hobo?? eye-gazing party?? (open)

[goen]

WHO: Yato and anyone who saw this post willing to bring food!
WHERE: The Inkwell and (technically) its sister restaurant The Quill.
WHEN: Friday, June 16. Early evening.
WHAT: A... hobo eye-gazing party… but mostly it’s a potluck. Come stare into Yato’s eyes and eat the random dishes everyone decided to bring!
WARNINGS: Existential questions such as Why


[ Welcome to the Inkwell!

It’s an old-fashioned bar with a warm, homey atmosphere, old timey furnishings, and clever literature-related drinks. Get your Tequila Mockingbird or (in light of recent events) Pitcher of Midorian Gray! It isn’t much a party spot -- usually. But tonight there’s more bustle than usual, and the normally relaxed bar is buzzing with a greater Retrospeccer population than it’s used to.

Most importantly, the bar is lined with an eccentric variety of foods. Nachos, curry, cupcakes, samosas, steak, sandwich cake (what), and more: truly, the person who screened this food selection cared more about quantity than quality. Admission to this party required you to bring your own dish to share. What’s your contribution to this mess?

Technically, if you’re under 21, owner Chuuya Nakahara would like you to keep to The Quill, the restaurant attached next door. But this is Yato’s party and everything fun will be happening at The Inkwell, so he’ll casually smuggle in any underage invitees with the cheerful stipulation that they not drink illegally.

Stick to the honor system or die.

The hobo of the hour will be in his work clothes, serving alcohol out of his own pocket and dutifully offering his eyes up for prolonged gazing. Why? That is an excellent question. And one you’ll have to answer yourself, because you chose to come here of your own free will. Enjoy. ]

Comments

[parodeity]

Well, what've you done three times?

[splinten]

[...]

Challenged Yato to a staring contest?

[................]

You don't want to take your shades off.

[And Dirk does not ask Dave to take them off.]

[parodeity]

I didn't say I did.

[splinten]

[He gestures at Nui, and probably anyone else Dave told he wouldn't take the shades off to.]

You sort of did.

[parodeity]

I mean I didn't say I wanted to.

[splinten]

[So.]

So you don't want to have a staring contest with me?

[parodeity]

I am pretty sure we passed that point ages ago.

[splinten]

I'm askin' if that was my misunderstandin'. Jesus, I can't believe how fucked I am on this one.

[parodeity]

How are you fucked?

[splinten]

I am stumped on an apparently obvious misreading.

[IT'S TERRIBLE. HOW COULD HE FALTER LIKE THIS. DAVE HE IS A FAILURE.

He's really very annoyed at himself for getting stuck.]

[parodeity]

I originally intended to challenge you to some kinda match before you ran off and didn't specify who you had to face down any of the following times. Not a huge deal. We're kinda not in sync at all these days.

[splinten]

[Dirk looks a little unsettled, though.]

Frankly, I don't like that. Uh, not the idea, I'd be down for that. On a scale of one to ten, how much are you willin' to give extra time to your brother on a weekly basis?

[He doesn't like being out of sync with Dave. He doesn't like misunderstanding him. He doesn't like missing his cues and misinterpreting him and just not being how they always have been.]

You'll likely say that it's an inevitable thing and we're just stop-gappin' it, but I can't accept that.

[parodeity]

You didn't say which end of the scale was which.

[ mildly. he'd tensed almost imperceptibly at "i don't like that", expression going completely blandly neutral until dirk clarified - though it dave didn't relax much. he toys with his juice box, idly. ]

And it's not a stop gap issue so much as a thing that was kinda, yeah, inevitable. We were already fallin' out of step before this shit ever happened. Maybe people aren't supposed to have other people be, I dunno, extensions of their limbs or souls. Maybe they're more real if they're just people and not your left hand or your lung. You're just a person, Rose is just a person, everyone's just their own selves livin' whatever life they choose. Or maybe sometimes they're not, but that doesn't really apply here. Even with no secrets I think sometimes you just get permanently out of step with people. It doesn't mean you love them less, it just means you can't live in their pocket and they can't live in yours because you're walkin' two entirely different roads in opposite directions.

[ it's true of rose, of roxy, and he thinks probably of dirk. ]

It's not a big deal, like I said. It's just a thing that is a thing? You don't understand me like you used to and I don't understand you like I used to either. So we'll try harder and that's fine but I don't think it's a thing you can really reverse time on, not really. It just means we have a different sort of normal these days. Normal isn't static.

[splinten]

My bad, on not bein' clear from the start.

[He saw the tensing. He's quiet and he listens and he does respect what Dave is saying. He does understand it.]

I partly agree with what you're sayin'. We're always our own people anyway, synced or not, and there will always be change.

[The pause, the kind Dirk gets when he's trying to phrase things in a way that makes sense, untangle all the thoughts in his head and put them into something organized and coherent.]

No one understands me in the ways that you uniquely do. Even if someone did, I wouldn't want them for it. It's a place in my heart I have carved out for your exclusive use, VIP golden pass issued to one dude alone. The mould they used for it was broken after creation and the designer assassinated by elite spies. Yeah. [He's an idiot.] So, we're dealing with multiple factors that are constantly altering our situation, and that makes it difficult to maintain the synchronicity we used to have going, I wouldn't argue with that. The only answer to that that I can see is to let ourselves learn about the continually evolving people that we both are. When we misunderstand something, we learn why, and do better next time.

[Or part of his heart is just left empty. Forever.]

[parodeity]

[ there's absolutely no change in expression this time as dirk speaks; just the slight inclination of dave's head towards him to show he's listening, with no diverting from the bland calm he'd retreated into moments earlier. ]

You're overstatin'. [ about uniquely understanding him, or a vip golden pass, or whatever else. none of that is anything dave can believe any longer. ] We ain't gonna resynchronize ever, really, but like I said: that ain't a bad thing really, either. It's just life. You'll fall in step with other people, and maybe someday I will too, although I kinda don't even wanna. [ they might forget, or remember; dave's not sure which option is worse. ] And it doesn't change that I love you. It just means "brother" has been redefined. But this is kind of a ridiculous conversation to have at a ridiculous party?

[splinten]

[This is it. This is what he has been trying to fight, the reason he has battled to keep every inch of ground he has. He feels, with painful clarity, that every piece of Dave he loses guarantees him the loss of the whole. Dave withdraws, and Dirk will never get anything back.

He can't accept that. He can't accept any of it. He can't accept that misreading him now and then means that they have fallen out of sync forever.

Quietly, because Dave is trying to end the conversation and he's right they can't really talk about this here.]

This isn't the place, yeah, but... You keep redefining 'brother' as 'guy to keep ten feet away behind a concrete wall.'

[He doesn't say, You keep giving up on me, because in his life he learned how to take measure of his own self-loathing and hold it back as best as possible. He doesn't think that Dave thinks of it as giving up on Dirk. He thinks Dave's sense of self-worth is more oriented to considering himself the one who is wrong.]

[parodeity]

No, I don't. You're closer than anyone else to me at the moment. I'll stick to the deal as long as you do.

[ which is maybe a sad statement on dave's current everything but also true: he simply jokes around with other people and maybe once in a while says something serious but usually those people quickly forget retrospec. it's happened like three times. he is a curse. ]

It just means "male siblin' I am related to" which is, like, exactly what it's supposed to mean. Not...all the other shit that was shiftin' anyway.

[ protector and confidant and nightmare bane and a billion other things that fade away in the face of real nightmares - because dave is aware, now, that none of the fears he had half a year ago really amounted to anything at all. they were daydreams, even, and he almost misses those.

shifting topics: ]

Chiyo brought cupcakes, and there was one apple cinnamon. I do not think there are more? But there's, like, probably chocolate.

[splinten]

It means more than that.

[They're at a party, though, and even privately talking, he doesn't want to say out loud that the person who raised Dave was not any kind of brother. That he doesn't meet the qualifications, that he doesn't deserve it.

He says, instead,]

I could go for chocolate.

[parodeity]

It doesn't. But they're over there, if you want 'em. She picked 'em all special?

[splinten]

[There's a quick shake of his head. He disagrees, but he won't have his argument now.]

Come with me?

[parodeity]

I can't leave my aj stash, someone else might think they're free to take.

[splinten]

[It's what Dirk figured he meant.]

Fair enough.

[parodeity]

I'll talk to you later.