Dirk Strider (Ultimate) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
uber_marionettist) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
victory_road2021-01-19 10:59 pm
uber_marionettist) wrote in victory_road2021-01-19 10:59 pm
I hold my breath and count to ten [CLOSED]
Who: Dirk Strider, Claude von Riegan, Dimitri Blaiddyd, Felix Fraldarius. Later maybe Grant Abaroa, Chip Abaroa, and/or Syvlain Gautier.
When: Very technically Sunday 17th of January
Where: Goldenrod, home of Jane Crocker
What: Dirk doesn't see Jane at the Contest, and handles it like an extremely normal person
Dirk Strider is notoriously awful at insight to his own actions, and therefore at attributing motive or cause to the actions of others. This is known. It's also known that his ability to 'do' more than one thing or 'be' in more than one way at any given time... is, uh, also awful.
But when when it comes to noticing detail, or the simple matter of raw observational as a cumulative habit, he often excels. Some call this 'paranoia' or 'hypervigilance' or simply 'anxiety,' but he calls it--well, no one cares what he calls it. The point is: not seeing Jane at a Contest centred on the art of cooking?
Suspect.
But doing the "normal," or "sane" thing about that (in this case, texting her, or giving her a call) doesn't occur to him. Instead, he watches the afterparty, and the network, and eventually makes his way to her house. His preferred method of entry would involve letting himself in through a window, but he's hampered byBaby's First Leg Cast a temporary disability. Again: it does not occur to him to knock.
Instead, he schleps it all the way to her front door at about three in the morning, through snow and over ice, and leans on one of his crutches while he gets busy using both hands to pick the lock.
Dirk Strider is not what we would call 'mannerly.' But at least he cares.
We think.
When: Very technically Sunday 17th of January
Where: Goldenrod, home of Jane Crocker
What: Dirk doesn't see Jane at the Contest, and handles it like an extremely normal person
Dirk Strider is notoriously awful at insight to his own actions, and therefore at attributing motive or cause to the actions of others. This is known. It's also known that his ability to 'do' more than one thing or 'be' in more than one way at any given time... is, uh, also awful.
But when when it comes to noticing detail, or the simple matter of raw observational as a cumulative habit, he often excels. Some call this 'paranoia' or 'hypervigilance' or simply 'anxiety,' but he calls it--well, no one cares what he calls it. The point is: not seeing Jane at a Contest centred on the art of cooking?
Suspect.
But doing the "normal," or "sane" thing about that (in this case, texting her, or giving her a call) doesn't occur to him. Instead, he watches the afterparty, and the network, and eventually makes his way to her house. His preferred method of entry would involve letting himself in through a window, but he's hampered by
Instead, he schleps it all the way to her front door at about three in the morning, through snow and over ice, and leans on one of his crutches while he gets busy using both hands to pick the lock.
Dirk Strider is not what we would call 'mannerly.' But at least he cares.
We think.
no subject
Is he? Yes.
More important than either of those facts, though, is that it's almost dead silent at 3 AM, and Claude knows the sound of a lock being picked quite intimately. It was the sort of thing he'd learned to sleep light listening for as a kid, and some things stick with you all your life when the duration of that life depends on it.
So when he hears that telltale metallic scratching and scraping, soft but rhythmically determined, it rolls up his spine like a buzzsaw. He's on his feet in an instant, almost before he's remembered that, oh, right, there's no assassins in this world. That'd be pretty stupid, since there's seemingly no death in this world. Also, no one cares about his political position here, so no one's got any reason to come after him here.
He relaxes somewhat.
Then he remembers distinctly pissing off and getting noticed by some members of Team Rocket, and he unrelaxes maybe halfway.
Well, in any case, whatever's going on, something needs to be done about this.
Moving with the quiet of someone who's had to hide from some very unpleasant individuals in his day, Claude slinks down the hall to the nearest bedroom, which happens to be the one Sylvain and Felix are sleeping in. He lightly shakes Felix, who he judges to be the one to snap awake the quickest and ask the fewest questions.
"Hey," he whispers, giving him a smile with edge to it. "Someone's picking the lock on the front door. I've got it, but be on standby, okay?"
And then, without waiting for a response, he's slipping out of the room and back down the hall to the door. A hand goes to his PokéBalls, considering his options...ah, yes.
He unlocks the door and opens it in quick movements with one hand, while the other presses the button on one PokéBall. He looks down on the man kneeling in front of the open door with a slightly manic smile. "Can I help you?" he asks, in the voice of someone who is actually asking just what the fresh fuck do you think you're doing?
And behind Claude, looming over his trainer by a solid foot and a half and glaring stark red death down at Dirk, is Arbiter the Corviknight.
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One, he's little spoon, and if he gets up too fast he'll wake up Sylvain.
Two, the person shaking him awake is Claude.
Still, the look on Claude's face says something's wrong, and his words confirm it. He says nothing, just gives the other man a short nod before carefully prying himself out of Sylvain's arms. Varley lifts her head and opens her eyes with a questioning look, and Felix gestures for her to follow.
By the time Felix--shirtless and annoyed, hair down and sword in hand--joins Claude downstairs with a hungry-looking Liepard in tow, the giant bird is glaring at someone outside. Felix can't see them yet--too much bird in the way--but he doesn't need to. Not until Claude gives him the signal. So he sticks to the shadows away from the door, lingering near the stairs.
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He doesn't flinch, or startle, or even pause so much as he simply stops what he's doing.
Stands there, still braced upright on the lefthand crutch, his right crutch propped up against the doorframe. A fat, immobilising cast engulfs the lower half of his right leg.
"....yeah, actually. I got a little problem." He deadpans in a tone not-quite-casual-enough, lagging a little on the recognition of the man in the doorway.
Give him a second, it'll come to him.
"You can start by telling me who the fuck you are and why you're in in Jane Crocker's house."
I am so glad I waited to tag this just so Akane's inbox post got here in time
It also sparks a memory in his mind, and he cocks an eyebrow.
"My friends and I are here by her invitation, not that I think I really need to justify myself to a guy trying to break into her place." He decides to try his luck. "So...you'd be Dirk Strider, then?"
It's a shot in the dark, but not much of one. How many guys in casts are likely to be running around amongst the otherworlders of Johto?
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"Yeah, that's one of the things that people call me. Now who the fuck are you and where the fuck is Jane." The lefthand corner of his mouth twitches in a way that leaves it unclear whether it's turning up or down--but he's most assuredly not happy about this new twist.
"And just so we're clear, I'm going to make it extremely your problem if you don't answer me."
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"Claude, he's a friend of Jane's. That doesn't explain why he's breaking in instead of knocking on the door like anyone else, though."
"And you." He turns to Dirk, now. "Jane invited us to stay here. She's been asleep for days. We don't know what's wrong. We couldn't wake her up. And you should recognize Claude, you're the one who attacked him with your Pokemon and a sorry excuse for a weapon."
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Then he lifts a hand and grips Felix's shoulder. Not painfully, just - firmly.
"Sunshine," he says conversationally, still not looking away from Dirk, "light of my life, are you telling me you just formally introduced me, face to face, to the Team Rocket candy cane assassin? You know, in case they didn't already know who I was and where to find me right now?"
Then - without his eyes ever actually having left Dirk, they still seem to focus back in on him more as he goes back to giving him his undivided attention. "And you - you could at least have said 'you're welcome' for the horse head puppet while you were trying to brain me." Yes, Dirk, you've met your Secret Santa. It's just Santas all the way down. If Claude's off-balance, then he intends to take everyone here with him, so help him Sothis.
He runs a hand through his hair. "Well, since we've gotten the uncomfortable, unwanted, and unnecessary introductions out of the way...yes, what Felix said is broadly correct. She invited us to stay with her to hide out from some annoying consequences of the Snorunt visits from awhile back, on top of her porch being mobbed by Zigzagoons every night and her being creeped out about it. She said having people around helped. But then one morning she just...kept sleeping. We would've moved on by now, but it didn't feel right to leave her like this." Claude shoots Felix a look. "Why you're finding out like this when apparently Felix knew you and that you're friends with her isn't something I can answer. There's some details here I'm definitely only learning just now."
His voice has that particular pleasant lilt that suggests there will be a Talk about this later, when company has left.
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There are so many moving parts and shifting attitudes (good, bad, and downright comic) that Dirk legitimately wishes he could get this down in Narrative form. Thank fuck for Felix, apparently. Claude may think he's got Dirk's number, but Dirk's already making some quick judgments of his own, including one in which he notes that Felix is definitely the brains of this outfit.
It is a little funny that Claude (it was Claude, right?) legitimately thinks that Team Rocket couldn't have found him if they gave even the faintest fartwhiff of a fuck about who he was. It's even funnier (and more inconvenient, and therefore more annoying) that he thinks Dirk cares that much, but he can put that to bed in a moment.
"Holy shit. Normally I'd be more into the banter part, like: 'what happened to your skirt?' 'Did Santa bring you anything good, or just promote you to Head Elf?' Maybe add something about how I couldn't get in through the window with my leg broken, or how knocking is how Jane would know I've been bodysnatched and to run and get the battlespork. But you two are lucky I'm here. Now unblock the doorway with your bodies and let me in, it's fucking cold and I'm about to have to do a lot of talking."
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As for Dirk, this whole thing strikes Felix as utterly ridiculous. He scoffs. "It didn't strike you as awkward to break into your own friend's home after failing to notice she was unresponsive for days. Something else that isn't my problem. We stayed to make sure she was safe. Since apparently her friends couldn't be bothered to check on her."
Then he arches a brow. "The threat of you doing a lot of talking is the opposite of incentive. Talking about what?"
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To be fair to Claude, he has no idea what Team Rocket is really capable of, what (or who) it cares about, what it even knows, or what it could or would do with him or any particular information about him. He's just always found it good policy to not be optimistic about unknown quantities. If they could potentially be dangerous, and he doesn't have any proof they won't be, then best to base his precautions on the possibility that they - and Dirk - are.
Granted, Felix has casually sidestepped a lot of those precautions, so to some extent Claude has entered an exasperated sort of 'oh, well then fuck it I guess' mode.
"Frankly your story still seems pretty ridiculous to me," he says, eyebrow still raised, "but since Felix seems to already know you're friends with Jane, I'll just accept it as one of those 'strange but true' things. The debatably good news is that while it's nice that you're here, I doubt a friend's appearance is going to magically wake our sleeping beauty from her slumber, so a lot of talking is something we've got time for. So we can do explanations and banter, if you want."
And he picks up Dirk's set-aside crutch to offer it back to him. Dirk's got a couple things to juggle before he can really make any move to come in. Speaking of which... "But it might help if you take the picks out of your mouth first." Claude turns his head slightly. "Felix, are there any picks still in the lock? Go ahead and grab those for him."
Claude's got his own set of lockpicks, as it happens. He knows that with kits like those, you generally want to keep all the pieces together.
Doc Scratch Voice
(Yeah, he could call on Dave, but that would require admitting to the broken leg, so nothing doing.)
"And anyway, you are applying standards of conduct frowned upon for your kind which make no sense to apply to me."
He takes his crutch from Claude and immediately blocks Felix's access to his (homemade) lockpicks with it before retrieving them and... kind of just disappearing them somewhere on his person, it's not clear where.
"But yes I am checking up on her, that is literally what I am doing right now. Since she's only been out for a couple days, though, she'll stay in her little Matrix nap for another week or so regardless of whether or not the peanut gallery knows what's happening."
He pauses to manoeuvre in through the doorway, doing an almost-passable job of not slipping on his snow-wet crutches in the process. Lest anyone get the bright idea to try and help him, however, he times his breaths around the rhythm of crutched locomation and continues (alas) to talk.
"This is just one of many things that I know and you don't, so keep in mind that I can choose to tell you, or I can choose not to. Right now, I'm choosing to do Jane a favour by explaining, so you can thank her for that later. And since I'm choosing to divulge the secret workings of our 'reality' here--what you might call the 'nuts and bolts' of the construct--those 'animals' are the ones calling the shots in this world, so I'd be real careful about assuming you can do a better job."
augh i'm sorry i lost track of this jskdjfdsf
He's glad when Dirk retrieves his lockpicks on his own, because he was about to tell Claude he doesn't take orders (look, he's tired and grumpy) and refuse to do it. He has no intention of helping Dirk, either, so he just moves further into the house to make room and sits down to prepare for what is already promising to be a terrible conversation.
"Spare us the self-aggrandizing and just explain it. Making it sound like some all-important mystery only serves to feed your ego, and I definitely don't like the sound of your voice as much as you apparently do."
no subject
Honestly, Claude usually doesn't get this nettled by someone. He's good at being diplomatic and charismatic - it's practically his stock in trade. But this guy...his actions and logic have been so utterly baffling, and then he keeps upbraiding their conduct as though he's the only man alive who knows The Right Way To Do Things. It's galling on an unexpected level, one that Claude's having an unusually hard time keeping his temper with.
He's dealt with arrogant men before, but this is something else again. Even Count Gloucester pales next to this.
He fights to master himself as he follows Dirk into the house(sending Arbiter back into his ball in the process to clear the entryway), opting to let the man decide whether he wants to have this discussion - partly because those crutches take up a lot of room, and it's easier not to get in Dirk's way. Jane wouldn't want them getting in stupid arguments with a friend of hers, would she? That's more important than any of this man's posturing or grand airs.
"You may or may not know more than we do," he says, once Dirk's found somewhere to deign to exist for this talk. "But as Felix said, talking yourself up or talking down to us isn't actually informative, and it's not going to make us learn any information you do give us any better. So maybe you could trim the fat and give us the essentials instead. If you don't think much of us, so be it, but then I'd think you'd want to say what you need to say quickly and be done with it, rather than dragging it out."
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"Oh, this has nothing to do with me. But I'll try to be quick, if you're so pressed for time that you just gotta get back to it. 'It' being the all-important task of... uh. Sitting around and waiting for Jane to wake up, which is not happening anytime soon. Like I said."
Dirk's been in Jane's place before, so he wastes no time orientating himself in her sitting room; he finds the chair he wants and seats himself, stopping to set his crutches up against its arm before rotating on the heel of his un-cast leg and dropping into it, ass-first. If either of the two men following him like particularly bitchy ducklings have heard of 'manspreading,' there's a bit of that involved. Not much, though, since the necessary positioning for a leg that can't fucking bend is 'directly out in front of him.'
"Ugh.... god damn. Okay. So. Here's the deal. Jane is still present 'physically,' but she's not responding to you because on a basic existential level, she's... not. She's back 'home.' Such as it is. Time is progressing, events are unfolding, and the plot is moving is it was always meant to. So Jane's back in place where she belongs, with all that entails. For a little while. The fact that her body--as she inhabits it here--is still hanging around means she'll be back in it eventually. In the meantime, she's not going to die, and she's not asleep so you can't wake her. Depending on how it goes, she might not even feel particularly rested, because as far as she and the rest of reality are concerned, she didn't get any fucking rest. Knowing what I know about this, which is everything, that could go either way. She might come out of it having a real foul one, actually."
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He frowns as he listens, then rolls his eyes when Dirk just has to drop in that little reminder that he knows 'everything.' Felix doesn't need or want to know 'everything,' just a few things.
"How long will this last? Will she sleep for the same amount of time that she's back home? And does anything in particular trigger it, or is it arbitrary?"
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"So if I'm following you," Claude says, studying him, "essentially Jane's back in her own world right now, in every conceivable way, and all that's left here is a sort of placeholder? Like a sort of cosmic bookmark, promising she's going to come back and pick up her story here once she's wrapped up whatever it is she's gone back home to do? And I'm assuming how she wakes up ties into just what she ends up going through back home...well, that and however disorienting it is to suddenly wake up here after who knows how long away. I imagine that's not easy to deal with even if everything's perfectly happy and peaceful back in her world."
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"That's not a bad way to put it. Yeah, think of it like that, and you've pretty much got it. And while she's 'actually' present, there's no passage of time back in canon, either. Think of it like flipping to a parallel story and reading that for a bit, then putting it back down and returning to the original book. Which is where your analogy falls apart, because time passes here. That's because during her canon update, she returns to the 'real' story, and this is more like wasting time backstage."
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Dirk's third answer is perhaps the most disturbing of all of them. If it's completely arbitrary, it could happen to any of them, at any time. They could end up even more out of sync in their personal timelines than they are now. Someone could fall asleep and wake up fifty years later, all their thoughts and feelings changed.
Despite what Felix said, he does stay to listen to the rest, frowning. He's not sure what cannons have to do with anything, but context gives him the gist just fine, and it makes him frown more.
"If this is backstage, doesn't that make it more 'real' than where she is now? In a performance, the story is temporary and what happens backstage is permanent."
He's not sure if Dirk's replacement analogy is just as flawed, or if Felix himself is just not grasping something important.
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"Does any basis exist for what to expect when people who undergo these things?" he muses. "How much time is likely to pass for them while they're gone, for instance? How it affects them when they return? Could decades pass for her while she's gone? Could she be injured or maimed? How does that affect her body here? Would she age? If she loses an eye back home, does it disappear here? And not to be grim, but - what if she dies in her own world? I don't know what the world you guys come from is like, but our world is currently caught up in a civil war. If this happened to any of us, that'd be a possibility we'd have to worry about, whether or not it's relevant for Jane herself."
(Insert hollow laughter from Dirk here, but how could Claude know.)
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Really, Claude should be grateful Dirk didn't go for 'people die when they are killed' instead.
"Jane and I aren't from a 'world' so much as we are an unclosed and nonlinear continuity of universes and timelines. All but a couple of those are what you'd call a 'doomed' or 'bad end,' and the good ones aren't nicer. They just don't completely end. So you'll get a lot of those answers when she wakes up."
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Still, he frowns, concerned. "It doesn't sound like there are many options that won't end with Jane waking up after some kind of harrowing experience, if where you come from is as bad as you say. If that's the case, it's fortunate that we did stay. Letting her wake up alone would only make things worse."