, assuming that it would have been the two of them dragging him out of Blackwing during an epic flurry of gunshots and shouting and blood and running and infiltrating like spies in some blockbuster action movie that had nothing to do with plot and everything to do with explosions and top-name actors looking handsome and rugged.

It hadn’t been that though, well, not completely. There had been gunshots and shouting and blood and lots of running around but finding Dirk had been… stupidly nonsensical and a bit anticlimactic in a way that only a Dirk Gently escape could be. He just had to be the guy that escaped government prison by magically teleporting through snail lady powers into the trunk of a car that fell out of a tree in the middle of field in some nowhere town in Montana.

Dirk sniffled in his sleep, pushing himself further into the worn cushions of the couch. Mustard shifted slightly on his lap, his paws kneading into the top of his thighs. Todd sighed, his expression softening as he watched him.

Two months ago, plus about a week or two, time is weird, Dirk Gently was nobody to him, their paths still separate, that face unknown, and now… Todd couldn’t imagine not having him in his life. He’d become essential, like all this time before he’s been off in space, just loosely flying around in the stars and Dirk grabbed him in his gravity field and now he was where he was supposed to be. Orbiting around the big crazy planet that was this man lightly snoring next to him.

He wasn’t going to let anyone take him away again. Not if he had anything to say about it. And he would… if it came to that… he’d shout out the whole goddamn dictionary back to front to front to back, in every language, if it kept Dirk from being taken away again. If it meant he was free to live a life with people that cared about him, that cared enough to try to understand him.

Todd gritted his teeth, leaning back, the distance of the single cushion between them on the couch feeling like an uncrossable canyon. Part of him wanted to bridge the gap, not in a weird way, just to move close enough that he could lean against Dirk’s shoulder, a single point of connection so that he could say to himself yes, Dirk is here. We found him. But Dirk hadn’t been… he’d been through a lot, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted that… closeness, touch. The few times he’d reached out to Dirk after they’d found him in the trunk, after that first hug, he’d flinched away, and even though things were more… settled now, Todd wasn’t going to push him into something he wasn’t comfortable with.

All that being said, Todd was fucking exhausted, like way past the point where his eyelids had started blinking separately from each other and his vision was going in and out of focus, where his head kept lolling heavily from side to side like he was a broken bobblehead, and his heart felt like it was beating in his mouth. He couldn’t sleep though.

Farah was stuck in the hospital for at least another week, and Dirk had a stitched hole in his leg, and even if Amanda and the Rowdies had said they’d checked that Blackwing had quietly fucked off somewhere after demolishing the Cardenas farm and she wasn’t having any visions that they needed to worry about them right now, it still felt like those scary assholes were just waiting around the corner for them to let their guard down and then they’d be back to running again.

He owed it to Dirk, and Farah, to keep an eye on things. To keep them safe while Dirk rested. While the others recovered.

He needed a distraction. Just enough to stay awake until Dirk woke up and was rested sufficiently to give him a turn at sleeping. He wished Dirk’s jacket person, Mona, had stuck around with them, but it made more sense for her to hang around at the hospital to keep an eye out for Farah, Tina, and Hobbs, in case Blackwing showed up there.

Todd carefully got up from the couch, trying to keep the movement from jostling Dirk, and crossed the room to the small shelf filled with random DVDs next to Hobbs TV. He ran his fingers over the titles, nothing catching his eyes until-

He let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. Coincidence… or fate. He pulled out the box set, the discs in the flimsy case falling out on top of each other and clattering on the floor. He turned back, checking that he hadn’t woken up Dirk, who gave another snore of confirmation. Todd pulled out one of the discs and got it set up in the player, switching the TV on and settling back onto the couch as it started to play, the volume low enough that he hoped Dirk would be able to stay asleep.

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise…

…

Todd fell asleep at some point, even after making several cups of cheap powdered coffee from the tin he’d scrounged up from Hobbs’ poorly stocked kitchen. He’d made it through several episodes of the disc set, until the TV screen blurred as William Shatner did something overdramatic and cheesy for the hundredth time, and his eyelid fell heavily closed again, but stayed closed this time.

He woke up with cat fur in his nose.

And a hand stroking over the back of his head.

He started to sit up and the hand shifted to his shoulder, pressed him gently back down. “Ah ah. Don’t move. You need the rest too, Todd.”

Todd huffed, nudging Mustard’s butt away from his face. He could feel Dirk’s light laugh as a pair of hands reached out and moved the cat up onto the back cushion of the couch. With the orange blob out of the way, Todd could see that Star Trek was still playing on the TV.

“Shit, sorry,” Todd grumbled, his voice hoarse, still rough with sleep. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He wanted to move, but also couldn’t work up the energy and Dirk’s hand did feel really nice as it brushed over the back of his scalp. Dirk made a soft hushing noise in response.

“How’s your leg?” Todd asked, suddenly very aware that he was lying on top of Dirk’s lap. He knew the injury was on the other leg, the carefully wrapped bandage hiding under the pair of large sweatpants they’d grabbed out of Hobbs’ drawers. “Do you need any more pain medication?” He started to sit up again. “Hang on, what time is it? You’re supposed to get another dose of-“

“Todd, relax.” Dirk pushed him back down again, maneuvering Todd so he turned over onto his back, so he was now looking right up at Dirk’s face, smiling softly down at him. “I don’t need to take them for another… hour. The pain’s okay. Nobody’s called. Nobody’s tried to break down the door. I’m still here. You’re still here. Even little Mustard is still here.” Dirk scratched the cat under his chin, turning back to Todd with a smile. “And it’s late, so you should sleep.”

Todd frowned. “You need the rest, Dirk. You’re the one that got… shot.”

Dirk rolled his eyes. “I’ve slept enough. Besides, you found me the Dardreck show to watch.” He jerked his chin towards the TV.

Todd couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto his mouth. “What? Oh… yeah, it… seemed… right.” 

He turned his head towards the TV, his sleep-bleary brain barely processing what was on the screen.

There was an uncomfortable hard something digging into his back, and Todd shifted, snorting softly when his hand came up with the light bulb, glowing brightly in his hand. He glanced back up at Dirk with a gentle smile. 

“You remember-“

“Yes.” Dirk said immediately with a nod. He reached out, his fingers brushing over Todd’s as he gently took the bulb from his hand. His eyes were soft and slightly sad as he looked down at the light. A soft puff of air left his lips, and he flicked his attention back to Todd, speaking again, quieter. “You seem to have a knack for finding me when I’m lost.”

Todd frowned, his brow furrowing together.

“What do you mean?”

Dirk sat the bulb aside, setting it on the armrest of the couch. He gave a small dismissive shrug and looked off across the room.

Todd kept laying there quietly for another few seconds before the awkward tension got to him and he pushed himself up off Dirk’s lap, drawing the other man’s attention back, a look of nervous concern on his face, like Todd was going to get up and leave. Todd shuffled closer, sitting so that their legs were pressed together on the couch.

“You can talk to me, you know?” He said softly, reminded of their talk at the police station, sitting in a similar position. Dirk had been on edge then, an unsettling desperate panic to his demeanor that made Todd want to drag him away from all the craziness being thrust in his path. While he didn’t want him feeling like that again, it felt inevitable that craziness would happen again, so the least he could do was just make sure Dirk knew he was here for him, that he didn’t have any intention of leaving him to deal with this alone.

“Do you remember when I told you about Blackwing? On our drive back from the woods?” Dirk fidgeted with his fingers, picking at dry skin peeling from the tips.

Todd nodded. “Yeah?”

“I didn’t tell you that they already approached me… ‘asking’ me to come back.”

“They… asked you? To willingly go back?” Dirk nodded, still not looking up from his hands. “When was that? Before Seattle?”

Dirk shook his head. He finally looked up at Todd, both of his eyebrows popping up and then he cocked his head at the light bulb sitting on the armrest. Like he was trying to hint at something. It probably took too long for Todd to realize what it was, but to be fair, he was still pretty exhausted. His chest tightened when he figured it out.

“That night?”

Dirk nodded, looking away again. “They were waiting at the bottom of the stairs after we talked in the hallway.”

Todd felt the breath freeze in his lungs, thinking about the fact that they were all just upstairs, completely unaware and Dirk was-

“Shit, Dirk.” He slumped back against the couch cushion. “But they… you were just… in your car. Why didn’t they-“

Dirk shrugged. “The man that approached me, Riggins, he sort of… he thought of himself as a father figure for me. I suppose he wanted to convince me without just… dragging me off unwillingly this time.”

This time. Dirk’s casual tone chilled Todd’s nerves, twisting uncomfortably in his stomach.

“Did they do that before?”

Dirk looked over and blinked at him, frowning. He nodded after a moment. “I tried escaping a lot when I was in there the first time. I think the only reason it finally stuck was because they ran out of the money to keep the program going and decided to just… not bother coming after me anymore.”

Todd swallowed tightly. “How long… were you there before?”  

“Seven years, four months, two weeks, and a day.” Dirk recited in a way that sounded both practiced and like it wasn’t something he’d said in front of other people much before. “That was sixteen years ago… it’ll be seventeen at the end of March next year.”

“Sixteen-“ Nausea pooled in his gut violently, his mind frantically trying to calculate. “You were-“

“Yes.” Dirk said, turning away and crossing his hands over his chest.

“They took you as a child, Dirk. That’s, fuck, I mean, that’s so fucked up. I knew the government was bad, but a kid? What did they like kidnap you? How did they even-“

Todd cut himself off, looking back at Dirk, who had his eyes squeezed closed, his fingers digging into his sides. He swallowed hard and let out a sigh.

“Shit, sorry.” He shook his head. “We don’t… we don’t need to talk about this.”

“It’s fine,” Dirk muttered, clearly not fine.

Todd let out a huff. “It’s not. But that’s okay. You don’t need to talk about it if you’re not ready right now. We’ll have plenty of time later.”

A soft breathy noise puffed out of Dirk’s nose, his brows pushing together, but he didn’t argue, so Todd let it go, staying quiet and turning back to the TV. He started to scoot aside, attempting to give Dirk a little more space since they were pressed up against each other’s sides, but Dirk whined at him, one of his hands pulling at Todd’s arm, holding him still.

“Don’t go.”

“Okay.” He kept his voice soft, looking over Dirk’s face, his eyes still squeezed closed, the tension in his entire body. “Alright, Dirk. We’ll just sit.”

Todd turned back to the TV, totally uninvested in whatever Kirk was trying to do with the Scottish guy on the spaceship, but it at least kept him from staring at Dirk the entire time they were sitting quietly. He could feel the tension against him slowly loosen, and after the episode ended, he expected to turn back to see Dirk had fallen asleep again, except he wasn’t. He had his head resting in his hand, and he was staring at Todd, the panicked look off his face, replaced with something softer and warmer.

“You okay?” Todd asked gently.

Dirk smiled. “I think I will be.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His legs shifted underneath Todd’s shoulders. “I wanted to… well, I wanted to thank you actually.”

“For?”

That got Todd an exasperated look, like it should be totally obvious. It wasn’t, Todd wasn’t sure what Dirk was hinting at, considering he’d just pushed him back into remembering some shit he obviously didn’t want to.

Dirk looked down now, his eyes shining. “Caring enough to look for me?” He nudged the light bulb with his finger, huffing at the flash of light. “That night, and these past months. Nobody’s ever done that for me.”

Todd stared, turning himself on the couch so that he was facing Dirk. The other man swallowed tightly, his expression apprehensive.

“We’re… I’m your… friend, Dirk. I wouldn’t… we’re together in this now. Okay? I’m always gonna look for you now.”

Dirk’s eyes ran across his face like he was trying to work out some difficult problem. “You know, I’m not really good at… friends. I’m probably going to mess it up… again.” 

Todd laughed, like a proper loud laugh, leaning back as he looked up at the ceiling, then back at Dirk. “You think I’m any better? We’re both gonna mess it up… probably on a daily basis. But… who cares? The mess makes it more interesting anyways.”

That same look, that hopeful disbelief that Dirk had all that time ago in the woods when Todd first told him he was his friend, that tearful watery smile he wore outside the hospital, came across Dirk’s face now.

“Really?”

Todd nodded, smiling back. “Yes.” His smile faltered for a moment, the self-doubt and self-hatred flaring up in his chest. “As long as… well, as long as that’s what you want. I know I’m not-“

“Todd,” Dirk laughed, a breathy happy sound, his eyes shiny and reached out, dragging Todd into a tight embrace, nearly toppling him over onto his lap. Todd caught himself, awkwardly leaning halfway over Dirk’s lap and wrapping his arms around him just as tightly, pressing his face into Dirk’s neck, his chest vibrating with the need to keep him close. They hugged for a moment until Mustard decided this would be the ideal time to try to slink down across Dirk’s shoulder, shoving his side into Todd’s face, and apparently Todd was just a little bit sensitive to cat hair because his nose suddenly itched way up inside and he sneezed violently and wetly into the crook of Dirk’s neck causing him to shove Todd away, grimacing in disgust.

“Ew! Todd!” Dirk wiped at his neck and Todd broke into a fit of laughter. “You sneezed on me! I can’t believe you literally just sneezed on me!”

The startled and grossed-out expression on his face only made Todd laugh harder, pushing Dirk’s hands away as he helped wipe away the snotty remnants from his neck.

“I’m sorry! Blame the cat!” He choked out between laughs.

“You’re disgusting.” Dirk frowned, glaring up at him, but Todd could tell he was fighting not to start laughing too. “It’s not funny.”

Todd cocked his head. “It’s a little funny.” He chuckled, satisfied with the clean-up. They were still sitting close, Todd’s knees pressed up against Dirk’s leg, Todd’s hands lingering on his shoulders. His laughter faded out, settling into a warm, heavy tension.

Dirk’s expression softened, one of his hands drifting down and resting on Todd’s knee, not moving, just touching, connecting. 

Todd swallowed. His throat dry, the taste of musty coffee coating his tongue, something he was becoming very, very aware of.

“Todd.”

“Hmm?”

Dirk blinked, like he was surprised that there was supposed to be more to the conversation than just Todd’s name. After a few seconds, he shrugged, glancing away, his fingers fidgeting with the knee of Todd’s pants.

Todd reached down slowly, taking Dirk’s hand in his, smoothing his thumb over his knuckles. Dirk tensed for a moment, before relaxing into his touch.

“You know I missed you,” Todd said softly, looking back up from their joined hands to Dirk’s face.

Dirk hesitated before giving a small nod, watching Todd with careful eyes.

“I… missed you too,” he replied, his voice a whisper, barely audible. He looked up at Todd for another moment, before his chin trembled, tears filling his eyes, his head dropping down.

Todd frowned. “Dirk?”

“Can you,” he choked out between shaky breaths. “Can you just hold me again?”

Todd felt his heart crumble, aching for Dirk and what he’d gone through. He didn’t hesitate, shuffling back on the couch, until he was settled against the other armrest, holding out his arms in invitation. Dirk’s face lit up and he scooted carefully over, looking over Todd’s face for any discomfort before laying across his chest and wrapping his arms behind his waist. Todd held him back, shifting them until the awkward limbs and hard bony edges were mostly out of the way. Dirk shuddered, pressing his face into Todd’s stomach as Todd stroked his hands over his back, his hair, his shoulders, holding him tightly. He could feel Dirk crying silently into his chest. He wouldn’t have been able to tell, apart from the feeling of the tears that seeped through the fabric of his shirt, since Dirk barely moved and barely made a sound. Todd sent a few choice words up to whoever decided to make Blackwing a thing, whichever one of those fuckheads snatched up Dirk and kept him locked away, that had hurt him so much that now he was trained not to show that he was crying.

“I- I didn’t think I’d get out of there this time,” Dirk whispered into Todd’s shirt. Todd held him tighter, like he was daring them to try and take him away again. “I kept… I kept having dreams that you and Farah would find me, you’d break me out, and I’d-“he swallowed, throat clicking loud enough that Todd could hear it. He shuddered again.

“I’m so sorry.” He hated that it hadn’t been them that got him out. That it was once again the waves of fates that crashed him conveniently into the right place, where they just happened to be. He knew he could never understand how Dirk feels about the way his world works, but Todd couldn’t think about it for more than a minute without feeling overwhelmed by the lack of choice. “We were looking for you. The whole time. From the second we realized they’d taken you. And we weren’t going to stop. If you hadn’t fallen out of that tree car, I would have just… kept going. And going, until we finally got you back.”

Dirk picked up his head, looking up at Todd, his face flushed and eyes red-rimmed.

“I just… I don’t understand why?”

“Why we looked for you?” Todd raised an eyebrow.

Dirk looked down. “Why you would want me back…”

“Oh, Dirk,” Todd breathed out. He smiled gently, letting out a soft sigh. He brushed a few fingers through Dirk’s hair, keeping it from falling over his face. “I thought you were supposed to be the detective here.”

“Yes, well, I am kind of a shit detective, Todd,” Dirk mumbled, looking away with a frown.

Todd shook his head. “You’re incredible.”

Dirk blinked, eyes darting back in surprise.

“You are. Dirk, I don’t know how you’ve gotten this far without a thousand people fighting to be in your corner. You must have met a ton of total fucking morons or something because if I was them, I would have never let you go.”

“Todd, I’m not… what about everything that happened to you… your job, your apartment, your sister… you were wanted by the FBI, Todd, and I-“

“I don’t blame you for that. I know I said… I was an asshole, okay? I’m sorry for what I said before. You’re not a monster, Dirk. You didn’t ruin my life. Do you remember what I told you when we got hit with that spell? I meant all that. You woke me up, showed me the kind of person that I could be if I just… let myself move forward with my life. Accepted the good and the bad.”

Dirk still didn’t look convinced. He glanced away. “I’m not magic, Todd. I’m just… I’m just a man, and I’m annoying and scared and I never know what’s going on, and if you expect that being around me is going to fix everything in your life, I-“

“I don’t. Honestly, I don’t. I think I just… I like being your friend. Dirk, not the weird magic psychic detective from space. Just Dirk.”

Todd let his hand trail down Dirk’s arm, pulling one of his hands up into his, holding it loose enough that Dirk could pull free if he wanted. Dirk squeezed back, softly, but enough that he could feel it.

“What if that’s not enough?” Dirk asked, his eyes latched onto their hands.

“Enough for what?”

“To make up for everything else.”

“What if I asked you the same thing? I’ve done a lot of stupid, fucked up shit in my life, Dirk? I’m still kind of an asshole. Have I earned enough friend points to make up for all that?” 

Dirk huffed. “That’s not the same thing.”

“It is,” Todd said, raising his eyebrow. “We’re both fuckups, Dirk. And, honestly, we’re both probably totally intolerable to every other person on the planet, which means that we’re kind of perfect to be stuck dealing with each other.” Dirk sighed, giving a shrug. “There’s nothing you need to do to earn me being your friend, okay?”

Dirk nodded as a few tears slipped down Dirk’s face. He sniffled and then rubbed his face into Todd’s shirt, drawing a soft laugh out of him.

“Oh sure, you get mad at me for sneezing on you and then go and rub your snot all over my clothes?”

Dirk laughed through his tears. “You’re my assistant. This is what you’re here for.” He pointedly rubbed his nose again.

“I didn’t realize that snot rag was on the list of job duties.”

“It’s a long list, Todd.”

Todd rolled his eyes, unable to force the smile off his face as Dirk gazed back up at him. He carefully wiped the tear tracks off his cheeks with his free hand, his thumb lingering on the edge of Dirk’s jaw.

“Yeah? What else is on there?”

Dirk shrugged, letting out a yawn, and he laid his head back down on Todd’s chest, turning towards the TV. He kept Todd’s hand wrapped in his, settling them in front of his face.

“Pillow, I guess.” 

“I can work with that.” Todd let out a sigh, resting his other hand on Dirk’s back, enjoying the closeness.

“Todd?”

“Hmm?”

“Why does the spaceman have a giant penis rock?”

“What?” Todd opened his eyes and turned to the TV. Sure enough, Captain Kirk was holding a big phallic cave rock for some reason. “Wow, okay. That does look like a big penis.”

Dirk yawned again. “This show is weird.” He nuzzled in closer.

Todd hummed. “You’re weird.”

Dirk snorted; his eyes still closed. “Shut up, Todd. I’ll demote you.”

Todd clicked his tongue. “Oh no, whatever will I do?” he said sarcastically. “But then who will you wipe your nose all over?”

Dirk made a noise back, halfway between a laugh and a breath, but then relaxed, his breaths coming slow and heavy. Todd knew they’d need to get up soon, Dirk would need his next dose of pain medication, and they probably needed to eat something, check on the others, figure out what the hell they were doing next… but for now? 

For now, Todd held Dirk’s hand and rested.