S̶v̶l̶a̶d̶ ̶C̶j̶e̶l̶l̶i̶ Dirk Gently (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cacoethical) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nysalogs2018-03-22 09:36 pm
cacoethical) wrote in nysalogs2018-03-22 09:36 pm
Entry tags:
[closed]
Who: Dirk Gently (cacoethical) ; various and sundry.
What: Hostage plot aftermath/general catch-all.
When: Throughout March
Where: Various
Warning(s): Probable mentions of violence and death.
cacoethical) ; various and sundry.What: Hostage plot aftermath/general catch-all.
When: Throughout March
Where: Various
Warning(s): Probable mentions of violence and death.
john;
It's fortune -- good or bad, wanted or unwanted -- that he happens to be here when John does arrive. He came to be by himself, to sit in the main room running his the fingertips of his left hand thoughtfully over the bruised, scraped knuckles of his right, thoughtful. Perturbed. He dislikes this trend of violence in himself. He's never indulged it before. The thought that it might be becoming easier makes his stomach lurch with shame and that's a feeling he needs to negotiate in isolation. It's still a relief when he hears the door open, when he can crawl out of his own skull.
Dirk looks up at John with a small smile, a furrow in his brow -- it's a tentative expression, wounded and weary, sympathetic, but still a warm one, infused with relief. He doesn't, however, know what to say. He searches through a few seconds of uncharacteristic silence, and finds something as good as anything, perhaps better than some:]
Have you been getting any sleep?
no subject
but he needs to pack a bag. a week or so of clothes to keep him in motion until the time comes either to stop or to come back for more. so here he is, opening the door, hoping to make a quick visit and out again, gone before anyone even knows he was here, maybe leave a note— and there's Dirk.
for a second too long, John's frozen in the doorway, a fugitive spotting a security camera when he thought he was safe from prying eyes. it's long enough to clock the look on Dirk's face, the signs of injury and upset and kindness, to register his own responding guilt and a matching relief (and fear) - none of which he has it in him to dwell on. in, out. that was the plan. that's still the plan. without his attention on it, his expression drops and softens out, something sad and small. then John's mouth hitches into whatever tired smile it can manage, not bothering to conceal the exhaustion - no point, and it's the lesser of the evils, so why not play up to it? - and he crosses the room, breezing past to collect a jumper left over the back of his usual chair. ]
Enough, yeah. [ enough to look like he's managed maybe a few hours in all the time he's been gone. enough. ] I'm not here for long. Sorry. There's a lot to do.
no subject
He feels small as he stands, still tracing the tender edges of his bruised knuckles. This isn't his strong point, really. Bridging gaps. He's not adept at it. Arguably nobody else he knows is either, but… well, it feels something approximating natural to echo Todd:]
You can talk to me, you know.
[There's that little smile again, accompanied by the ghost of a shrug.]
I mean, you don't have to, obviously. I certainly couldn't blame you if you didn't.
[There's a great deal he could say that probably wouldn't be welcome, or even necessarily kind. He doesn't. This is something people occasionally seem to miss: kindness is a conscious practice and one he occasionally has to work hard to enact. Occasionally he fails. That's not a risk he particularly cares to take, so he lets the offer stand for now, hover in the air between them like an offered hand.]
no subject
his hand's gripped tight around the back of his chair, arm stretched like his body's doing its best to pull him away, up the stairs. he doesn't go. John drags a breath in through his nose, audible in the quiet of the room.
it's not fair to do this to Dirk. John can't talk to him, hasn't stopped long enough to really talk to himself about any of it yet, but he doesn't have to shut him out. ]
Did you get looked over? [ doesn't matter, not the point. John turns back to him, paying proper attention for the first time since he walked in the door. since the last time he caught a glimpse of him after the mess of the rescue. ] I've got some things here. I'll give you a check up.
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Can you do it laying down?
[It is beyond transparent that John needs some sleep, but Dirk isn't actually pushing the issue. Immediately following that brief needling, and with a wan smile, he relents.]
I'm fine; there was just a... thing.
[An airy fluttering of the hand. It goes without saying that the whole affair was fairly disastrous, but Dirk has come out of it reasonably unharmed by his standards.]
Someone threw a thing at me. But--
[A small, one-shouldered shrug.]
If it would make you feel better, by all means.
[He shrugs out of his jacket with a sigh, slinging it haphazardly over the back of the sofa... and pauses, raising a hand to point at John, accusatory.]
Hang on, have you eaten?
no subject
John's about to comment that he saw the hit Dirk threw back in payment for the orb, but Dirk's moving ever on, and soon enough there's a new obstacle to contend with between himself and making sure Dirk's arm came out of combat alright. John huffs out a sigh. but since Dirk mentions it, actually, he hasn't eaten properly in days.
and passing out from a lack of both sleep and nutrition isn't going to help anyone.
so he'll concede this one, though he looks put-out to do it. ]
No. Not recently. [ and then, with sudden energy. ] But if you're making something, don't think that's getting you out of this check-up. I can't believe to didn't get someone to check you over.
[ he can, but that's besides the point. the point is that he's got a doctor for a housemate now, and he should've known better. (the point is that John should've been there, should've sort him out, should've made sure he was okay - didn't.) ]
no subject
[Hand over heart. Cross it and hope to die and all that. But he's still procuring... something. Something edible, even. Dirk and cooking are generally best kept separate from one another, but they've got to have some kind of food that even he can't ruin somewhere. John can follow him to the kitchen if he's really so intent on looking him over.
He does, as he passes, give a more honest response over his shoulder, though:]
I'd appreciate it if you didn't take this personally, but I really don't like doctors.
[Better to wait to be poked and prodded at by someone he can trust if it's got to happen at all, is the point.]
Anyway, I've had way worse. Are you coming?
[It's not really a question so much as a hidden imperative: you'd best be. He sets to rifling through the kitchen, rather more thoughtfully than the task actually requires, though this is because he's attempting to accomplish two things at once: decide on what to (attempt to) make, and decide on what to say. How to broach the subject. The big one. John obviously doesn't want to, and that's fine, but doesn't change Dirk's opinion on the matter, which is that he really should. With someone, if not him. And so, finally, addressing the inside of a cupboard as much as anything:]
You know, I threw a shark at someone once.
no subject
and somehow, somehow, Dirk continues to manage to blindside him after over half a year of expecting to be blindsided. the look on his own face must be a picture, but he does try to school it before Dirk turns back from the cupboard. ]
... Right.
[ that's... not much of a response, but there are only so many ways to react to a revelation like that. and he's having quite a time of visualising how something like throwing a shark at someone might happen while simultaneously knowing Dirk's probably not hyperbolising, so. ]
That must've been -
[ been what, exactly? John absolutely doesn't have a clue what that must've been, and the attempt at summarising stops there. ]
no subject
[An easy agreement - there are a number of ways that sentence could terminate and all of them are apt.]
Mind you, I didn't know it was a shark when I threw it. I certainly didn't know it was going to bite that man in half.
[He pauses in his puttering, setting a plate down with a plunk before turning around and leaning easily against the counter, arms crossed loosely across his chest. That that had effectively been homicide, however accidental, was something he hadn't allowed to register at first. He'd played cavalier. There had been bigger concerns.
And then there weren't. There was just his spartan cell and nothing but his own thoughts.]
That happens. Around me. That sort of thing. I do try to stay ahead of it, but…
[Dirk opens his mouth wordlessly, looks away, and shakes his head.]
Todd said I have to make bigger choices. And I do, or I've tried, but that's much easier in hindsight.
[He isn't saying that this one might as well be his fault, though that's certainly a possibility that concerns him. What he is saying is that sometimes it's nobody's fault, exactly, awful though that is in its own distinct way. He's also saying, in a roundabout way, that John really can talk to him, if and when he chooses, because Dirk understands better than one might be given to expect.]
Which isn't particularly fair, is it?
[On the other hand… on the other hand he's more than willing to lay the blame on his own shoulders, or on this nebulous bubble of causality that surrounds him, if it will make John feel better. He doesn't say as much. Doesn't care to. Just lingers a few seconds longer wearing a small, sad smile before turning back to the task at hand.]
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it's not really until the mention of hindsight that things start to click. I didn't know it was going to— mm. ]
No. Well. You know what they say about hindsight.
[ she's not that nice.
he— truly can't navigate this. the conversation calls for both providing sympathy and being soothed, opens a door John wants to shut firmly but doesn't want to slam in Dirk's face. all told, he doesn't even really want to touch the door. but it's there now, standing ajar, and if he doesn't do this quickly they'll be walking past it for as long as he stays and he can't handle that either.
it's only because Dirk's back is turned that he can bear to open his mouth about it in the first place. ]
Look, I— [ fingers rolling in and out of a fist, John looks at the floor for a second or two before trying again. ] I'm assuming you're. [ another false start. Jesus Christ. ]
I— can't. I can't.
[ Dirk's not forcing it, John knows that, but it's - it's better to say that now. because it's not that it's him, it really isn't. it's that it's anyone. it's that John is who he is. it's that he's been running himself into the ground and he hasn't had time and maybe that's all been entirely on purpose but he can't yet, he can't even begin. ]
no subject
[It isn't that Dirk is unwilling to force conversations he thinks need to happen -- quite the contrary. It's just that this one certainly deserves a grace period. Indefinite, probably. So... fine. He gives an eloquent little wave of the hand, an expertly-measured touch of flippancy to counterbalance the glance over his shoulder: I am paired with it's fine.
Back to busy. Pan on to heat. He can cook eggs, surely. If nothing else, the sense that he ought to be giving John his privacy is doing wonders for Dirk's ability to concentrate on the task at hand.]
I've just found that you can't shut it out and you can't outrun it, and it's best you've got your strength if you're going to face it head-on.
[It being the guilt, the responsibility, but also the rippling repercussions, which he owns may be particular to his own experience. Either way, running into walls helps nobody.]
I particularly recommend keeping an eye out for crossbows.
[There again, a measured dose of flippancy. Whatever else it is, this conversation is certainly an instruction in the Dirk Gently method of coping.]
Which, in my experience, come from the front. One of the few things less obvious in hindsight, though that might've been the blood loss. Anyway, like I told Todd once, together we can look in two places at once, so I expect we'll be fine. I expect I can even keep watch while you sleep, for that matter.
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this isn't the time to tell Dirk that this isn't his first rodeo, either. that would mean explaining why some deaths roll like water off a duck's back and understanding the various ways in which this isn't that. that would mean talking about it. that would mean completely missing the point of what it is he's being told— that he's going to have to confront it sooner or later. that Dirk's happy and able to help him when he does - and before.
speaking of before - and John knew it would happen, this is exactly why he didn't come back - he's tired. really, desperately tired. he wants to take Dirk up on the offer. company, safety. just a nap. just something. ]
— How are you doing them?
[ the eggs.
he's terrified. it's something he doesn't know how to share. ]
no subject
Until finished, I think.
[By which he means that if John is banking on his ability to, for instance, not break the yolks, he may have to live with sore disappointment. On the other hand, this is a thing Dirk has been working on in his down time, now that he has down time. Not eggs specifically, but cooking in general, which is an odd sort of luxury but one he's relishing nonetheless.]
How would you like them?
[Because he can try. That's the aim of all this. Trying. Dirk pats the countertop alongside him in invitation. If John's going to be particular, it's probably best that he observes the proceedings. That, and Dirk can't quite shake the impression that John is still considering bolting, which strikes him as wildly counterproductive by any measure. This as much as anything else is why he continues chattering in the interim:]
You know, for a long time I had no idea why I was how I was. Why I'd get feelings about things, what I was supposed to do with them. Someone told me I'm meant to set things right. Fix what's broken. Put people where they're meant to be.
[He gives John an earnest glance, eyes wide, accompanied by an almost mischievous little smile.]
And I've got this feeling at the moment that you're meant to be here eating eggs, and then you're meant to be getting some rest.
[This is, of course, utter nonsense -- or at least, it's not something Dirk needs the universe to tell him. He's still not above attempting this approach, nor shooting John another glance to see how well it's working.]