@stridetm made dirk start.
he catches a lot of people looking, all the time. the consorts are curious and well-meaning, but persistent in their questions and not as naive as he’d like them to be. even so, dirk minds their needling the least. they’re easy to distract with a few clever jokes and flashy gifts. his friends all know what happened and try not to talk about it (for their comfort or his own, he isn’t sure. either way, he’s grateful).
it’s the other humans that tend to gawk. that tend to make him feel like it’s something he should be hiding.
he’s never tried. the thick scar twists across his throat in plain view, like a ribbon keeping something closed. he doesn’t care. dirk’s been vain his whole life, kept his appearance under check as an obsessive way to maintain how others perceived him, but this was different. it was his loss of control that earned him the marking; that’s important, somehow, and if he ever manages to think about how he’d died without feeling dizzy, he’ll figure it out.
when dave’s gaze (obscured, but still traceable, because dirk knows what he’s looking for) stumbles over the tripwire along his neck for the fourth time in just as many minutes, he knows something has to be done. dirk knows enough about overthinking, about shame and guilt, about self-flagellation to recognise it the second it makes itself known.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he says, his voice quiet. there’s a weight to him when he speaks, more so when it’s about the final battle. he looks away from dave, because it isn’t fair to have this conversation while imagining somebody else. it isn’t fair to treat dave as though he’s an avatar for his ancestor when dave is working so hard to pry dirk’s visage from the dead hands of bro strider. “Don’t even itch anymore. I don’t lose my voice or nothin’. ‘S all healed over.” he sounds young. he is young, he supposes.
that doesn’t satisfy. he fidgets, awkward and cumbersome in his reanimated body. “This ain’t on you.” a pause. “In the literal sense as well as the metaphorical sense, I guess. In that this scar is not literally on your skin, because it’s on mine. Not that there’s anything metaphorical about you not being to blame, that shit’s very literal. Almost fuckin’ tangible, it’s so true. Call me a void player, ‘cause I’m conjuring it up right now.” he can derail a sentence faster than he can construct one, it seems. dirk swallows thickly and feels the muscles in his throat spasm. “Christ. Okay, anyways. Listen, l’il man.”
“I spent that whole fight being a reckless jackass. I went in too cocky and got my ass handed to me a multitude of times as a result. You and Pyrope pulled me out of enough jams to make a fuckin’ armada of PB&J, bro, trust and believe. I thought I could take down both of those motherfuckers on my own, and I tried my damn hardest to do it. I wanted to be the one to do it. It was this whole thing, for me -- I didn’t get to fight the Baroness directly, avenge my ancestor, and I was fucking furious. I was so goddamn angry. I wanted to take them out just to prove I could do something and it got me screwed over. It was my fault I got caught. I’m sorry that you had to --” to kill me. jesus christ, he’d really made dave kill him. “That ‘cause of me, you had to be the one to do it. I wanted...” he’d taken all of that damage fearlessly, the thought of dave’s past strifes bright and harsh in his head. if he could prevent dave from ever taking another blow ever again, he would. “I’m fine, Dave. Seriously, bro, I’m good. It’s healed, I’m over it. Ain’t the first time I lost my goddamn head. It must not be a big deal for me, considering I’m the one who did it the first time.” a poor stab at humour almost immediately followed by another. “Besides, maybe dudes dig scars.”
he breathes out, slow and steady. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m better for it. We’re good.”
