"You've just described the problem perfectly." He pauses, grim. "That's why I can't trust you. Or me."
He hasn't finished his drink yet. But after saying that, he raises it to his lips and sips from it... and keeps doing so, in lieu of speaking any more. There's really nothing else to say. He's got a much clearer picture of things now.
Unfortunately, that picture looks like this.
A stalemate on a rooftop, his face red and ears raw from the freezing temperatures. He knows from experience that no matter how ill he feels, how bottomless a pit has opened in his stomach or below his heart or under him in entirety, he won't really look any different. Right now it's almost comforting.
With the information Dirk had broken to him, Emet had removed Hythlodaeus from the conversation himself. It had felt like a chance, a possibility of some kind. But then Dirk let Hythlodaeus back in, and he knows that Hythlodaeus speaks Emet's language. They speak each other's language--
Dirk speaks Emet's language, too, but in a different way. It's a different tongue. And he allowed Hythlodaeus to return, but he cannot take Hythlodaeus back out again.
Like fallen logs against the cliffs and river banks, we will only fit together after we have borne the wearing force of the rapids and the friction between us. It is neither random chance nor serendipitous luck that Hades and I know one another's souls so well.
He set the two of them back up together.
He sets the mug down in the snow next to Hylodaeus'.
Hythlodaeus' eyes narrow slightly as he tries to guess what must be going through his head. He watches him place his mug in the snow next to his. He takes his opportunity and reaches up, taking him by the upper arm.
"...Just stay."
He props up on one knee and pulls Dirk into his open coat, trying not to totally smash his glasses against his chest.
"I'll make you another. I'm not asking for you to trust me, just for you to stay and see. Oh, dear me. Your arms are nearly frozen solid..." He rubs Dirk's upper arms with his woolen gloves.
"Come now, the newborn ponyta are warming the bed. There's even another that has hatched with a cerulean mane. ...Let us make sure they haven't set the room ablaze in my absence. Hades would be cross."
Dirk is caught off guard in a way he usually isn't. Usually people let him leave; whether they agree with him or not, his personal autonomy--and the finality of his decisions--is rarely challenged.
The solid, tragic pane of his mental state cracks immediately; what was a peaceless kind of resolve is more turmoil than conviction. Obviously, he resists, first instinctively and then fully consciously, digging in his heels and trying to pull back and away--but the snow on the roof is soft and thick and slippery and he's quickly wrapped in Hythlodaeus' body heat, still struggling like a cat Hythlodaeus is trying to put a sweater on.
"It is much too cold for you to pull your cock out, don't you think? How else am I to express this to you? It seems you will simply have to settle for this."
Hythlodaeus holds fast to him, drawing him in closer and planting his weight as he feels Dirk's shoes slip against the snow. He places a hand securely on the back of his head as both reassurance and headlock.
Dirk is used to fighting opponents with a size advantage. Height, weight, the works. Normally, though, anything as big as Hythlodaeus was built and programmed by Dirk himself. Also, he's usually armed and dangerous--physically as well as emotionally. This? Not so much.
"We're on the roof--people will be leaving for work, you can't just suck me off up here to solve everything!"
His go-to strategy in situations like this--bracing off his opponent, leveraging to do a front flip and wrap his legs around their neck--is immediately foiled by Hythlodaeus' hand against the back of his skull. He grabs the 'shade' by the shoulder instead, trying to duck or at least squirm downwards out of his grasp.
Hythlodaeus plants a hand under his ass and lifts him up and over his shoulder, moving his other restraining hand to a trapping one. He takes a hold of the back of his pants as an extra measure of security. He might be able to get away like the slippery eel he was, but would he do it if it risked his pants?
He shuffles to the edge of the roof and steps down a level with a less than ninja-like thud just above a sleeping Hades.
In the interest of full disclosure: Dirk has been hefted in similar fashion before. Not often, no, but it's happened both in and out of the ringt. Until this precise moment, it has also been an indignity inflicted by only one infmaously-exuberant man: Jake English.
The association is realised with equal parts shock, mortification, and horror. And the fact that Hythlodaeus has also chosen to seize him by the waist of his pants is a little extra embarrassing, especially in combination with the disparity in physical scale. But there are no counters to this that aren't Strife-levels of damaging and/or painful to their target, and for all of his misgivings and mistrust, Dirk does not actually want to break Hythlodaeus' nose or threaten to rip out a fistful of long, white hair. Which is, by the way, spilling over Dirk's face, beneath his shades and in his mouth.
But Dirk is honestly not sure what to do, except hope this is over with quickly.
It is mercifully over pretty quick. Stepping down from the levels of the roof isn't that strenuous for him, and once they're in front of the door, he at least lets go of his waistband to let them in.
Peculiarly, he doesn't have to duck to do this. ...Did he change the door height? Did they even own this place? He sets him down at last, his hand sliding as he does so. He lets his hand linger on the back of his head as he looks down at him.
"Let's get you warmed up. Go settle in with the ponyta, I'll bring you another cup."
It occurs to Dirk, as he's being toted around like a toddler, that he could use the doorway to make Hythlodaeus' life harder. It also occurs to him that his hands are free--he has six Pokemon he could deploy at any time, and only two of those Pokemon are likely to harbour any bias in Hythlodaeus' favour.
In the end, though, he does the maths and decides it's not worth it--a decision validated moments later when Hythlodaeus lets him down, although not without one final, strangely affecting gesture. He's literally queasy after that. Which doesn't stop him from (and may, in fact, be a motivating factor in) digging in his heels and making a stand, both for his dignity and his decision.
He does not, in fact, go settle in with the Ponyta. He doesn't even move an inch from where Hythlodaeus delivered him.
"That it is," he falls to one knee to close their height difference. The nine-candled Rapidash candelabra lights Hythlodaeus' face as he places his hands on the zipper of Dirk's vest to pull it open. His expression is a little softer in his eyes.
"I'll hang your vest. Here, give me your shoes. I'll set them to dry," he holds out his hand expectantly. "Breakfast is in half an hour, could you check on Hades for me? Ask if he would like me to bring it into the bedroom."
Dirk's hand shoots out to catch Hythlodaeus by the wrist--the cold, mist-wet leather of his fingerless gloves is a contrast to the cold, tight grip of his fingers. He hands over neither shoes nor garment.
"What do I have to do," he starts, still flat, his drawl still clipped off at the ends for enunciation. "To make you listen to me."
He glances at his captured wrist, following his arm to his face to study his expression. He looks off for a moment in visible thought and plays back the last several exchanges in his head.
"... I can bring you into the showers if you would like me to go down on you. Yet I wonder if you forgot to say your words out loud. So perhaps, you need only speak them."
Dirk's thoughts collapse almost immediately into a morass of frustrated confusion; bewilderment crosses his face as a crooked angle to his mouth and a growing crease between his brows. He does not let go.
"What? No. That's not what I'm talking about." Try again.
Hythlodaeus looks back at that hand, then to Dirk.
"... Was picking you up really so upsetting?" He says facetiously. He knows that isn't the problem. He sighs as he places a hand on Dirk's shoulder as he tries to reverse engineer this problem against his interesting brand of logic. His thumb comes up against his neck and he strokes there for a moment.
"You act as if there is some manner of finality to this issue of trust and understanding. We have time, don't you see? I intend for this to work betwixt us, betwixt Hades. You had not struck me as a man so willing to give up. Well... I don't give in so easily. You may want this conversation to be over, but I have more than just words for you."
His fingers slip to his collar and tighten vice-like into the fabric as he tilts his head to press their lips together.
There's something about kissing, something about being kissed, that bypasses all of his higher faculties and goes straight to his dick.
It catches him by the heart, too.
But that intense throb in his cock is the loudest part of a hot-wired startup he can never prevent or turn off. He's wished he wasn't this way--still wishes that, wishes he had more control, more layers of insulating something, that he didn't run so hot and turn on so easy. Double meanings fully intended.
His thoughts skip briefly, like a CD.
(Not that he's ever owned a CD.)
Among the more useless ones: Hythlodaeus' lips are cold.
Among the more intelligent: Betwixt him and Emet... and him and Dirk?
It's so bewilderingly specific that he can't possibly misunderstand it, but it feels like a misunderstanding in its own right.
There's so much else going on inside his head right now that he can barely focus on that alone.
Which is a major reason (but not the only reason) Dirk doesn't fight Hythlodaeus off him so much as he takes the first quasi-natural opportunity to break away--though he does do that fairly quickly, hurrying to take a breath and speak before Hythlodaeus does anything else.
"I can give you what you want," agitation tints that confused frustration more strongly now. "Why me, too?"
He sighs as Dirk breaks the kiss to speak. What useless protestation to call the conversation finished. But as he hears those words that the other man places between them, a look of startled understanding crosses his features.
He furrows his brows for a moment, just staring into Dirk's eyes. "That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what I want. I should have understood sooner that we were not discussing a matter with the same terms. I do not simply want Hades to myself. I want both of you, together, with me. As for why—"
He glances at the hand on his wrist. He would prefer to make his point with the chalkboard, but he's confident that this matter is simple enough that Dirk should have little of it to twist.
"...If you were to build a tower, as tall and strong as you possibly could, how would you do it? Would you make it like a rungless ladder and gaze towards the heavens to watch it collapse? ...Or would you give it strength and balance by constructing it from triangles to redistribute weight and force? It is because we complete one another. This is why I made you take the stone of Azem, not to fill a seat for a Convocation of a dead society. The Sun, the Earth, and the Moon need one another. If you allowed us to love one another thus, we could forge such a bond."
Dirk's own expression shifts even more towards consternation, though his brows lift in something that suggests surprise before finally knitting again.
For a reasonably direct explanation, the payload it delivers is as massive as it is unmanageable--bordering on incogitable. The objections that rise in him are as much reflex as they are deliberated.
"That's... not how that works." Dirk asserts at last, his shoulders squaring with conviction.
It's not even that he dislikes Hythlodaeus. Not really. Even placed as oppositionally as Emet necessitated they be, the level of frustration or resentment that Hythlodaeus evoked in him was never that much stronger than what was, ultimately, stone cold incomprehension. There are times that, yes, he even likes the guy.
But right now? He's just fucking wrong.
"People aren't architectural concepts. It's not unstable. It's--that's just normal. It's stronger."
Hythlodaeus licks his bottom lip as he considers Dirk's words. How to pry them apart without angering him? That might not be possible, but he was aware that there was productive and unproductive fighting. He would need to resist being utterly antagonistic.
He played the mental reel of saying "I thought you carried some measure of love for the triangle. If you truly feel that way, should we not trim the fat?" He'd snatch his glasses and smile if his expression changed. Amusing, but unproductive.
He moves along.
"To be doubted in regard to such a topic... It has been a while, I'll admit." He really wishes he'd gone and gotten the chalkboard now, but he similarly does not want to break the physical connection first.
"An interesting take. Counterpoint: People absolutely are architectural concepts, if only because everything is." His free hand goes to his collar bones to unbutton his shirt down to the familiar glyph on his skin. He traces the raised skin with his index finger over the triangles first.
"Existence follows rules and patterns, and inevitably swings towards balance. What you call stronger looks more like oiled kindling to me. Or... To speak of the machines you and Hades so love. Without a resistor, do you believe that your combined passion won't burn out? As much as I've experimented with it, entropy does never last."
His hand leaves his chest and takes Dirk firmly by the jaw.
"Tell me what you know of stability and normalcy."
A phrase flicks through his mind: Bureau of the Architect.
He realises his mistake too late; he can't take that one back now. But now illuminated, what Hythlodaeus says is true, echoes something almost like reality--albeit one manifest in ways that Dirk knows Hythlodaeus cannot even fathom.
Still--nominally, they should agree. He does agree--at least with that much. Everything is built and constructed and engineered. All that is, is a matter of design and execution. Not 'just' people, but especially 'people.'
But he doesn't agree past that point, he can't. His brain builds and collapses thoughts at rapid pace, creating and destroying arguments in a fevered race for why. Most of it means nothing--nothing usable, at any rate.
One thought especially rises out of that rubble:
People are whatever I say they are.
But he can't say that now, not here.
"That's really how you see yourself?" he asks, slower, doubts snagging at last on just about the latest thing out of Hythlodaeus' mouth. "That's just downright depressing."
'Just about,' that is, because he knows bait when he hears it. And he's not taking it. Not this time.
Neither of them have to address that bait. They both know the truth of the matter. Hades had emphatically pressed it, in fact, to excuse the myriad eccentricities in his behavior. He allows it to drop.
"Is it? Is it depressing to play an integral role in another's life? If it is, I can tell you that I am not saddened by this in the least. And while Hades may contest that it is not precisely my memory, I know that the living Hythlodaeus was never once bothered by it either in the thousands of years he lived. In fact, I find it rather enjoyable to be able to rely upon others and be relied upon in a mutual fashion. I could spin a few more metaphors for you, if you like. Fire and air, perhaps?"
The actual percentage split on what he takes or gives on this won't be addressed right now, no. It was beside the point.
"...Do you resent those with qualities that complement or contrast your own? We cannot all stand in the spotlight, as you know. It crowds rather quickly."
Dirk wrinkles his nose--a rare expression of overt emotion, but Hythlodaeus' whole spiel is the rhetorical equivalent of eating rotten shellfish.
"That would be my direct descendents," he deadpans in response, his voice lacking any of the feeling he just wore on his face.
"Are you suggesting you're up to the task? Because there's a pool of eight or ten people in the entirety of reality who could qualify for that before my ascension. Now? I'm not really capable of leaving the 'spotlight' any more, and neither are my progeny. It shines wherever we stand, and moves only where I so choose to aim it."
He shrugs then, as though indifferent.
"I'm aware that a complete self like mine is the baseline of personhood at your level, but there are still some differences between us."
"We would have quite an unmanageable issue if there weren't differences between us. For one, as much as you tout your competence— I don't believe you could stand yourself. Sharing the spotlight and all... And you are quite aware that you may not leave the spotlight as you are." He shakes his head gently in calm acceptance.
"Do I believe that I'm up to the task? Indeed. I can manage Hades by second nature. My responsibilities here are minimal. I might drain your energy, yet I cannot say that part is mutual. As for our differences... Are there any you believe to be irreconcilable or shall we go warm ourselves in bed? Hades should forgive a late breakfast."
"Of course I can't fucking stand myself. If I'm being scored on affability and accommodation, then you're free to fail me. I'm interested in getting things done and doing them right, not doing the easy or popular thing just to get away with it unscathed."
He shifts his weight to one foot and abruptly releases Hythlodaeus' wrist, now restless under continued scrutiny. It was easier to bear the cold outside, where it was inescapable, than it is inside, where the warm air's contact with cold skin highlights his discomfort rather than letting him go numb after enough pain. The same way an itch is more maddening than an open wound.
"...yeah, I know that's what you want me to do," he mutters, neither outright rejecting nor responding to the conversational exit ramp in a helpful way. It's such an obvious invitation, he couldn't accept if he wanted to.
Does he want to?
Doesn't matter.
"I'm just saying.... we disagree with each other."
"Disagreement is healthy and integral to the exchange of ideas."
He looks to his wrist, now feeling bare without it. At least he has more mobility now. He had wanted to take his chilly clothes off that he'd hardly had the chance to even warm up with his own body heat before standing out there in the frozen cold. Hythlodaeus makes some hand signal at the yamask gallery behind Dirk.
He pulls his hat off of his wet, stringy hair. A yamask comes the wall to take it away to the laundry room. And then another comes and takes Dirk's vest.
He shimmies out of his coat and folds it over a sturdy hanger as the rest of the yamask steal away scarves and such. Two yamask come up and take Dirk gently by the upper arms, lifting him just barely off the ground. Just enough for a third to steal away his shoes before slipping back into the shadows.
"You know what I want, and I have every intention of accomplishing it. If you've no objections?" He curls a finger underneath the shoulder strap to his top and pulls to lead him.
Most people characterise despair as a sinking feeling, but not Dirk. No--despair, when it comes to Dirk, is experienced as its own distinct sensation of clarity. It's like all the grinding, turning, pushing and pulling, splitting and rejoining of thoughts ceases, and in the space left by that internal silence, he can see all of it for what it is.
Hythlodaeus still isn't listening to him.
The platitudinous gumma of a trite and toothless one-liner tells him that much, and leaves him little room to respond. He's only just about to say something truly incendiary--perhaps even choose the nuclear option--when Hythlodaeus' Pokemon physically yank him out of the mental whirlpool he's begun. They're fast enough that his physical opposition to this is minimal, but he yanks each arm out of the Yasmsks' grasp with a lot more force than necessarily, shrugging his shoulders back to visibly reclaim his composure.
He might be able to credit that disruption of thought with the idea that occurs to him then--but if he does, it will have to be later. It's not the time, nor is it a plan he's certain of. He may recognise it later for a different kind of epiphany--the kind of temporary insanity that comes from the farther reaches of his Self, placed at the fore of his thoughts by some incidental factor or other. It happens.
So he holds tight to it in his mind, pressing his jaw against it and any number of other thoughts, promising himself to the task of remembering it later. And he digs in his heels one more time.
"You know you don't have thousands of years to fuck me into whatever shape you want, right?"
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He hasn't finished his drink yet. But after saying that, he raises it to his lips and sips from it... and keeps doing so, in lieu of speaking any more. There's really nothing else to say. He's got a much clearer picture of things now.
Unfortunately, that picture looks like this.
A stalemate on a rooftop, his face red and ears raw from the freezing temperatures. He knows from experience that no matter how ill he feels, how bottomless a pit has opened in his stomach or below his heart or under him in entirety, he won't really look any different. Right now it's almost comforting.
With the information Dirk had broken to him, Emet had removed Hythlodaeus from the conversation himself. It had felt like a chance, a possibility of some kind. But then Dirk let Hythlodaeus back in, and he knows that Hythlodaeus speaks Emet's language. They speak each other's language--
Dirk speaks Emet's language, too, but in a different way. It's a different tongue. And he allowed Hythlodaeus to return, but he cannot take Hythlodaeus back out again.
Like fallen logs against the cliffs and river banks, we will only fit together after we have borne the wearing force of the rapids and the friction between us. It is neither random chance nor serendipitous luck that Hades and I know one another's souls so well.
He set the two of them back up together.
He sets the mug down in the snow next to Hylodaeus'.
"Thanks for the drink."
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"...Just stay."
He props up on one knee and pulls Dirk into his open coat, trying not to totally smash his glasses against his chest.
"I'll make you another. I'm not asking for you to trust me, just for you to stay and see. Oh, dear me. Your arms are nearly frozen solid..." He rubs Dirk's upper arms with his woolen gloves.
"Come now, the newborn ponyta are warming the bed. There's even another that has hatched with a cerulean mane. ...Let us make sure they haven't set the room ablaze in my absence. Hades would be cross."
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The solid, tragic pane of his mental state cracks immediately; what was a peaceless kind of resolve is more turmoil than conviction. Obviously, he resists, first instinctively and then fully consciously, digging in his heels and trying to pull back and away--but the snow on the roof is soft and thick and slippery and he's quickly wrapped in Hythlodaeus' body heat, still struggling like a cat Hythlodaeus is trying to put a sweater on.
"What?! Stop--"
The rest is not actually real words. Probably.
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Hythlodaeus holds fast to him, drawing him in closer and planting his weight as he feels Dirk's shoes slip against the snow. He places a hand securely on the back of his head as both reassurance and headlock.
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"We're on the roof--people will be leaving for work, you can't just suck me off up here to solve everything!"
His go-to strategy in situations like this--bracing off his opponent, leveraging to do a front flip and wrap his legs around their neck--is immediately foiled by Hythlodaeus' hand against the back of his skull. He grabs the 'shade' by the shoulder instead, trying to duck or at least squirm downwards out of his grasp.
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He shuffles to the edge of the roof and steps down a level with a less than ninja-like thud just above a sleeping Hades.
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The association is realised with equal parts shock, mortification, and horror. And the fact that Hythlodaeus has also chosen to seize him by the waist of his pants is a little extra embarrassing, especially in combination with the disparity in physical scale. But there are no counters to this that aren't Strife-levels of damaging and/or painful to their target, and for all of his misgivings and mistrust, Dirk does not actually want to break Hythlodaeus' nose or threaten to rip out a fistful of long, white hair. Which is, by the way, spilling over Dirk's face, beneath his shades and in his mouth.
But Dirk is honestly not sure what to do, except hope this is over with quickly.
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Peculiarly, he doesn't have to duck to do this. ...Did he change the door height? Did they even own this place? He sets him down at last, his hand sliding as he does so. He lets his hand linger on the back of his head as he looks down at him.
"Let's get you warmed up. Go settle in with the ponyta, I'll bring you another cup."
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In the end, though, he does the maths and decides it's not worth it--a decision validated moments later when Hythlodaeus lets him down, although not without one final, strangely affecting gesture. He's literally queasy after that. Which doesn't stop him from (and may, in fact, be a motivating factor in) digging in his heels and making a stand, both for his dignity and his decision.
He does not, in fact, go settle in with the Ponyta. He doesn't even move an inch from where Hythlodaeus delivered him.
"This conversation is over."
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"I'll hang your vest. Here, give me your shoes. I'll set them to dry," he holds out his hand expectantly. "Breakfast is in half an hour, could you check on Hades for me? Ask if he would like me to bring it into the bedroom."
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Dirk's hand shoots out to catch Hythlodaeus by the wrist--the cold, mist-wet leather of his fingerless gloves is a contrast to the cold, tight grip of his fingers. He hands over neither shoes nor garment.
"What do I have to do," he starts, still flat, his drawl still clipped off at the ends for enunciation. "To make you listen to me."
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"... I can bring you into the showers if you would like me to go down on you. Yet I wonder if you forgot to say your words out loud. So perhaps, you need only speak them."
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"What? No. That's not what I'm talking about." Try again.
"What part of this has you fucking confused?"
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"... Was picking you up really so upsetting?" He says facetiously. He knows that isn't the problem. He sighs as he places a hand on Dirk's shoulder as he tries to reverse engineer this problem against his interesting brand of logic. His thumb comes up against his neck and he strokes there for a moment.
"You act as if there is some manner of finality to this issue of trust and understanding. We have time, don't you see? I intend for this to work betwixt us, betwixt Hades. You had not struck me as a man so willing to give up. Well... I don't give in so easily. You may want this conversation to be over, but I have more than just words for you."
His fingers slip to his collar and tighten vice-like into the fabric as he tilts his head to press their lips together.
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It catches him by the heart, too.
But that intense throb in his cock is the loudest part of a hot-wired startup he can never prevent or turn off. He's wished he wasn't this way--still wishes that, wishes he had more control, more layers of insulating something, that he didn't run so hot and turn on so easy. Double meanings fully intended.
His thoughts skip briefly, like a CD.
(Not that he's ever owned a CD.)
Among the more useless ones: Hythlodaeus' lips are cold.
Among the more intelligent: Betwixt him and Emet... and him and Dirk?
It's so bewilderingly specific that he can't possibly misunderstand it, but it feels like a misunderstanding in its own right.
There's so much else going on inside his head right now that he can barely focus on that alone.
Which is a major reason (but not the only reason) Dirk doesn't fight Hythlodaeus off him so much as he takes the first quasi-natural opportunity to break away--though he does do that fairly quickly, hurrying to take a breath and speak before Hythlodaeus does anything else.
"I can give you what you want," agitation tints that confused frustration more strongly now. "Why me, too?"
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He furrows his brows for a moment, just staring into Dirk's eyes. "That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what I want. I should have understood sooner that we were not discussing a matter with the same terms. I do not simply want Hades to myself. I want both of you, together, with me. As for why—"
He glances at the hand on his wrist. He would prefer to make his point with the chalkboard, but he's confident that this matter is simple enough that Dirk should have little of it to twist.
"...If you were to build a tower, as tall and strong as you possibly could, how would you do it? Would you make it like a rungless ladder and gaze towards the heavens to watch it collapse? ...Or would you give it strength and balance by constructing it from triangles to redistribute weight and force? It is because we complete one another. This is why I made you take the stone of Azem, not to fill a seat for a Convocation of a dead society. The Sun, the Earth, and the Moon need one another. If you allowed us to love one another thus, we could forge such a bond."
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For a reasonably direct explanation, the payload it delivers is as massive as it is unmanageable--bordering on incogitable. The objections that rise in him are as much reflex as they are deliberated.
"That's... not how that works." Dirk asserts at last, his shoulders squaring with conviction.
It's not even that he dislikes Hythlodaeus. Not really. Even placed as oppositionally as Emet necessitated they be, the level of frustration or resentment that Hythlodaeus evoked in him was never that much stronger than what was, ultimately, stone cold incomprehension. There are times that, yes, he even likes the guy.
But right now? He's just fucking wrong.
"People aren't architectural concepts. It's not unstable. It's--that's just normal. It's stronger."
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He played the mental reel of saying "I thought you carried some measure of love for the triangle. If you truly feel that way, should we not trim the fat?" He'd snatch his glasses and smile if his expression changed. Amusing, but unproductive.
He moves along.
"To be doubted in regard to such a topic... It has been a while, I'll admit." He really wishes he'd gone and gotten the chalkboard now, but he similarly does not want to break the physical connection first.
"An interesting take. Counterpoint: People absolutely are architectural concepts, if only because everything is." His free hand goes to his collar bones to unbutton his shirt down to the familiar glyph on his skin. He traces the raised skin with his index finger over the triangles first.
"Existence follows rules and patterns, and inevitably swings towards balance. What you call stronger looks more like oiled kindling to me. Or... To speak of the machines you and Hades so love. Without a resistor, do you believe that your combined passion won't burn out? As much as I've experimented with it, entropy does never last."
His hand leaves his chest and takes Dirk firmly by the jaw.
"Tell me what you know of stability and normalcy."
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He realises his mistake too late; he can't take that one back now. But now illuminated, what Hythlodaeus says is true, echoes something almost like reality--albeit one manifest in ways that Dirk knows Hythlodaeus cannot even fathom.
Still--nominally, they should agree. He does agree--at least with that much. Everything is built and constructed and engineered. All that is, is a matter of design and execution. Not 'just' people, but especially 'people.'
But he doesn't agree past that point, he can't. His brain builds and collapses thoughts at rapid pace, creating and destroying arguments in a fevered race for why. Most of it means nothing--nothing usable, at any rate.
One thought especially rises out of that rubble:
People are whatever I say they are.
But he can't say that now, not here.
"That's really how you see yourself?" he asks, slower, doubts snagging at last on just about the latest thing out of Hythlodaeus' mouth. "That's just downright depressing."
'Just about,' that is, because he knows bait when he hears it. And he's not taking it. Not this time.
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"Is it? Is it depressing to play an integral role in another's life? If it is, I can tell you that I am not saddened by this in the least. And while Hades may contest that it is not precisely my memory, I know that the living Hythlodaeus was never once bothered by it either in the thousands of years he lived. In fact, I find it rather enjoyable to be able to rely upon others and be relied upon in a mutual fashion. I could spin a few more metaphors for you, if you like. Fire and air, perhaps?"
The actual percentage split on what he takes or gives on this won't be addressed right now, no. It was beside the point.
"...Do you resent those with qualities that complement or contrast your own? We cannot all stand in the spotlight, as you know. It crowds rather quickly."
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"That would be my direct descendents," he deadpans in response, his voice lacking any of the feeling he just wore on his face.
"Are you suggesting you're up to the task? Because there's a pool of eight or ten people in the entirety of reality who could qualify for that before my ascension. Now? I'm not really capable of leaving the 'spotlight' any more, and neither are my progeny. It shines wherever we stand, and moves only where I so choose to aim it."
He shrugs then, as though indifferent.
"I'm aware that a complete self like mine is the baseline of personhood at your level, but there are still some differences between us."
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"Do I believe that I'm up to the task? Indeed. I can manage Hades by second nature. My responsibilities here are minimal. I might drain your energy, yet I cannot say that part is mutual. As for our differences... Are there any you believe to be irreconcilable or shall we go warm ourselves in bed? Hades should forgive a late breakfast."
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He shifts his weight to one foot and abruptly releases Hythlodaeus' wrist, now restless under continued scrutiny. It was easier to bear the cold outside, where it was inescapable, than it is inside, where the warm air's contact with cold skin highlights his discomfort rather than letting him go numb after enough pain. The same way an itch is more maddening than an open wound.
"...yeah, I know that's what you want me to do," he mutters, neither outright rejecting nor responding to the conversational exit ramp in a helpful way. It's such an obvious invitation, he couldn't accept if he wanted to.
Does he want to?
Doesn't matter.
"I'm just saying.... we disagree with each other."
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He looks to his wrist, now feeling bare without it. At least he has more mobility now. He had wanted to take his chilly clothes off that he'd hardly had the chance to even warm up with his own body heat before standing out there in the frozen cold. Hythlodaeus makes some hand signal at the yamask gallery behind Dirk.
He pulls his hat off of his wet, stringy hair. A yamask comes the wall to take it away to the laundry room. And then another comes and takes Dirk's vest.
He shimmies out of his coat and folds it over a sturdy hanger as the rest of the yamask steal away scarves and such. Two yamask come up and take Dirk gently by the upper arms, lifting him just barely off the ground. Just enough for a third to steal away his shoes before slipping back into the shadows.
"You know what I want, and I have every intention of accomplishing it. If you've no objections?" He curls a finger underneath the shoulder strap to his top and pulls to lead him.
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Hythlodaeus still isn't listening to him.
The platitudinous gumma of a trite and toothless one-liner tells him that much, and leaves him little room to respond. He's only just about to say something truly incendiary--perhaps even choose the nuclear option--when Hythlodaeus' Pokemon physically yank him out of the mental whirlpool he's begun. They're fast enough that his physical opposition to this is minimal, but he yanks each arm out of the Yasmsks' grasp with a lot more force than necessarily, shrugging his shoulders back to visibly reclaim his composure.
He might be able to credit that disruption of thought with the idea that occurs to him then--but if he does, it will have to be later. It's not the time, nor is it a plan he's certain of. He may recognise it later for a different kind of epiphany--the kind of temporary insanity that comes from the farther reaches of his Self, placed at the fore of his thoughts by some incidental factor or other. It happens.
So he holds tight to it in his mind, pressing his jaw against it and any number of other thoughts, promising himself to the task of remembering it later. And he digs in his heels one more time.
"You know you don't have thousands of years to fuck me into whatever shape you want, right?"
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Okay this is just pornographic now
They do that. NSFW all the way down probably
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