DIRK: [ARISE]

[evenindeath]

Of all the places to wake up, 'dumpster' had not actually been in Dirk's top thirty list. Of course, once he realized that's where he was he considered that had been an error in judgement on his part. It was where he belonged and thus should have been number one on his list.

"HAL?" he said, his voice a raw and rough croaking to his own ears, but his sunglasses skewed on his face showed nothing but the sky above, a bright night lit by a moon and too much light pollution from the city around him for any stars. He brought an aching arm up to right his sunglasses and give them a tap, the the bare bones of his Heads Up Display on them became visible, flickering in and out of focus. "HAL?" he asked again, but there was no answer. It said he was offline with no signal available.


The past - however long it was came back to him in flits and flashes, what lead them here. Him here, anyway. Finding our that what his friends went through was a beta run for the whole thing, that it had already failed once and they were an attempt to restart under more favorable circumstances. That their game was a null game too in different ways but unfortunately just enough overlap that the plan to make a working game between the two of them wasn't going to work. What was there left to try, a third attempt where they would likely once more end up with more problems and no solutions?

Dirk had been careful who he proposed the plan to and how he said it. Jake was the driven type, charismatic - it didn't matter he couldn't figure out how to pull it off himself, if he suggested it people would be more likely to listen, to try.

"Do you think there's a way to get out of the game entirely?" Dirk had asked Jake in what passed for late one night on a meteor where they'd taken refuge, time and day having no meaning.

The question had been posed seemingly carelessly, but it had stuck in Jake's mind like Dirk knew it would. Soon enough they were all working together on 'Jake's' new plan to try and find a universe beyond the games entirely.

There was no guarantee it would work. No guarantee they'd go to the same place, or even... anywhere.

But what other option did they have?


And now Dirk was here, in a dumpster.

It smelled terrible in a weirdly unfamiliar way to him. It was the kind of terrible that came from cramped living conditions of too many people in one place, and he had literally never experienced that before. When he managed to push himself up and crawl out of it (and get all the ... leavings... off of himself) just looking to the other end of the alleyway where cars went back and forth gave him pause as he thought that every single one of those had at least one person in it. Watching for just a couple minutes, more people walked by without a glance in his direction than he'd ever seen in one place in his whole life.

Wherever they'd landed, it wasn't his home. Not when he knew it.

Distracted by that utter culture shock, he managed to miss the sound of someone coming the other direction until they spoke.

"Hand over your money - anything you have on you," the gravely voice ordered, and Dirk turned slowly to see the barrel of a gun staring him down, and attached to it a man that could either be twice his age or a little younger with a hard life behind him. Dirk was guessing the second was more likely.

"Are you fucking deaf? Hand. Over. Your. Cash. Fucker!" the man repeated when Dirk just continued to stare at him.

Oh, this? He'd seen this in plenty of movies. He knew how to handle this.

"Yeah, no," Dirk said, with a careless flick of his wrist his clothing glitched and blurred into a different but similar set, his pointed sunglasses doing the same to be a fully face covering gas mask. The people who fought crime always wore masks in those stories, right? From the same place his new clothing came from he drew his katana.

He was used to enemies that put up a fight to someone on his level, and maybe would be over-estimating this guy's abilities.

Comments

[lazarusinred]

Jason's eyes narrowed in return, but he did not bother to try to hide it. An escalation of nonsensical anger was also something he was used to.

"I don't know what you mean by 'time player' or 'stable loops,' but when people end up here from other realities it's because they wanted to change something. It's not always about stopping an apocalypse. Whatever change you wanted? Congratulations, you have it."

[evenindeath]

"I assure you, I fucking don't," Dirk replied unable to hold back a snarl. In the vast universes of things he wanted, ending up here and now only accomplished 'don't be stuck in a dying universe with the conditional immortality that promises you'll be there to see and experience when entropy leaves nothing left'.

And even that was a maybe. This universe could be dying too, just more quietly.

"The Time Player, the- you have no idea what I'm talking about," he realized before he said much more. "... we wanted out of the game, well - out you get."

What would even work now? Hys sylladex was operating just fine, the rest he'd need to test methodically to see what the limits were. If they existed.

"... what I want," he said after a moment, that forced indifference and calm returning, covering the still simmering anger, "-Is to know if anyone else made it out too. Seeking out a world's Guardian is the most basic first quest, if that's the Justice League of Assholes, I expect anyone who showed up here would have tried to contact them."

He made it sound like little more than professional interest. He didn't even call any of them his friends.

[lazarusinred]

Please address the actual JLA as the Justice League of Assholes. The thought warmed Jason's heart.

Players, quests, guardians, game. Some understanding could be built, but Jason felt a guide book short. A guide book and a full novel series short.

"This isn't a make-a-wish world. Didn't say you would keep getting what you want. You got out. Great. I can help you with what you want now."

[evenindeath]

"Because you're clearly so fucking helpful," Dirk said, because he couldn't not match insult for insult even if Jason had actually been helpful so far. "You also don't look like an animated blue asshole voiced by Robin Williams but fine, do I have a limited number of requests?

[lazarusinred]

"Even I get that reference," Jason said with small laugh. The anger abated leaving behind his standard intense moodiness. "No, no limits on requests." He regretted it the moment he said it. Far too giving. What the hell was wrong with him? A request was not a promise he told himself.

[evenindeath]

Yeah, even Dirk's blonde eyebrows became visible over the tips of sunglasses with how much they raised at that offer without conditions. Either Jason didn't actually mean it, he was stupider than he looked, or - some third angle Dirk hadn't figured out yet. He needed more data. Well, fine.

"Some place where I can check my gear and see what needs repairing would be helpful. Especially if I can get cleaned up."

Not that he looked like he needed that right then, switching out his clothing like he had, but better to wash what you could when you could otherwise he'd forget and get a nasty surprise next time he needed it.

Alright, genie, show your stuff.

[lazarusinred]

Simple parameters. Jason could think of a few options to set a stranger up for a night in. Beyond the cost then there was the question of how to stay in contact, if Drik truly wanted to reach the JLA. Not to mention leaving him to his own devices in a world Jason was pretty sure Dirk was a long way away from understanding.

Which left the apartment. It wasn't his base of operations, so nothing too sensitive there. He needed to go over his own gear and check on how his wound was healing. It made sense. Perfect, logical, sense.

To cover his time thinking Jason crouched to retirve the pistol he had dropped. He holstered it with a flourish. "My ride is not far. How do you feel about a jaunt across the rooftops?"

[evenindeath]

It felt like an exhale when Jason finally stepped back, Dirk using the opportunity of him fetching his dropped gun to straighten the hem of his tank top. It had ridden up a bit, as it turned out, in the scuffle.

"No better way to learn an area," Dirk said, conversationally. His own gear was already stashed, and much as there were plenty of smells from humanity as a whole going on here it didn't seem like there was literal poison that required the gasmask again.

Across the rooftops would also serve to put some distance between him and crowds, something hr was wholly unequipped to deal with.

[lazarusinred]

Jason pretended he had not noticed the ruffled clothing or Dirk's fixing of it. It was just being observant. The kind of observational skills that had been drilled into him.

Unlike Dirk, Jason did not have a pocket dimension to put his gear into. So back on went the helmet.

"Alright, up we go."

For a hot second Jason did consider using a grapple gun to get to the roof, just to see what solution Dirk would come up with. There was plenty else to be learned from less antagonistic approaches, however. With practiced ease Jason bounded up the wall and using the fire escape as a secondary point to jump back to made his way to the rooftops.

Jason liked it up here, and on a clear night like this with the moon out he could almost pretend it was a little magical.

[evenindeath]

The thing was, part of achieving god tier included the ability of flight. With everything unclear now, he wasn't too keen on possibly looking like a goddamn idiot in front of the third human male that he wasn't related to that he's ever met.

Fourth if you count the guy he killed, alright. But he wasn't attractive like Jason was.

So instead he followed Jason's lead up the fire escape, moving with the practiced graceful ease of someone who had been training at this since likely around the same age Jason started if not sooner. There wasn't much else to do when the rest of humanity was dead and all you had were the company of robots meant to prepare you for what was to come.

Up on the roof as well, he could see more of the city beyond that narrow alleyway and the sliver of sky above. There were still plenty of taller buildings in the distance, but it was still an incredible view.

"Alright… you were right about it being A nice night. Up here, anyway," Dirk admitted.

[lazarusinred]

"Sometimes it is a matter of perspective," Jason said and looked back at Dirk.

A matter of perspective. All the pieces of the fight and the charged conversation had painted an interesting picture. Up here where the glow of the city lights was softer and the touch of the moon was stronger took that picture and made it all the much more attractive. Jason was fucking thankful his mask hid his expression completely, but if he stared much longer it would be obvious.

"Off we go," he said before setting off across the roof. It was good to move, to focus on the rooftop paths. Not that he needed to, he knew the ways above the streets as well, if not better, than the streets below. However, it worked the tension out of his body and couple buildings later he was feeling almost nearly normal.

Not long after they came to the dim, narrow street he had parked in. The motorcycle was set for an easy exit, but also not in a place that easily caught the attention. This street had very little traffic of any kind at this time of night.

Landing lightly in the street after making sure no easy eyes would be on them, he strode over the motorcycle. When Dirk joined him, he asked, "Have you ridden on one of these before?"

[evenindeath]

Dirk by contrast didn't know the city, but he watched where they went, let himself learn the streets and pathways to take. Managed to not let himself be distracted by how many people there were. This far up, he could pretend they were like the denizens of Derse, the black carapace covered people of the shadow city where Dirk used to end up every night when he slept, where his dream self resided. That was the closest thing to a 'city' that he ever knew, and the people there were completely inhuman.

Every jump had him landing lighter on his feet than the last. When they landed in the street, Dirk was sure if they'd had one more jump he wouldn't have landed at all. Flight, probably check.

He regarded the motorcycle. It remained a motorcycle.

"Not exactly, but something similar."

(A rocket powered flying skateboard was not actually similar.)

"And I've seen them in movies."

How hard could it be?

[lazarusinred]

Should be good enough. At least for this trip. Jason slung a leg over the bike. The handlebars were low, which he had found easier to manage in a gun fight. The fact that meant it was also designed for speed was a bonus.

"You've got the easy job. Climb on. Foot rests are there," Jason said pointing them out. They did not exactly stand out from the rest of the machinery. Easy to miss if you were not familiar with them. "Then it is just hang on and follow my lead."

Just like in the movies. Sure.

[evenindeath]

Just get on the bike.

Right behind the attractive guy.

No big deal.

There was no outward indication that anything was different than the norm for Dirk as he got on the bike behind Jason, right behind him, wrapping his arms around Jason's waist to stay steady. On the other hand his heartbeat was hammering in his chest so rapidly it felt like cardiac arrest was a promised result any moment now.

Jake had been the only other person held this closely for Dirk. At all. For any reason. He kept his teeth gritted and just tried to keep breathing even and steady.

[lazarusinred]

Dirk was also the most attractive person Jason had given a ride on his bike before. He would not count Dick in this equation because Dick was his brother and was... well Dick.

Jason leaned forward and started the engine. It roared to life, temporarily drowning out his thoughts. Some nights he would just drive seeking those moments of quiet in his head.
Merging into the flow of the night's traffic was easy. He did not consider himself to be a reckless driver, just informed of his own skill. That meant driving well above the speed limit and weaving through the traffic in was that made more fussy and law abiding types uncomfortable.

Talia al Ghul was the first and only person Jason had kissed. To be more accurate she kissed him right before tossing him off a cliff. Jason had always assumed it had been a tactic to manipulate his freshly returned mind. He had always prided himself on not even slightly being tempted, to be above such feelings.

He had been hugged. Dick was his brother after all. The very grateful working girls too when he freed them of abusive fuckers and helped them work together for independence, he never felt anything other than gratitude. That was until it was working guys he helped. That, that had been different. He had found out he was not so immune after all. However, he was not the kind of prick who would take advantage of anyone. Despite what other people might think he did have a moral compass.

This in this moment, Dirk pressed to him arms around him, he could pretend that someone would want to hold him this way. That it was not just a requirement for the situation. For a moment he could feel a little less alone.

Bypassing the heart of Gotham's traffic was always a good idea, as was never taking a direct route home. He had to be sure he was not being followed, and so what if he took a much longer route than necessary for even that.

The apartment was in a nicer part of Gotham, but not too nice. The balance between heightened awareness from necessity and from snobby nosiness. It was the kind of building where no one knew anyone else and that was the way he liked it. Plus it had secure parking under the building and a landlord that enjoyed cash more than background checks.

Once parked and the bike was turned off Jason turned his head to his passenger. "Doing alright back there?"

[evenindeath]

It was not like riding on a rocket skateboard even slightly.

All he had to do was hold on and follow whatever lean Jason did, so it wasn't hard, but staying on the bike was the easy part. The city flashed by in a blur around them, the rumble of the engine loud and significant enough that Dirk felt it even in his teeth tightly pressed together as they were. No helmet (he probably had one somewhere in his sylladex, or failing that some decapitated enemy's head with a helmet still on it) it meant he really had to lean forward to press his cheek to Jason's back to keep the wind from striking him in the face and his sunglasses from flying off.

Looking up, there were three stars just barely visible in the sky - for another brief moment his HUD flashed to life, pinpointing them, estimating which stars they were in relation to one another, giving all that information as well as possible dates depending on which they were.

Then, on top of it, a single line of text:

You certainly move on quickly.

"Hal-?" the word was lost to the noise of the wind and street but his glasses, tuned to pick up his voice exclusively, still transmitted that into the chat. It vanished a moment later, no sign of ever having been opened.

Great, maybe he had a fucking concussion on top of everything else.

He didn't have much time to contemplate that - the noise suddenly cut dramatically as they left the street to underground parking, the bike briefly idling then stopping. Dirk's arms felt locked into place with how tense he was, heartbeat just as rapid as before now with the added bonus of feeing caught out along with it. Honestly he wasn't sure which would be worse - Hal somehow knowing what was going on or having a concussion.

No, he couldn't die in any way that stuck, he'd take the concussion.

"Fine," he said, voice a little too hollow to pass for 'fine', but he wasn't going to linger on that. "Big city."

[lazarusinred]

It was impossible for Jason to miss the shade of not fine. "It is," he said and removed his helmet. Balancing it with practiced ease he set it on the flat space between the handle bars. "Despite itself, it can manage to be a home as well."

Dirk had still not let go.

"Um..." Jason reached across himself to put a hand over one of Dirk's. Maybe he just had to be reminded he had arms. "You're going to have to let go."

[evenindeath]

He did in fact need to be reminded of that sometimes, like right then. As if they were an equippable item he didn't always have on him.

"-Right."

No recovering that one, so, no attempt at excuse made as Dirk managed to let go of Jason, shaking his arms out a bit once he did to loosen the cramps from them for how tightly he'd held on. His glovers were fingerless (because of course they were) so even after that he still felt phantoms of Jason's touch against the skin on the back of his fingers. This was fine. Normal. Totally not weird.

[lazarusinred]

Totally not weird to regret having ever pointed it out. As if they could have just sat here like it was normal.

Right.

After being freed Jason retrieved the cover for his bike. Again a practiced set of motions to juggle his helmet and the cover. It was not like his bike was unique, but the fewer people who saw it out in the open here the better. Plus it prevented any leavings from the birds that occasionally got in down here from getting on it.

From there it was a simple elevator ride to the top floor. At this hour all the other people in the building would be sound asleep or at least not out in the halls. Another reason he liked it.

"It's not much," he said as he unlocked the door to let them in.

The door opened into a large room that passed for everything but the bedroom and bathroom. Directly across from the door was the kitchen. It had an island counter with three stools, as if Jason ever had company. To the left was a couch, tv, coffee table, work table, and weapons rack. Everything was neat and orderly in the way that looked like a strangle hold rather than effortless. If Jason relaxed even a little on straightening up it became absolute chaos in a matter of hours.

"Bathroom and washer/dryer is through there," he said pointing to the door next to the fridge. "The other door is the bedroom. That's the tour."

[evenindeath]

Dirk understood how easy chaos could seep in all too well. Especially if it wasn't like you ever had anyone else over to worry about seeing said chaos. Privacy made such things so very easy to take over.

"Nice place," Dirk said after a moment, like he wasn't sure if that was the appropriate response to being introduced to someone's home or not but it seemed like something he'd seen before, so... going with that. Not like Dirk had much in the way of standards - it had necessities and was far cleaner than anyplace he ever lived, so there was that. "You life with anyone else? Family? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?"

Totally casual, making a point to take off his shoes at the entrance. He might have been raised in a gutted, flooded high rise 400 years into an apocalypse but it wasn't a barn.

[lazarusinred]

Enough time living in the manor and then living the life he did, yeah boots off at the door.

"Uh, no," Jason replied feeling the threat of a blush at the word 'boyfriend.' To shake the feeling he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto the kitchen counter. It needed to be cleaned and mended, just like his body armor. "Sometimes family shows up unannounced, but no... no one else. Just me."

Now that the jacket was off he could see how much he had bled before it stopped. It was a fair bit. Damn that blade was sharp. "Do you mind if I get cleaned up first?"

[evenindeath]

"Yeah, you probably should huh," Dirk commented without apology. But he didn't expect one for the awful bruise that made his right arm ache when he moved it from the shoulder at all, and wouldn't have expected one if he'd actually gotten shot. Injury happened when violence was involved and no limbs were lost.

"I'm just gonna…" he nodded toward what he guessed the work bench was given the few tools visible. "Let me know if you need any help with bandages, I've done it on myself enough."

[lazarusinred]

It would have been weird if Dirk had apologized. You apologized for things you did not intend.

"Yeah go ahead... and thanks." It was not like Jason lacked his own skills in patching himself up in the times where it was needed. It was the offer given that mattered.

Entering the bathroom he pushed the door shut and started to remove his armor. It was all cleverly designed to fit tightly, but still be easy enough to remove. If you knew what to look for. Guns, knives, and armor to the side he considered a full shower. Honestly that could wait so he just ran a tap. Using much less care than would be expected for someone with a wound like this he held his arm under the water and rubbed at the dry blood. It came away in rusty clumps revealing an angry looking red line of a fresh scar.

The scars, they always stayed. He glanced up at his reflection, seeing the marks of past battles written there. The kindness of a sharp blade was that the wound it left healed quicker than most.

Good enough. He fished out the blood cleaning supplies he would need and added them to the pile.

Exiting the bathroom he stopped to drop the same pile with his jacket on the counter. Just one more minute he promised the mess before going to his room to grab a t-shirt. Now somewhat decent he gathered up the whole mess to transfer it to the coffee table.

"Finding everything okay?" Jason asked.

[evenindeath]

Dirk made himself comfortable at the work station - well, as much as he ever could be in unfamiliar places.

The first order of business was taking out his sword and grabbing one of his spare shirts from his sylladex to wipe it down clean enough for the time being, both being stashed away again. After that he had to get prepared to do actual repairs.

For Dirk this was simple, common technology. Same with his inventory system. A light grid was deployed across the work station along with his various tools to work on microscopic technology like involved with the glasses, the light grid functioning as a standing hologram to zoom in and manipulate as needed, the corrections and changes he made to the hologram being done to the glasses themselves when he indicated to implement the changes. Along with the light grid out came the laptop - as opposed to the slim and sleek look that was common in 2020 here, Dirk's was a tank of a machine that only existed because he used the same unreal tech to basically make his massive behemoth of a desktop into something portable when he had to abandon the proverbial ship of the Earth.

He'd tinkered around with his sunglasses enough that basic fixes were pre-programmed. Taking them off, he tossed them carelessly onto the grid and programmed in the most thorough if basic debugging and repair. If it ran into a problem it wasn't already programmed to fix, it would stop and alert him where the problem was. Until then it could run on it's own. That taking over the corner, he brought the laptop up next to it, booting it up while also bringing up the full display for his sylladex. He had the important parts of his inventory memorized, and as such rarely needed to actually call up a visual of it. Given how much random crap he'd stored in that infinite space in the last few weeks, months... the visual display was a lot like a light projector, except it didn't matter the room was already fully bright. He scaled it to take up several feet of space on the wall, a grid of White semi-rectangles each holding an image of something in them. Some were obvious - rocket powered skateboard, a CD wallet (he liked the irony of storing things inside storage), a truly stupid amount of swords- he moved his dirty clothing into the 'laundry' square to free up some space so he only had to empty out one part of it when he needed to do it -

Which was about when Jason stepped out of the bathroom. Of course Dirk looked, it was human nature to take notice of sudden sounds, even expected ones.

... and maybe leaned back in the chair a little to watch Jason go back into his room.

Scar study. Yep. That's what it was.

Dirk had his own, of course, though it often felt like there was little rhyme or reason as to what scars stayed and which ones were his forever. Except of course it was the ones that mattered that stayed. The line around his neck would likely never go away, while various other intense injuries that happened after no longer left a trace behind because they were just from random battles that had meant nothing to him. By the time Jason came back out for real to check up, Dirk had a neat little pile of various electronic components piled next to his open laptop (a chat program was open on it - and while it was full of a dozen technicolor usernames every single one was marked as offline, the space where a message would be simply saying 'no signal'. The wallpaper appeared to be a high resolution vector image of rainbow dash from my little pony) along with a scattered array of cards roughly the size of playing cards spread out in front of him. Some were punched like those old time cards you would shove into computers, others not, the images on them didn't always make sense but it was clear there was some logic behind the semi-piles that Dirk had them in.

"Yeah - you got anything to drink?" he asked, glancing up from his work. Dirk didn't want to go snooping without permission (lie, he absolutely wanted to go snooping but he didn't want to get caught snooping) and most of the stuff he had cataloged, well. It was food and drink to be endured to keep you from starving to death. If he didn't have to use it, that would be ideal. With the time passed the bruise on his shoulder was a truly epic shade of purple-black by now.

[lazarusinred]

A very striking purple-black. Purple and orange were split complementary colors after all. Jason shoved the thought aside.

"Plenty," he answered. "What do you like to drink?" Maybe he would get an answer he could work with.