Hey, it's part and parcel of being a time player. He steps into a room, dies horribly, and knows what to do next time to stay alive. He's an unlimited trial period, dancing around the proverbial stain of mortality by hiding it underneath the proverbial plant pot of time travel.
There are dead Daves everywhere, each one a little different to the last. They're all running on the same basics (aside from one smug fucker that happily recounted the nice days out he'd go on with his dear big sis Strider, before our Dave socked him in the head with the closest soft thing available), and so they're all pretty easy for Dave to predict. He can hang out with them in dream bubbles and laugh at a joke they haven't finished yet, or write a bar to counteract theirs before the battle has even begun. It's fun. It's easy. They don't stress each other out, they don't argue, and they certainly don't freak out when another one of them kicks the (sterile, non-reproductive) bucket.
So, when a Dave is killed in the midst of a fight (and, seriously, it had been his own fault - you'd think he'd know what is and isn't important to victory at this point), barely anyone makes a fuss, least of all the veritable army of dead Daves welcoming him in.
Barely anyone, that is, but Dirk.
In Dirk's defence, it's easy to forget the fact that your newly-acquired baby brother is essentially a fucking cartoon character when you see a monster ten feet tall blast a hole straight through his middle.
The sound Dirk makes isn't quite a scream, but it's guttural and loud nonetheless; almost as visceral as the gore littered around Dave's limp body, his candy blood soaking into the dirt around him. In the attack, his glasses had been flung completely off of his face, skittered and scratched a good few yards away. His crimson eyes are wide open, glassy, mouth still frozen in the beginnings of a joke. The punchline is lost to the afterlife.
Where he'd been virtually surrounded before, the ground around Dirk clears in a strong mile or so radius. Enemies that had previously been readying an attack drop like flies, eyes rolling back in their heads like a chorus of grotesque dolls. They seemingly go boneless, knees bucking, tongues lolling, muscles lax and forceless. It’s something far beyond death - something that renders their bodies drab and dull, lifeless in the sense that their hearts don't beat but moreso in the sense that there is nothing left to kill. Their weapons clatter to the ground, melancholy and cold, but innocent without their wielders.
The Prince of Heart is feeling destructive.
Hold onto your fucking souls.
It becomes a twist of the most dizzying degree. Dirk has always been quick, faster than any normal person could ever give explanation for, but now he's positively invisible, darting between foe and fallen. The greyish hue his skin has taken only helps him further: he's devastatingly camouflaged against the murky air, slinking in shadow until he can eviscerate again with just his eyes. Anything that gets too close faces his blade.
It's barely even a fight. It's almost unfair.
His sword paints something vicious along the floor, each new splash of colour a sickening addition to Dave's remnants of red. By the time they've caught on to what, exactly, is killing them off, Dirk is getting inventive. Instead of just relying on his fury, on his specubus, he's combining them. For a second, he appears, still and visible, holding a head by the hair, barely stained, but shaking. He's white-knuckled and stern-eyed, ridiculous glasses more like thin pupils of some beast emerging from a centuries long slumber.
There's nothing fatigued about him. He's been awake for a long time.
"Back off." The katana cuts a destructive and dismissive arc through the air as he backs towards Dave's body, stoic expression mostly intact, save for the doglike flash of a grimace. Proximity is something of the past. They couldn't get anywhere near him if they wanted to, and they certainly do not.
Dirk kneels, the muscles in his face taut and twitching. He doesn't speak. He doesn't think he can.
Something indescribable is lurching inside him. It's stronger than Trickster Mode, because he actually feels this - heavy, oil-slick smooth, clogging up his throat, eyes, nose. It's deeper, somehow even more inviting. It's cold. Dark.
Behind him, Dave whistles.
"Yo, bro. I didn't expect you to clear the place."
Dirk doesn't jump, but the ghost of the action lingers on him. He straightens up, reluctant to turn - not only his back on the body, but his face to his brother. It's not that he doubts the integrity of this Dave, but that he knows that the one at his feet is gone for good. He knows the Dave behind him knows that, too.
"It's okay, man. Hey, seriously. I told you about this. Maybe we can sprite him with something, bring him back for the Mayor. I kinda like having me-sprites around - those jagoffs always sound like they know what they're doing. Maybe that's what dying does to you: once your heart stops all its sick beats, the twenty percent of your brain you aren't using kicks into jackassery mode. Maybe that's- oh."
Dirk has to stoop just a little to really wrap Dave in that shut-the-fuck-up-we're-hugging hug, but he manages it all the same. Dave is paralysed for only a second (very reminiscent of their first embrace, if subject to a little role reversal) before he returns the hug with just as much vigour.
"Asshole," Dirk says - kind of chokes, but not quite.
Dave dies a lot. He's come to terms with that, more often than not, he isn't the version of himself that his friends want to see.
He may not be Dirk's Dave, but his brother will always be his Dirk.
"I know," he says, gentle. Light. He squeezes the shake from Dirk's shoulders. "I know."
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