[Dirk is genuinely both surprised and pleased at that. It isn't the reaction he usually gets -- not that people condemn him for it, exactly. Usually it's just a lot of eye-rolling, though he supposes that has a great deal to do with the precise situations in which he finds himself expressing these sorts of thoughts. It doesn't help if the person to whom he's speaking is already put-upon.
The very great irony, of course, is that he has his own history with the intelligence community. It isn't a good one. It isn't one he's in a position to be proud of -- though his own utter lack of agency means he doesn't have to be ashamed of it, either. If he's anything in respect to it, he's simply afraid. It's a constant, low-grade fear that never quite goes away, as much a part of him now as anything else. That history, needless to say, is fraught.]
I mostly just think I've got no choice, really. Or rather, I have a choice but the alternative isn't a very nice one.
[He's done it before. Could do it again. Sink back into it, let the panic take him over and operate based on that, reactive and animal. Still. He smiles at her almost shyly, caught off-guard by the compliment.]
And I'm sure your bit is a good... bit. The bit that you do. I've always said that it says quite a lot about someone if they're even willing to try.
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[Dirk is genuinely both surprised and pleased at that. It isn't the reaction he usually gets -- not that people condemn him for it, exactly. Usually it's just a lot of eye-rolling, though he supposes that has a great deal to do with the precise situations in which he finds himself expressing these sorts of thoughts. It doesn't help if the person to whom he's speaking is already put-upon.
The very great irony, of course, is that he has his own history with the intelligence community. It isn't a good one. It isn't one he's in a position to be proud of -- though his own utter lack of agency means he doesn't have to be ashamed of it, either. If he's anything in respect to it, he's simply afraid. It's a constant, low-grade fear that never quite goes away, as much a part of him now as anything else. That history, needless to say, is fraught.]
I mostly just think I've got no choice, really. Or rather, I have a choice but the alternative isn't a very nice one.
[He's done it before. Could do it again. Sink back into it, let the panic take him over and operate based on that, reactive and animal. Still. He smiles at her almost shyly, caught off-guard by the compliment.]
And I'm sure your bit is a good... bit. The bit that you do. I've always said that it says quite a lot about someone if they're even willing to try.