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People always seemed to make life exciting, something to look forward everyday. He doesn’t see the appeal. After all, what’s the point of waking up every morning to the same destroyed world drowned in water? Yet he wakes up everyday to repeat the same (boring) routine he does everyday despite it all, he showers, dresses himself up, eats, trains, checks his personal projects, and chats with his friends. It’s the same cycle over and over again. He awaits a change he knows will arrive that will set a different routine in motion, something different to wake up to. He still plans for the future, it’s his natural setting.
Dirk Strider has never been known for knowing it all though, the so-awaited-change comes in a different light, nothing he planned goes okay and in the back of his mind that excites him, it’s something he had no expectations of, after all. He has to replan everything, again and again because he needs to have some sense of control in his life, be the shadow-leader he supposedly was going to be to make things easier for Jane. It doesn’t work out though, nothing he plans for works, and it frustrates him to no end. His whole relationship with Jake was a wreck, he planned too much, or was it too little? No, he was overbearing, always had an iron grip on Jake, never letting him be free. Dirk looked at his past and concluded it was all his fault, he refused to cry over it though, he had no right to.
His mind is always working, checking for every little detail, anything he did wrong, anything, anything- he stops for one second, he’s sitting on the roof of his apartment, Hal in his hands and he is so ready to break him, to stop him from spilling more of the poisonous words he knows are true but he doesn’t want to hear them or else he will be forced to drown in his own misery. A girl with horns shows up with a head and he never felt more thankful for such bizarre thing... it doesn’t stop him for being weirded out by her request to throw Hal in the kernel alongside the head she is carrying.
In the next stage he is faced with different friends who are asking for marriage and he panics because Roxy is too close for comfort and he knows what she wants but he doesn’t want it so he is ready to throw a punch but he doesn’t deliver it. He feels the sugar high deep in his veins but his mind is not clouded, everything is the same. He looks at his hands, then at his outfit and it pisses him off more when Arquius mocks him for not being able to drop all of his problems and enjoy himself like the others are, he hates realizing how deep his self-hate is, he already knew it but he was now forced to admit and see it. He still follows his friends around, he is too tired to fight them back and try to revert all this mess, he has no plan and he is sure it will fail too, so he doesn’t bother.
Once the high is over, all of them crash down into the hangover of the year, the only good thing that came out of that mess was him finally speaking up his problems with Jake and now he doesn’t understand why his stomach clenches uncomfortably at the thought of facing him again (he knows why), and then there’s Roxy who he confessed to the fact that he knew she loved him. She’s besides him and it would be easy to reach out and speak his mind out but he has never been someone brave when it comes to feelings so he speaks with Jane instead and spills out his true feelings for Roxy and hopes she let Roxy know just how much he means to her. Then he feels like the world is shaking and then he feels like he is burning and he rises again wearing a rather ridiculous outfit and Roxy is wearing a much cooler one.
His world got switched around him and now he is far away so he tries to head back before it’s too late, in the blink of an eye his world switches again and he is facing the person he’s always looked up to and wished to meet. They leave to his planet and sit down to talk, he tries to not think about the stiffness that Dave has around him or how he is wary of him. It all crashes down in the form of his own older reflection mocking him, showing him just how toxic he truly is and he wishes, for a second, that the explosion had killed him. Dave poured his heart out to him, so he gulps the self-loathing away and does the same, Dave seems more comfortable with him, but Dirk doesn’t want to push his boundaries but then Dave is hugging him, it feels awkward as hell but he takes with joy. He hopes this means they can have a fresh start.
The blind troll, Terezi, meets them just as the two Jacks arrive, he readies his unbreakable katana to fight, he knows just how important this fight is so he will fight with all he’s got for his friends. He sacrifices his body during the fight, uses his experience and swings his katana to not allow harm to come Dave’s or Terezi’s way. It works and soon he is dying but is brought back by them, he acknowledges it’s not a good thing but his mind is far away and he is moving purely on instinct, serving as a shield left and right. His last act is signaling Dave to end him along the Jacks, he would have liked to say he was sorry for burdening him which such task, but he knows he may not come back from this.
In a surprising note he is opening his eyes and the first thing he sees is Jane with a smile on her face and hands extended towards him, and he understands she brought him back, his throat is dry but he still mouths a ‘thank you’ to her which she catches, she leaves with a “Be careful next time, Dirk,” he feels a hand on his shoulder and there’s Dave smiling at him and he feels himself smile back. He apologizes the moment his throat allows him to speak and Dave brushes it off, mumbling something about getting rid of past Daves which he doesn’t get and makes a mental note to ask about later.
Everyone slowly gathers in the platform and he sees Dave rush towards a small troll, who he greets and swings an arm around, Dirk smiles because he can already guess what that troll means to Dave. He notices Jake arrive with his grandma, the younger version, and gathers up enough courage to approach him. At first he is nervous and his words come out mixed and he is apologizing at the same time Jake does, Jake laughs and he feels a little smile coming to his face, the conversation is more easier now, he greets Rose, who he wants to chat with soon. The universe is born in front of him and he admits easily that it is beautiful, they all step into the white door that appeared in front of them.
There are a lot of things that he has yet to do, such as spill out his feelings to Roxy, he wants to tell her what he told Jane because she deserves to hear it. He wants to know Dave and Rose more, and their friends too. Deep inside, he also wishes to change so many things about himself that had ruined things for him in the past. His heart still beats for Jake but he decided to keep those feelings tucked away for now, he prefers to start as friends again with Jake. He smiles to himself at these thoughts, he has a sense of peace too.
He has an eternity ahead of him for all of the things he wants to do, after all.