victory_road | This road is going nowhere [Closed]

Entry tags:

This road is going nowhere [Closed]

Who: Dirk Strider and Hythlodaeus.... Emet-Selch shows up around comment #80
Where: Goldenrod, XIVhaus Garden
When: August 15th shhh this is forward dated
Summary: Can't believe Dirk is the one cornering someone else for acting weird for once tbh
Rating: PG except for swears? [EDIT] ....convo got nsfw around comment #70

Hours after Dirk finally slept (and then woke up again) while Emet did not, Emet himself falls asleep (the natural way) and Dirk is left... free. Free to wander the house on his own. Free to track down some answers. Or rather, to lie in wait for the source of his questions and then ambush him for said answers.

Hythlodaeus has generously yielded all the clues he needs to establish the location; a sad, dead excuse for a withered 'garden,' comprised though it is of a single dead tree and an open sky, with sunlight streaming from overhead and soft, gently buzzing fuzzbugs by the dozens. No special preparations are required for this--though he does take the time to let Salome out of her Pokeball to circle the sky overhead, it's for his convenience and not out of any desire to threaten the eight-foot neurotic with a jealous magical bird. (In fact, it's for the lack of that desire that he sends her spiralling up and out of human line of sight.)

Then, he just has to wait.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't need a whole lecture about breadmaking or its purposes. Is your point that this is a cultural thing? You can actually just say that. I'm not Steven. You can just say words and they'll actually mean things."

Dirk stops his monotone monologue at that point only so he can turn on the water at the sink and wash his hands; somewhat notably, he doesn't turn on any cold water. Hot water and soap are actually what matter. But he resumes talking almost as soon as the water is off, shaking his hands out over the sink.

"I'm willing to assimilate or whatever if that's what you're trying to achieve here. That's no big deal. Or it is, but not the kind where I'm making an issue out of it. It's flex. I'm a fast learner."

Then he makes a decision he regrets. Taking the dough in both hands with more confidence than he really feels about handling it, he can tell immediately he's going to have flour and dough under his fingernails. He drops it swiftly and unceremoniously on the cutting board.

He pauses over the dull, soft sound of it landing on the flour. He's thinking. Realising another angle.

"Or is this what you meant about me giving Emet what you would be giving him? Making lunch?"

“It is cultural, of course. There is no such thing as a man who does not bake, for there is no such thing as a man who does not care for his family, friends, or lovers,” he says with a smile.

He laughs at the jab at Steven. “Forgive me, I merely wanted to speak clearly.” And then he watches him drop the dough on the board and he tilts his head ever so slightly.

“It is a component, perhaps. But I needn’t be his lover to make him lunch. This is merely a piece of home, a piece of his identity that has slipped through his fingers for eons.”

And after a moment he looks at him.

“I have gloves, if you would like.”

"....home, huh."

Is that even a good idea? Giving Emet a taste of home... literally, under the guise of caring for him and his needs.

Superficially, it makes complete sense.

But when he thinks about it--

"Yeah, I can see why you'd think that. It's probably not your fault, either, so I want to avoid sounding any more judgmental of you than I was before you said it. But your definition of caring is pretty narrow."

Dirk doesn't move to take the dough; he stands with his arms down, staring down at the oblongated shape, breathing the scent of wheat flour and yeast.

"I don't think it's possible for you to know what that really means, not when you're from a literal uthopia. I'm just going to sound cruel. But I guess I'll have to explain this. See, I was all set to go along with this when I thought this was just a cultural exchange, sort of an Amaurotine lifestyle sharing hour or what-have-you. But now that you've explained the motivation behind it... I just can't agree with the idea that providing Emet with any taste of the home he doesn't have now is 'caring' at all. It's the exact fucking opposite. "

Edited 2020-08-16 03:30 (UTC)

Hythlodaeus walks up next to him, leaning an elbow on the counter with his head on his palm. He blinks at him for a solid five seconds with his eyebrows raised. His voice is sharp and quiet.

"Oh, I apologize. See, I had thought with how well I knew Hades, the breadth of my experience and the enmeshing of our very consciousnesses might give me a little insight into that which will allow him to continue on." He licks his lower lip as he eyes the dough.

"When he leaves, when he dies, he will never have home ever again. The last living person from his home has lost his mind, and I don't believe the Underworld has any bakeries." He folds his hands together and peers at him out of the corner of his eye.

"At this rate, it's going to over-proof. Now. Would you like gloves?"

Edited 2020-08-16 04:14 (UTC)

This is the time when a normal person's eyebrows would snap together, or the corners of their mouth would pull down. Maybe their expression would set with resolve or darken with another, stronger emotion that would really fit the mood.

Dirk's face doesn't do any of that, though. And as close as Hythlodaeus is, as close as his stare is, he doesn't touch him.

Better.

He can work with this.

"I don't know what that means. But I didn't say I wouldn't do it."

Eschewing gloves, he takes the bread in his hands--it's possible he's being more forcefully than necessary, but Jane was strong too, and he distinctly remembers her putting muscle into it. She's his only model for this, but now that he's actually trying to mimic it, he's glad it was her.

At least she wasn't a literal goddamn giant like Jake fucking English.

...fuck, he should have taken the gloves.

"What you want and what I want aren't necessarily at odds, but our approaches are not and can not be the same. I don't want to fill his heart with nostalgia. I don't even know what that feels like. But it wouldn't benefit me--or, from my perspective, him."

He's starting to knead the dough— finally. Good. He begins his mental timer as they speak. He pulls up a stool and takes a seat, closing the gap in their height, at least. He can still lean on the counter like this, though.

"It refers to the amount of time the yeast has to work. If you wait too long, it won't be flat anymore," he says softly. "And then we'll have to start over."

He watches his technique. He at least has the mechanical idea of how to do it.

"As for matters of his heart, there sits a sorrow so boundless that these gestures merely serve to hold it all together just... just long enough and naught more. I would not exist if not for his soul-deep longing, after all. His concept of comfort is... Is this. He has shaped his respite with his own hands, should we not respect this?"

"Good question. Let me ask you a different one. If the emotions that make up the foundation of this lunch ritual mean nothing to me, can my taking part in this actually constitute anything resembling 'respect?'"

Fuck. Thank... well, Himself. Not for this dough, although in a way that's exactly what Dirk has to thank for this.

But while it does help to have something repetitive to do with his hands, the real relief is that he's finally fucking talking. Why did he have to make this so hard? For what? It doesn't matter, but it's still frustrating to have to go to these lengths just to have an honest conversation.

"The hypocrisy alone is disrespectful enough. It's even worse if I actually fool him into thinking that it's not. Which I can't do. Both because I'm not that kind of person and because, frankly, he already reads me like a book. I mean that literally. Anyone else? Sure. No problem. But Emet isn't stupid. He's not naive enough to believe that this was made with love or sincerity. Not from me."

.... the way the flour and flecks of remnant dough stick to his hands is distracting as shit.

"The willing assimilation, even begrudging cooperation with me is enough to pay respect to it. For all that the years have worn on him, Hades is culturally very Amaurotine, and so he values little more than coadjuvancy between peers," he says softly.

"Surely, he must know that in spite of the simple nature of this task, the proceeding moments were not." He freshens the hot towel as he nudges the bowl towards Dirk. "Now we allow it to rest for ten minutes," he says with an inscrutable smile.

"And beyond that, learning this allows you to create the most precious thing, in fact, the only thing we can truly take with us to the Underworld: fond memories."

There's... a lot to say. A lot to disagree with. And it almost happens. Dirk almost turns on Hythlodaeus to make his point. But in the end, the amount of personal revelation, the amount of personal investment necessary to take Hythlodaeus to task for it all... is a price he isn't willing to pay up front.

"Your underworld," Dirk reminds him, keeping his tone short.

"So we're talking about Emet's memories, that's fine. It's whatever. But I don't want you making assumptions about what I have planned, or what's in store for me. There's a lot you don't know, and we've already been over that more times than we ever should have needed to."

And with that, he goes to wash his hands (again), a task which takes significantly longer this time around. He's fully occupied with that until every last trace of dough, flour, and detritus is gone.

"My Underworld. The only one that I am truly aware of and attuned to," he adds. He watches him meticulously wash his hands and makes a mental note to offer gloves for the next kneading.

"I have no assumptions about what you might have planned," he says as he takes a seat on a floor cushion. He sorts through his stack of drawings, ranging from life drawings of his cutiefly or tropius, to heretofore unseen erotic horsemen, to some that look like Hades jammed through a twink filter. "And it would be inappropriate for me, as a dead man, to comment on the living."

Not that it would actually stop him.

"...And to be fair, we've only gone over it because you've wanted to reinforce the idea. But that is neither here nor there. You are a private man after a fashion. Come. Let us enjoy that which we have in common."

In Hythlodaeus' full defence, he did offer gloves. More than once, in fact. He just happened to do so while Dirk's attention was occupied elsewhere.

Which also wasn't his fault, no more than any of the other times he's stepped directly onto one of the innumerable mines Dirk's psyche has buried in and around just about every topic under the sun.

Dirk doesn't really respond, instead devoting his concentration to his own thoughts as he straps his fingerless black gloves onto each hand again. Once he's done, however, he does make his way to where Hythlodaeus is seated and finds a spot for his own ass.

"You haven't gotten to the point of calling me a total joykill yet. I'm impressed."

"I don't find you a joykill," he says in utter earnestness.

"...Are you a joykill?" he asks, managing to stuff some genuine surprise into the tail end of that.

He shuffles the drawings, landing on one of the more nostalgic ones. It is a clearly a scene from his memory, of Hades gazing through the window looking about twenty years younger, yet as his own "before" picture in a protein powder advertisement.

Yet the other things are still in full view if Dirk does not wish to stroll down memory lane. There are unmarked vials not six feet away, a stack of presumably now stolen library books, and a small carved wooden box.

Dirk has never wanted to look at anything less in his life than Emet drawn as some kind of willowy, waifish boyman. He will, however, pretend(?) to be interested in Hythlodaeus' choice of reading material--something could probably be said about Dirk's inability to distinguish work and play.

And he would disagree immediately with whatever that something is.

"That's the metaversal consensus. I'm not saying I necessarily agree, but I'm letting you know now. Feel free to bail whenever it gets to be too much. It won't hurt my feelings or nothing."

And with that, he reaches past the art to snag a psychology book, flipping it open to a bookmarked page.

"I tend to see things differently than my peers," he says with a little shrug. "And others have implied similar of Hades." And yet, he has gone nowhere.

Hythlodaeus will absolutely not press the twink Hades picture, his eyes instead following Dirk's hands. He makes no move to stop him, as curiosity should be encouraged and rewarded. Dirk has a 50/50 chance of ending up on the entry for ASPD or ASD. Hythlodaeus shuffles the drawings again, leaving a fairytale-esque one of the cutieflies rendered in soft charcoal on top.

"Curious books, with half of the diagnostic criteria being comprised of flawed flags and merciless marks written as if they were unaware of the society that formed them. I don't take them much too seriously, but they are useful enough to understand the impacts of this imperfect world on those with neither the time nor resources to address and heal."

Dirk is aware of Hythlodaeus' actions in his peripheral vision, tucking his observation away in his own mental filing system. He actually half expects the man to try and redirect him or distract him using the sheaf of drawings, but nothing of the sort happens. Not yet, anyway.

The pages he's opened to cover 'antisocial personality disorder.'

Dirk has a superficial awareness of the term, mostly in the context of pre-apocalyptic Earth's various social media platforms. Sometimes he got restless enough to try re-excavating the fossilised corpses of those titans out of the ancient internet, mostly in search of more of his Bro's lore and legacy. He's only half listening to Hythlodaeus' opinions on the book's contents, really. Not so much because he's busy reading but because he just doesn't care all that much about the whys and wheres of ideas that have nothing to do with reality. So there's something of a lag before he responds, and when he does it's only tangentially related.

".... I knew a guy like this."

He rests his head on his hands, giving him a placid sort of look.

"I am a guy like this," he says, letting his smile shrink.

This, this right here is very interesting for Hythlodaeus. Steven had learned this about him and had a breakthrough. How will Dirk react to it? Disgust? Fear? Rejection? Or might this be his bridge again?

...He's sure in either case he would try to mask his reaction, so he watches him closely for any physical indications or otherwise.

Dirk doesn't look at Hythlodaeus. Not immediately. He's still poring over the pages, reading and making mental comparisons--trying to draw lines between the text, Hythlodaeus, and Caliborn.

He goes over the diagnostic criteria again, and then again before saying anything.

"..... I don't see it," he says at last, his tone flat and nonplussed.

Not that he doesn't necessarily believe it--Hythlodaeus has been enough of an unpredictable, manipulative shit-stirrer that he can get a glimpse of where Hythlodaeus might think that, albeit in a very 'there has to be a better match than this' kind of way.

"How is that even relevant to you, when Amaurot didn't have crime?"

Edited 2020-08-18 01:47 (UTC)

He wasn't listening when he was qualifying the content of the books, was he? Just as well.

Hythlodaeus gives a little laugh.

"Forgive me for answering a question with a question, but do you think that the structures of the brain are only relevant by how a society classifies them?"

He casts his eyes to the page that he read, bookmarked, and nearly memorized.

"...And you don't see it only because I don't want you to."

"Claiming you fooled me is kind of pathetic. You know that, right? Ten minutes ago, I didn't even know what this thing was." He gestures at the book with an open hand, his fingers held together and straight from his gloved, upright palm. He turns that question over, though, the corner of one side of his mouth pulled down a bit.

The only thing he knows about living in a society.... is not ever having done so. The various ways that Beforan and then Alternian societies were custom-made to smother and brutalise the psyches of their inhabitants is only so useful here.

"I don't think that's wrong. The individuals that make up a society don't control what their brains evolved to be, or whether that society was tailored to hinder or develop that brain and vice versa. And it probably only ever occurred to them in the context of 'society.'"

"I did not claim to fool you, but I do hide parts of myself— as we all do. You merely claimed to not believe that there are words on that page that describe me enough to be true, or... Rather, that you disagree?" He taps his lower lip with a finger as his eye slide upward to just look past the other.

"And while the ways my mind work did not pose problems for me in Amaurot, I find that they do here. The people here are little more than animals as times, so beholden to their own distraught survival that they only harm themselves and one another. This society, while gentler than others that the transplants have faced, is still far from ideal."

"Caliborn was my friend," Dirk's tone is condescendingly factual, though he's regarding the book again through his shades, "back when I still had or needed those."

The Muse had projected a deranged resemblance to her brother onto him, a claim so patently false that it's hard to imagine any intelligent audience falling for it. Or it would be, but he knows that she's a persuasive force for 'good' for the exact same reason he is not, no matter what he says otherwise. Her hypocrisy is as nauseating as it is endless.

The binary nature of cherubs traces back to the human race, but even Dirk knows that the psychology of a cherub is in no way comparable to a human's.

The truth, though, is that no matter what Caliborn was to Dirk--and he was a lot of things, friend and otherwise--Dirk was, without a shred of doubt, the best friend that Caliborn actually had. Which is why things turned out the way they did.

"He was compatible with me, I guess you could say, in all the ways that you aren't." A judgmental beat, flattened and blunted by impassive tones. "Unless that's what you're hiding from me."

Caliborn didn't hide much.

"But don't let me interrupt you. You were obviously going somewhere with that."

"I will try to be concise, I would hear more of where you would like to go with your point," he says, his grin pulling wide.

"I mean only that I accept you, though I do not know you yet. For I, too, have more difficult aspects of my personality. The difference is that I have always known love and acceptance."

He collects the drawings into a neat stack and sets them aside.

"Tell me of your friend and our differences."

Dirk's heavily furrowed brow peaks in the middle, where the two creases threaten to touch.

"Were you trying to flex on me?"

"...Forgive me, I feel as if I misunderstand you in this moment that it could be much worse. If you could reword for my benefit..."

Dirk's brows remain furrowed as he stares at Hythlodaeus.

"Forget it."

If it was a flex, it's a really shitty one. So whatever Hythlo's intended message, it was spectacularly ineffective. Whatever. He has better things to worry about.

(Which doesn't stop him from worrying about it, he'll just keep those thoughts to himself for now.)

"The thing about Caliborn is that he was a remorselessly self-serving character," he says instead. "He never pretended otherwise, to anyone. Even when he was lying, you always knew it. He wasn't slick. Mostly he came off as crude and stupid, but he was cunning about it and he got shit done. Even when that shit was objectively heinous, which it usually was."

Calliope, on the other hand... always saw both her ends and means as benevolent. Next to Caliborn, she radiated innocence and sincerity, giving her an appearance of overall 'goodness' that proved as illusory as it was insidious.

"You, on the other hand, claim to be self-serving, but also that your serlf-service is actually serving Emet, and then you feign ignorance and confusion when questioned, if you don't outright change the subject. It's fucking annoying."

Edited 2020-08-19 00:38 (UTC)

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This could have had introspection but this was funnier

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