silph_co | open up now (don't you think it's time?)

open up now (don't you think it's time?)

Who: Steven Durante + the other Rockets
Where: Goldenrod Rocket Base in the starter + Tyler's thread, Handsome Jack's place otherwise
When: Late February, immediately after the fossil heist + 10
Summary: Someone is having a quiet crisis following their very first heist! Also, fall-out from some personal revelations + meeting a new Rocket.
Rating: PG-13, with some threads going up to R in terms of language and conversational subjects. ~~Anything too wicked goes to an inbox.~~

Steven Durante's quieter than usual on their way back from Dirk's Fossil Heist. He keeps looking at his hands. And when it comes to turning in the bag of fossils and collecting their rewards, he doesn't even bother asking if he, Connie, and the other Steve will get promotions from this.

Sure, when the time has come for them to claim their weird abomination fossils, he immediately jumps to claiming one the Pokedex claims is called a 'Dracozolt'--but otherwise, he seems unusually subdued. Something is definitely on his mind and has been since... well, even before Steve P and Connie caught up with him and Dirk.

Dirk might be able to hazard a guess as to what's bothering him. Anyone else probably has to ask.

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"I haven't known a self-proclaimed switch who, at the first hint of someone else looking to fill their hole, some actual alpha full-feature top, didn't open up for it like a naked baby bird all agape and begging to be fed."

Dirk's expression doesn't change; if anything, this is just a more high stakes version of the nonexpression that accompanies the sixth tautology in an hour.

His left hand is already in motion, though--a warning sign that he's about to really just talk, just open his mouth and say shit in that relentlessly paced, carefully enunciated elongated drawl, and all just under the human norm for volume.

"What kind of porn are you into that you think it's about being realistic? IS that what you're into? Realistic porn? God damn, no wonder you're repressed.

Porn is the unfettered reaches of the human psyche--the fantasy, the ideal, the unspoken urge. The sensation behind the linguistic antecedent of desire. "I wish," or "I want."

It's the final frontier of the human imagination unbound, without compromise or self-deception.

That's why 'real people' aren't a very popular subject in porn. Real people compromise, lie, practise self-restraint and self-control and whatever other reaches or forms of denial grease the wheels of their immediate and future interactions with the necessary social lubricant. It's the grooves between the teeth of our gears, the animal instinct handicapping the individual for the workings of a greater collaborative machine.

I do it, you do it, we all do it because otherwise 'society' as a structure would have been impossible to build on purpose, let alone organically and even having been built, would break down just as quickly.

And if you want porn of that, I can make that too."

Steven pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay," he says, with a weary sigh. "Okay, I will give you most of that grand unifying theory of porn. Porn does not need to be particularly realistic to get someone's rocks off. Most of the best of it isn't particularly--I never said I was into realism in my porn, merely commenting on how ignorant you've been coming across when talking about real people and how they fuck, not whatever fantastical high concept erotic you produce. I will even accept that you probably don't actually need any real world experience of fucking to produce pornography competently--" Yes, he's pretty damn sure now you're a virgin or at least close to it now, Dirk. "--as god knows how many E-rated fanfics on AO3 have born out."

He leans forward then, lacing his fingers together, and although his tone of voice is outwardly pleasant, the look in his eyes that is anything but.

"However," he says, smiling nastily at Dirk, "you should know that when I asked you if you knew what 'switch' was, I was referring to Jack, not myself. I am not, Dirk Strider, what any man would reasonably call a 'switch.' In the last twenty years of my life, I have hooked up with, and fucked, enough men that I've frankly lost track of the exact number. I could count the number of men who I've allowed to fuck me on the fingers of one hand and still have the thumb left over. One of which, yes, was Jack last night. Because he's earned it. And because he gave a such a damn good dicking that even I, your so-called 'full-featured top,' would be willing to have him balls deep in me again even without my hands on his throat. He is not 'service top in denial' and the fact that he's let me fuck him, again and again, usually quite roughly, is a goddamn privilege and no weakness on his part. Do you understand, Dirk?"

Edited 2020-03-08 03:14 (UTC)

If Steven was hoping for an obvious sign that his words had hit anything meaningful within the vast black hole of Dirk's ego, he's going to be somewhat diappointed. Big changes of expression are rare for him. Mostly this is accidental--raising himself in the absence of all sentient life, some of the more 'natural' human aspects grew stunted or were lost entirely. It's a little on purpose, though. A warrior isn't moved by petty things, and if he were caught off guard (as if), he certainly wouldn't fucking show it.

But as Steven continues, the sheer volume of what he's unloading in Dirk's direction begins to rotate some gears. At first, it's just... like, flexing, he guesses? Steven is bragging, for some reason, to Dirk. The 'why' utterly eludes him, the number of sexual partners divulged galls him, and the rest turns into such an explicit revelation about his and Jack's activities that Dirk can physically feel the empty space behind him where Jack could be at any moment, where some primal shadow reflex of his brain's expects the man to manifest summarily. It's not that he's even afraid of Jack--if anything, the threat here is Steven, and Steven is right in front him.

Jack might be the one who outranks him--and by no small margin--but it's Steven who's threatening him; Steven, who apparently dominates Jack except in the occasion that Jack has earned elsewise, and as that math runs its derivative numbers, it clicks. Jack tops at Steven's discretion. Jack might be top dog in the Rocket hierarchy, but Steven is on top of Jack--literally, as the case may be. Steven is, by telling Dirk this, establishing his role as alpha male.

He gets everything now.

No. Almost everything. Why is Steven taking aim at him? Obviously, on some levels it's not unearned, but--

"Got it." He says, deliberately adopting a level of disaffectedness that passes for nonplussed.

Steven eyes Dirk dubiously. He has a feeling that once again Dirk has pretended to listen to him, didn't actually listen to him, and instead has drawn his own independent and wild-ass conclusion--but as Dirk isn't saying anything else, he can't call him on that. Calling Dirk on anything doesn't actually work, anyway.

"Well. Just keep that in mind," Steven says, firmly, siting back against the couch. His fingers drum on the arm again. "Now. Normally, I would ask you if you wanted to stay for brunch, but considering the things you implied about the man who is doing me the kindness of cooking it..."

Yeah, sorry, Dirk. No pancakes for you.

No judgment, Steven. None at all. Because what Steven and Jack have? That's the one thing about all this that Dirk understands.... keenly, all too keenly. A man you let tap your ass, and you let him in because it's worth it, because he's worth it, or at least you think he is. You hope he is. It certainly feels like he is, when he's--

"The only part of morning after breakfast I'm into is the 'morning after' part," he drawls in fully exaggerated Texan style, his overly-fine enunciation more precise than ever. "So if you're showing me the door? we're in full agreement."

He's on his feet already, but his brain is skipping ahead like stones over the flat, unending ocean, extending out in all directions around him, each bounce off its glimmering surface another point of reference, another framed snapshot of independent recall, another context.

"But if you're trying to drag me some sort of cucked-up caliginous courtship? No fucking way. I don't 'do' blackrom."

Steven drags a hand over his face. "My God," he mutters. "Of course you're a damn Homestuck. You do realize that troll romance is not actually applicable to real life relationships, right?" he adds, a little bit louder.

No, Steven--he was leaving. Let him go.

Those were not words Dirk was expecting to hear.

He actually walks another couple of steps forward before his distracted thoughts--scrambled, unscrambling, disorientating, orienting, disorienting--slot together like gear teeth into perfect waiting grooves.

His eyebrows ascend into his hairline, and they stay up there when he turns back around--very quickly turns back around, actually.

"You know about Homestuck?"

"I mean, I'm old compared to you, but I'm not that old," Steven says. "Yeah, I know about Homestuck. Honestly, I prefer Problem Sleuth... but I know about Homestuck. My baby sister was super into it? She even got me to read part of it, but then I quit around when the trolls showed up, because I couldn't deal with having to wade through all those obnoxious typing quirks. And I ended up learning more about troll romance than I wanted to anyway because sometimes you pick up things about other people's fandoms by osmosis if you're close. Oh God," he realizes, "that's where I've seen that orange you use before. That crow-kid-ghost-thing. Davesprite? Jesus. Tell me you don't go around in grey paint all the time. I remember how much that got everywhere the first time Charley did it when she visited me for Comic-Con."

"Davesprite. Yeah, I remember that guy."

He remembers the hard, sudden pressure--the weight he felt, both internal and external--as that wannabe-god-dog's sword entered and exited his sternum. It was something of a surprise. He'd expected to go down, and to go down fighting. But he hadn't expected that air could feel so immensely heavy on his lungs from the outside. How much a sword slicing through him, how that one smooth, piercing line could feel like... well, like slicing raw meat.

How instan-fucking-taneously you know you've reached death.

He remembers more than that, more personally immediate memories, but he can't forget any of what he knows. And that was pretty much the last thing that version of him knew at all. So it's sort of on his mind.

"But that makes sense. That you wouldn't be super into the later canon if Problem Sleuth was your thing, I mean. I'm guessing you were more into the Intermission?" He's tipped his head back a little, unwittingly. Thinking. Digging around, mentally, in himself. His selves, which are themselves one Self. Or were? Are? Are.

"I don't blame you, frankly. I'm not a big fan of the Trolls myself. And if that weren't bad enough, later there's twice as many, and then another twelve or twenty-four on top of that. The author just started adding more and more characters like that was going to fix his endlessly fucking distracted, supposedly character driven story. It was pretty bad. You definitely missed some key characters, though. The whole flip-it-turnways half of the moebius double reacharound. The Scratched session's A side, because it turned out that session was the B side all along."

"Yeah, the Intermission was great," Steven says. "I was all over the Midnight Crew. But yeah, the trolls were just-- pretty damn insufferable. I mean, the worldbuilding for them that I got second-hand from Charley was interesting and all--she used to tease me that I'd make a good troll, actually, when she wanted to be annoying--but the trolls themselves? Too much of a headache to deal with.

"She did make me watch Cascade with her, though, so I have some vague idea about Scratching? With, like, zero to little context because I'd missed an entire act in between."

.....

"Do you want an explanation? I can give you one. But I'd rather you agree to it beforehand, for reasons that will be apparent if I get to that. Let's call that one the red pill. A little dramatic, maybe. But not undeservedly, at least from where I'm standing. But if you decline, that's the blue pill. I walk out of here, no explanation given."

.......

"... but I already told you my name, so unless you're still all hazy from last night's afterglow, you should be able to figure it out."

Steven looks, really looks at Dirk. At those shades, those goddamn Kamina shades. At that fucking tattoo. And at his self-avowed occupation of 'pornographer.'

The final clue falls into place.

"Oh fuck," he says. "You're Bro Strider."

"I told you, dog."

He says it loose, easy. Like he hasn't been waiting, like this moment wasn't assembling itself, second by second, since the moment he walked in. And so it goes. His other selves absorbed into another self, one self usurped by his overarching identity, his ocean of Self. Does it matter which one he is?

Dirk ("Dirk?") crosses his arms, his face cold and impassive as a stone. It's a bizarre contrast to the emphatic pressure he adds now to his tone. If it is even possible for a man to sound the way artistic keystone Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, the sequential and filmographical masterwork, reads, he has done it.

"Now. What is wrong wish this picture."

Imagine. This man, who over enunciates while he drawls, then mispronouncing a word on purpose.

Beautiful.

But Steven doesn't have to imagine. He got to hear it with his own two human ears.

But what is wrong ~~with~~ wish this picture?

Edited 2020-03-11 02:27 (UTC)

"God, I don't know," Steven says. "I told you, I quit at Act 5. Um. Shit. No hat?"

He's pretty sure that's not the right answer, but in his defense, it's been the better part of a decade since he read any Homestuck.

This is not, admittedly, anywhere near where Dirk expected this conversation to be, five minutes earlier. It's a welcome distraction, actually; the more Steven talked about him and Jack, and the more detail he used--

Well. Dirk doesn't wear anything tight in the crotch and there's a damn good reason for it.

But this? This is... exciting? It's exciting, in a very different way. (Though it's not like he hasn't given himself a narrative boner or two before, just between him and whoever is listening to this. He knows it's someone. Suck that, then. And next time, you can suck it for real.)

He can't deny that he is Bro Strider, that notorious, disreputable man. Stalwart Guardian, the cruel swordsmith and coldhearted mentor forging a hero out of soft flesh. Just as much as he ever was brokenhearted would-be hero Dirk Strider, splintering and splintering again, ad infintum--as he was anything or anyone called Hal, or a Sprite, or old Scratch, or anyone, everyone he could and would ever be, until he was reclaimed into one Self, and there is just no way in hell he can explain that to Steven in a timely manner.

"Like I JUST said. You got to flip it. Turn ways."

Okay, the SBAHJ memes are good. Fantastic, actually. God, but they just never get old, do they?

"I know I rattled off an abbreviated roster, but let's focus on that Scratch. You have four kids, four guardians. Now take the obverse, and you have again four kids and four Guardians. But the obverse is now the reverse, and the wards have become themselves the Wardens."

"Yes, yes, you warned me about the stairs, bro," Steven says with a little roll of his eyes. "So what, you're saying that the whole Scratch thing that was supposed to reboot everything made you the little brother and Dave the big brother." He considers this. "Okay, fine, that makes... as much sense as anything from Homestuck ever did. God, I cannot believe that whole Heinlein thing... god, what was it even called? Number of the Beast? No, wait, that's the book it was in. I cannot believe that whole bullshit where everyone's world is a fiction written by someone in another fictional world is actually correct. My God."

"No, I'm God," Dirk replies 'humourously.' Which is to say, it doesn't sound like humour at all, and if one were to inspect the remark even the slightest bit past the superficial surface, they would find that its purpose is not joking at all.

"And.... yeah that's a largely incorrect but textually recognisable summary of what happened. The truth in spirit, if not in fact."

Pedantic to the end, every single piece of him.

"So, you know about Homestuck. What about the Ghostbusters?
Voltron? My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? We're just one big crossover, moving parts unwillingly displaced by some demented narrator's hamfisted, crayon-scrawled attempt at the so-called transformative work."

It's just as well that Steven can get just as pedantic when it comes to his own interests. He can forgive that in other people more easily that way.

"Yes, yes, and yes?" Steven says, blinking a little. "Though I barely remember Voltron. It went off the air when I was five."

"Yeah, full disclosure: I don't remember the characters we got from that one at all. But I did get an invite to their wedding. Still not clear on the 'why' for that one."

The corners of his mouth turn down and he lifts his hands, see-sawing them to imply a set of scales on which a wedding invite is being measured against the mystery of the happy couple's canonical existence.

Steven shrugs. "Maybe they spammed invitations to all the transplants?"

Dirk shakes his head.

"Don't matter. What matters is, my point is that death of the author? Is very real. The canon is dead, long live the canon. For me, this is only a distraction. And speaking of distractions--" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, towards... how long has Jack been in the kitchen? Was he really cooking all that time?

Dirk's not a chef; he is in fact the absolute opposite of one. He has fairly refined tastes, contrary to popular belief... but cooking? Is not and never has been anything but a huge waste of time, time he could be spending doing something, anything else.

So, how long has Jack been pretending to cook while actually listening?

"I didn't say anything what's a secret, which is great because I don't know how much listening he was doing? That's your problem now."

Edited 2020-03-12 02:06 (UTC)

Steven rolls his eyes, finally standing up from the couch. "You say that as if I haven't been proceeding as if he's listening in the entire time. Goodbye, Dirk. I'll see you to the door."

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open up now (don't you think it's time?)

I wrote this at like 3 am in like a fever dream

THIS COVERSATION IS SO FUCKING R-RATED OH MY GOD

It's cool because Dirk has now drawn the ABSOLUTE WRONG CONCLUSION

oh my fucking god, dirk, WHY

Caliborn, mostly... also nsfw returns

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cw... description of death

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Thank god for THIS icon

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Me: how tf do I wrap a thread

like this!