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If anything, Dirk’s kidnappers are rather… nice.Like in Blackwing, he has a room to himself, but this one is painted in the slightly less soul destroying colour of cream, and he actually has some furniture beyond just his bed including a bookcase containing all the Jeeves and Wooster novels (which Dirk has been reading with a sense of British glee for the familiar) and a wardrobe where his jacket is hung up, as are his rather nice cotton pyjamas. He has, of course, been removed for inane testing purposes, but when he gets all of the psychic questions wrong (“I’m not psychic,” he insists to the researchers), he isn’t punished and is instead free to go back to his room. He even hears talk of installing a television one day, as he’s escorted back to his room. He thinks that this might be rather like a rich people prison, and wonders if he perhaps rather likes it.But it is a kidnapping , and so it isn’t exactly rainbows and kittens: Dirk is easily bored and misses the fresh air, and even misses the sense he had in Blackwing of just knowing that other people were there. He’s never seen any other subjects here, just guards and researchers. He feels an exorbitant sense of loneliness, exacerbated mostly by the fact that he had been about to kiss Todd across the table in the Starbucks before instead ceremonially passing out. He’s never going to have that sense of unbridled confidence again, and he never even finished his Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino.Seemingly to make up for that, however, his captors seem to give him a lot of hot drinks. He gets up to six cups of warm beverages a day: coffee, tea, hot chocolate, Ovaltine, Bovril… Dirk rather enjoys the luxury.He only realises that they’ve been spiking his drinks when he finishes a nice cup of peppermint tea and his spirit leaves his body. No cup of tea is that good, even though his English heritage wants him to believe that. It’s his last drink of the day, his nightcap, and he goes to bed feeling a little woozy, wondering if his soul really did decide to go for a meander without the rest of him or if he just had an interesting hallucination. The thought keeps him awake, and it’s a good thing, as sometime after he throws one of his novels to the floor in frustration, somebody does something similar to the door.“Fuck this door!” Martin growls as he barges in; Dirk is tempted to lambast his presence, but supposes that kicking the door down was a very cool thing to do and opts instead to stand up and look shocked. “Get going. Your friend’s looking for you.”‘Friend’ in Martin’s terms could apply to anyone from Todd right through to the Beast, but to his surprise, immediately following the word comes ‘Todd’ . Though Martin’s mouth didn’t move, Dirk heard him say it clear as day. ‘He better hurry up, or those guards are gonna reach us.’ Martin’s voice. As real as if he had spoken, but he didn’t; Dirk falters over his own feet, and Martin catches him with ease. “Steady. You need some help?”Dirk would like to say no, but he seems to be hearing a lot of Martin things, and it’s a tad overwhelming. “Um, yes, please. The whole - walking thing - isn’t going as well as I planned.” He pauses, then: “Can I get my jacket, and my normal clothes?”It isn’t hard for Dirk to work out what’s happening as his mind is flooded with words in Martin’s voice. He’s just hoping, desperately hoping, that it isn’t true. As he walks, leaning heavily on Martin’s shoulder (which he seems to like on an oddly patriarchal level, according to his thoughts), he decides that he can probably run this by the man, considering he doesn’t exactly see the Rowdy 3 very often. “You know,” he says. “I think I can read minds.”“Yeah?” Martin says gruffly, the same time that his head says ‘bullshit’ . “What number am I thinking of?”His thoughts are so loud that Dirk barely even needs to focus. “Four. Thirty-six. A million and twelve. Negative nine. And now you’re thinking of asking me what shape you’re thinking of, and it’s a rhombus. And when we turn right, this is where Farah is, so can we - stop? For a second?”Martin obliges and Dirk steadies himself, clutching his clothes to his chest. “I’m impressed,” the man says. “You can read minds now, dude. Bet that’ll make detecting easier.”If Dirk wasn’t specifically a holistic detective, he’s sure it would. Sadly, he’s unqualified and not fit enough for normal detecting. Besides, they wouldn’t let him wear a leather coat as a police officer. He straightens himself up. He can be a police officer in his mind , though, all cool and macho and on top of the situation - Bergsberg County Sheriff Department not included in this fantasy - ready to rock and roll and make arrests and maybe shoot people but hopefully not. He’s just going to have to ignore the thoughts, like the police ignore vital evidence (Dirk is definitely not hung up on this). Maybe he could even walk in swinging like a member of the Rowdies.Taking a deep breath, he steps round the corner.Farah is standing at the other end, gun in hand; Todd is standing closer to Dirk, and his eyes light up as he catches sight of his newly liberated friend - but just as Dirk appears, the corridor goes dark, the alarms finally sounding with a terrible howl that only serves to aggravate the crash of noise in Dirk’s head that comes from Todd’s thoughts, an absolute hurricane that he can’t discern a single word out of right now, just a noise that seems to make anything impossible. He collapses to his knees, covering his ears, but it does nothing to abate the complete sensory overload; someone grabs his arm, pulls him to his feet, drags him across the corridor. Dirk is vaguely aware that they’re saying something to him, but he can’t hear over the cacophony of thoughts, now opening to accommodate Farah and Martin, and the screeching sirens.He’s not sure whether it’s falling asleep so much as passing out , but as he feels a breeze of air from the outside world he’s been detached from for months, the exhaustion proves too much, and he disconnects from his consciousness for a while. When Dirk wakes up, he is distinctly aware that he is very uncomfortable, and that all of his muscles feel gross and stiff. He sits up, stretching out his arms and accidentally punches the back of Todd’s headrest. Todd spins round, ready to shout, before realising that Dirk is finally awake in the back of the car. His thoughts strike Dirk’s mind. ‘Why can he only punch while half-unconscious?’ ‘I’m glad he’s okay.’ ‘God, I missed him.’ “Is this a car?” Dirk asks blearily. “I can’t sleep in cars.”“Could’ve fooled me,” Todd says. “You’ve been out ten hours.”“Yes, well. There was rather a lot of drama.” Dirk shifts and clicks in his seatbelt; he had kindly even been allowed the boon of sleeping horizontally, and now that that’s over, it’s time to reprioritise road safety. “Very tiring. I may have been on some illegal or maybe even sinisterly legal substances. Perhaps even new and unknown narcotics!”“Glad you had a good time, Dirk,” Todd says sarcastically, but Dirk doesn’t miss the note of fondness in his voice. “Maybe now’s a good time to stop for lunch.”“I like lunch,” Dirk appeals to Farah, who resists the intense urge to roll her eyes at him and instead promises that they’ll stop at the next McDonald’s - or, really, wherever they serve food. McDonald’s is just their stand-in. “Thank you all for breaking me out. It was very cool, though you could’ve maybe used some sunglasses, and crossbows…”Todd and Farah’s minds both echo a confused note which Dirk chooses to take as a good sign that he has reestablished himself in the group, and he sits back, toying with the buttons of his pajama shirt. He hopes he’ll get the chance to change soon: he is dashing in anything, obviously, but his clothes are a stifling reminder of the institution he’s just been broken out of and the fact that they’ve ladled him with a power he’s not terribly sure he wants. He wishes he could ignore it, and though he’s starting to get the knack of tuning out other thoughts like the sound of the clock in his bedroom, occasionally one comes through too strong and then suddenly he’s back in tune with every thought flooding his mind, every reflection by Todd on the state Dirk had arrived in and every route map in Farah’s head for getting them home, every spare thought for Amanda. And really… he just doesn’t want to know these things, doesn’t want to invade their privacy.Nor does he want to tell them, and ruin everything.They pull over at a Wendy’s, and Dirk changes in the bathroom. His clothes are a little rumpled from having been unceremoniously stuffed into the trunk by Todd (which Dirk knows from Todd’s internal apologetic cringe), but he’s much happier to be back in a leather jacket and so he ignores the fashion slight in favour of settling down to brunch. Todd and Farah graciously avoid the subject of his imprisonment, and to get the conversation started, Dirk asks where Amanda and the Rowdies are.“Back on the road to ‘fix the universe’,” Todd says. Dirk doesn’t even need his thoughts to know that he misses Amanda and still wishes that they were on better terms, and that he still feels guilty. Dirk wishes that he could say that Amanda is her own spirit, that there’s no point in Todd worrying after her all the time anymore, but he stays quiet; he’s not sure it’s his place to say.“They came specifically to help me?” Dirk asks slowly. Todd blushes. ‘I asked,’ his thoughts say. Dirk fights off his own blush at that, taking a hearty glug of his morning-ish coffee. He can’t quite face tea again yet, treacherous drink that it is.“Well, we couldn’t take on a whole research facility by ourselves,” Farah answers. “Though they didn’t exactly have the best defences. They were just a bunch of scientists.” She folds her arms, and leans on the table, just in front of her very hearty-looking lunch. Her curiosity pricks at Dirk’s mind. “What were they doing with you, Dirk?”He’s already mentioned the drugs, so he supposes that he’s going to have to at least be marginally truthful, though he doesn’t want to worry anybody so soon after the catharsis of rescue. He shrugs. “They gave me drugged tea, mostly.”“Drugged tea?” Todd tries to hide his alarm, but it slips through anyway.“I didn’t really notice,” Dirk says quickly. “Until I had a weird trip.” That’s a good excuse. He can always just use things from his dreams, which tend to be just as phenomenally odd, and pepper descriptions of his apparent trips with those. “But it was only the once. It was like a nice prison. It even had books.”“A nice prison,” Todd says slowly, “where they drugged your tea.” He looks at Dirk’s coffee. Dirk suddenly wishes he had ordered chocolate milk, so he flags a waitress for some.“Precisely,” Dirk says.Todd’s look of incredulity says it all.Dirk decides not to argue the case for Wodehouse, and instead gets up to go and actually use the bathroom for its intended purpose, rather than as a glorified changing room. He feels a sudden rush of nerves in Todd, and turns, hoping he hasn’t given himself away - but Todd has extended a hand after him. “I should go with you,” he says. Dirk frowns. “In case you get, you know, kidnapped again.”His words are so soft that Dirk takes slight pity, surprised as he is by Todd’s show of care. “I am an adult , Todd. I think I can manage the bathroom by myself,” he says, though not cruelly.“That’s questionable,” Todd says, and lets him go.Dirk is so preoccupied thinking about the little rush of emotions in Todd’s mind that came with his nervousness that he almost splashes his trousers with water as he washes his hands. Swearing at the stupid confounded tap, he heads back to the table. For the rest of the car journey home, Todd blasts the Beastie Boys out the window, completely ignoring Farah’s complaints. Dirk has to suppress a smile at Todd’s smug grin when she finally relents, and as he finally clambers out of the car at about dinnertime, he feels an extraordinary sense of freedom. His life has been non-stop ever since the Patrick Spring case, and even though this will likely also be a short reprieve, it’s nice to have the freedom just to stretch and yawn on his front doorstep again.The problem with the fact that both of them have been neglecting their household for very different reasons is that there’s nothing in the fridge, and Todd’s eaten all the food in the freezer. He looks at the fridge with a look of resigned defeat, knowing that a grocery store trip with Dirk is in order soon. Dirk doesn’t appreciate the mental insinuation that grocery shopping with him is that bad; he just likes to leave with a varied basket. “Let’s get takeout.”“Good idea,” Dirk says cheerily, always a fan of the pizza he can eat over two days. He over-orders, just so they can cover tomorrow’s lunch as well as breakfast, and decides to have a Hawaiian so that Todd can’t steal any of his (he, of course, will steal plenty of Todd’s). But before the pizza even arrives, he falls asleep on the sofa, the excitement of the day and the storms of thoughts he has to process finally catching up with him.
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Amanda never answered her phone anymore, but Todd gave it a try anyway. He was steadily running out of options: the more Farah scoped the facility, the more impossible it seemed that they could even infiltrate it just as a duo. But the days were steadily passing by, and he ached the longer that he knew Dirk was trapped, stuck somewhere that could be as horrible as Blackwing - or worse. So he tried anyway.
Much to his surprise, Amanda picked up. “Todd,” she said, a little hesitantly, then, “what’s up, dude?”. They just needed to find their rhythm again, he knew. Then it would be alright.
“Dirk’s been taken,” he said. “We need your help getting him out. It’s a big job. We - we can’t do it on our own.”
“No problem,” Amanda said. “Just tell us where we’re going and our GPS might get us there without trying to drive us off a cliff if we’re lucky.”
Todd relayed the address that Farah had written down, and Amanda shouted it at one of the other members before shifting her attention back to the phone - and Todd. “ Please tell me that when we bust him out you’re going to tell him you love him already. I can’t watch you two keep giving each other the eyes .” “The eyes?” Todd asked, a little horrified at the idea that he’d been that obvious.
“You keep looking at him like you don’t know what the fuck you’d do if he wasn’t around.”
Todd supposed that he wouldn’t, not anymore. “Well…”
“Just tell him. He deserves it after all the shit he’s been through. And hey, you might get laid!”
Todd was definitely not ready to think about that and emitted a rather loud and horrified groan. He also definitely didn’t need Amanda thinking about it, either. “Maybe,” he said defensively. “But, you know, he deserves better than me…” “Bullcrap,” Amanda said sharply. “He likes you , not anyone else. At least think about telling him, dumbass. See you soon.”
She hung up before Todd could say anything else, and he stood staring, Dirk occupying all of his thoughts at once, standing goofily in his leather jacket in the warmer corners of Todd’s mind.
Dirk wakes up at about noon the next day, somehow even later than Todd, feeling his limbs complain rather loudly about having spent the entire night on the couch and subsequently stretching them in his wander to the fridge. Todd has neatly packed their pizza slices into freezer bags, carefully wrapped in foil, and Dirk feels his heart swim: though Dirk has mastered the art of pizza maintenance, Todd is firmly a box in the fridge guy, and he’s rather appreciative of the fact that Todd has opted for his method this time. It keeps the pizza much better.Their apartment is suspiciously quiet of thoughts, though.Dirk eschews his usual method of reheating on the stove (as recommended by the pizza experts) in favour of microwaving a few slices. Todd has left a note on the table saying that he’s at the agency as he has some consultations, so once Dirk finishes his makeshift breakfast, he changes into one of his nice shirts ( ah , he’s missed this colourful wardrobe), slings on his jacket, and heads down the road. He knows that he had this thought yesterday, but God , he just loves this fresh air and the ability just to take a nice walk down the street. Todd always complains about the neighbourhood, but Dirk will take it over the lonely corridors of Blackwing any day: here he has neighbours not locked in cells, neighbours walking dogs and ferrying their children to school and going to work.Neighbours whose thoughts are very loud. But despite the bombardment of noise, Dirk finds himself appreciative of it. It means that he isn’t alone. It means that he’s connected to the world as well as the universe.Sitting on top of a skip just two minutes from the office door is a ferret. Dirk stops to admire it. He’s never seen a ferret sitting out and casually enjoying the mid-morning sunshine before, and without particularly thinking about it, he picks it up and carries it to the office with him, singing some Gracie Fields to it, which the ferret seems to particularly appreciate.Todd is sitting behind his rather chaotically organised desk, looking frustrated with his client, a young lady with cropped hair and a bright blue jacket that almost puts Dirk’s electric yellow to shame. She turns at the sound of the bell above the door, and shrieks, which startles Dirk more than it does the ferret but also serves to immediately inform him that this is her ferret, who is named Jim Halpert.Dirk appreciates the name, and the client’s sense of style, and beams as he hands Jim over.Todd wonders very loudly (and also internally) how the actual fuck Dirk managed to just pick up the little shit, which has been either impossible to find or impossible to retrieve (Todd and Farah’s hands are both peppered with bite marks) for the past two weeks.As Todd moves off to organise payment from the client, Dirk wanders through the office, taking a gleeful seat at his desk. Either Todd or Farah have been dusting it for him, and he reaches across to straighten his heavily-stickered laptop and switch on his flamingo lamp. His numerous maneki-neko cat figurines wave at him, and he waves back. He fishes around in his bowl of pin badges, wondering which ,if any, he should wear today, before deciding instead to fix himself a pot of tea to drink as he goes through his caseload. Dirk, of course, has three teapots on his desk, one with a tea cosy, and he chooses his spotty cow one.From across the room, Todd thinks ‘really?’ and Dirk shoots him an indignant glare before realising his error. Todd frowns at him. Dirk smiles back, hoping to play it off, which seems to work: Todd spends a moment wondering why he’s acting funny, then turns back to the client.Dirk really doesn’t like this whole mind reading thing. He wishes he could just look over to Todd, and genuinely smile, and Todd would smile back.The client leaves with a jingle of the door just as Dirk switches on the kettle. Todd ventures over warily.“Are you okay?” he asks, concern emanating from him in a sort-of mental cloud which Dirk might be inclined to find weird if his entire life weren’t already so. “You didn’t need to come in today, you know. I was going to come back, I thought we could just chill out with the pizza…”“I’m fine,” Dirk says. He is not fine, but Todd does not need to know this, and his not-fineness also isn’t particularly impeding his detection skills. Todd gives him a Todd look, and Dirk sighs. “I promise I’m fine. But if it makes you feel any better, we can go home. After I have my tea. But only after.” He beams. “Would you like a cup, Todd?”Dirk finds, much to his disappointment, that he has been entirely unsuccessful: Todd looks incredibly sceptical, and shakes his head. “I’m okay. I had a coffee.”As he goes to sit down and finish whatever dull paperwork he’s doing that Dirk always studiously avoids, Dirk feels a pang of guilt. He should tell Todd what’s going on; they’ve been through plenty, after all, and it’s doubtful that a spot of induced telepathy will be the worst thing they’ve ever gone through. It’s not fair to leave him in the dark, but the idea of the potential ostracisation puts Dirk off horribly: now that he’s made friends, he doesn’t want to leave them just because he can hear everything floating through their mind, from the pop song stuck in Todd’s head to Farah’s consideration of what she’s going to have for lunch (Dirk hears both the words salmon and avocado ).Todd looks at him again. Dirk doesn’t think he even needs his powers to tell.He’ll tell Todd. Just not now. As Dirk has another slice of his pizza, which Todd has lazily microwaved instead of heating on the stove, he reflects on the weirdness of the afternoon. Honestly, things got a little odd after he sat down at his desk and had the first sip out of his Mr Bean mug: he had been there, and then he was on the floor, and Todd was telling him that he had fainted. Which was odd. Dirk did not particularly remember fainting, though he supposes he’s never quite remembered fainting before. But there had been something odder that occurred in the immediate aftermath, and this is what’s been obsessing his mind.He can’t hear anyone else’s thoughts but Todd’s.Farah’s mind had gone quiet: he never got to find the conclusion of the lunch conundrum. He couldn’t hear the humdrum of the people passing him on the street on the walk home, can’t hear the vague drone of the upstairs neighbour’s thoughts, can’t hear the considerations of the cat. He can just hear Todd, wondering if Dirk’s stove-heating method really is better than just bunging the pizza in the microwave, and then slowly admitting as he has a slice that Dirk’s method is definitely superior.Dirk allows himself a smirk.“I got ice cream,” Todd says. “Want me to defrost it?”Dirk beams. “Absolutely.”Todd looks at him for a moment in silence, but for Dirk, there is no such thing as silence. Todd’s mind is turning, a wave of unadulterated joy washing over him as his thoughts stumble into words, suddenly as crystal clear as light on the ocean. The thought catches Dirk utterly by surprise, and he stares back.Todd just thought God, I love him .
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Dirk groans, shifting up to his elbows and rubbing his eyes. The back seat of Farah’s car is distinctly uncomfortable, and somewhere he hopes not to become accustomed too much to sleeping in. The car is moving, and he peers out the window, taking in the sight of a McDonald’s drive-thru and feeling a flash of offence when he hears Farah ordering without having consulted him.“I want a milkshake,” he says blearily. “Strawberry.”Farah adds this to her order.They eat in the car, in the parking lot. Dirk shifts up to the passenger side, and turns on the radio, though he keeps the volume low for Farah’s benefit. It’s still morning, so the local station is playing old rock and roll that reminds Dirk of Blackwing: music was rare there, but it was a way of keeping him entertained when he was younger, so they let him play records in his room. It’s where Dirk got his love of Gracie Fields from, and he still knows all the words to The Bobby Fuller Four’s second album. His heart groans for a moment.Todd definitely isn’t getting to listen to good music right now. In fact, his mind is so quiet that Dirk ventures he’s either asleep - or has been knocked out.“I can’t hear him,” he says to Farah, taking a bite of his McMuffin, which he thinks is a terrible name. He’s always expecting a chocolate or blueberry muffin, but in reality, it’s just a disappointing burger. “He’s not - up. Or awake. I hope he’s…” Dirk trails off, and sighs, leaning back against the window and watching the traffic pass by on the interstate. He really hopes they’re going in the right direction, that his hunches aren’t failing him, that his newfound power is working. They don’t have any other leads, after all. Hobbs and Tina are keeping an eye out for them, but Todd really did just vanish .He stayed late at the office one night, and didn’t come home, and wasn’t there the next morning, or the next, or the next. And despite the distance, Dirk still has a hotline into Todd’s mind, one that tells him that Todd is imprisoned right now, stuck in a room and bored out of his mind, lonely and lost and yearning a little for some semblance of normality and chasing ferrets down the street again.Farah has been understanding, of course, which is almost frustrating when Dirk spent so long doubting that he could tell anyone about his telepathy. But he loves her, and he appreciates that she trusts him, that they’re driving across states based on nothing more than his words and feelings.“He’ll be okay,” she says, and Dirk knows that she shouldn’t be promising that, but he’s glad that she is. He needs to hear it.“Farah,” he says, taking a sip of his milkshake. She looks at him imploringly, and Dirk loses the ability to speak. It’s very sudden. He just can’t find it within him to say the words anymore, because to say them out loud makes everything just a little realer, and the fact that Todd has been kidnapped now is just bringing reality crashing down on his head. He tries not to cry. She reaches forward and puts an arm around him. “I much prefer it when I’m kidnapped. This is very stressful.”She laughs a little, hoarsely. “It’s even worse when Todd is trying to find you. He just loses sight of everything else. At least you still have an appetite.”“I wouldn’t be much good to Todd on an empty stomach,” Dirk argues. Mr Tambourine Man starts on the radio, and so he cranks it up, watching the world go by and waiting for the swell of emotion in his mind that means that Todd is awake. Todd has such dull and mundane thoughts while in captivity. In all honesty, Dirk is both entranced and bored by them: he likes the sense of connection, likes knowing that Todd is eating and that he’s okay and is occasionally amused by the God, I’m going to die just of boredom lines, but Todd also doesn’t think of interesting things very often. Mostly, when he’s not musing on his situation and boring Dirk himself half to death, he thinks about the people he loves: Amanda, Farah, Hobbs and Tina… and Dirk, of course.It’s a little odd hearing someone else’s thoughts about him, especially when they’re so fond. It makes following the trail a little harder.“Maybe it was something in the tea,” he says suddenly. Farah looks over, and Dirk shifts into his favourite explanatory pose, the one where he has as much room as possibly to wave his arms about. “Well, if the substance that made me telepathic in the first place was in the tea, that got me thinking. My powers changed after I had that cup of tea in the office, which was my first tea since. What if there’s something in tea that activates with the substance?”“That sounds… unlikely,” Farah concludes, but nods anyway; there’s enough ridiculousness in the world that chemicals in tea probably wouldn’t be the weirdest thing she’ll hear all week. “But maybe.”“Todd doesn’t like tea,” Dirk says thoughtfully. “Maybe he’ll be fine.”“I don’t think they’ll let him get away with not drinking tea if that’s their plan.”“I can dream !” He folds his arms; really, he just doesn’t want to think about any alternatives. Though he supposes he can be reassured knowing that he has a hotline into Todd’s thoughts: he hasn’t heard about Todd being hurt; and, like him, Todd just seems to be bored without much human interaction. He hasn’t even tried to read any Wodehouse, though Dirk wonders if he’s been given the option. Todd is in a different compound, after all. Maybe it’s payback, and he gets no books at all.Dirk picks at one of his nails; he doesn’t have Todd’s biting habit, too neat for that, but Dirk’s own fault is obsessively picking at faults in his nails. He looks over at Farah. “Do you think we’ll find him?”“We always find you ,” she says.“What if the universe doesn’t want me to find him?”“Then we’ll find him anyway.”Dirk rests his head against the window, feeling the buzz of the road against the side of his forehead. The sensation makes him feel strangely dizzy, and his hearing goes a little awry. “I heard something,” he says. “Todd thought something, and I heard it, and I - maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn’t hear it right, maybe it wasn’t him, but…”“Just say it, Dirk.”“He thought that he loved me.”“And do you love him?”Dirk says nothing.“I’ll take the fact that we’re currently on a wild telepathic goose chase on the highways as a ‘yes’,” Farah says softly. “When we find him, are you going to tell him? Because I have the feeling he’s never going to tell you, and the two of you are just going to keep getting into ridiculous situations and not being honest about how you feel. And you should let him know.”“I can’t exactly arrive, kick down the door, shout ‘Todd, I’m blindingly homosexual for you, you beautiful man’, and kiss him,” Dirk points out, as much as he then goes on to think that would be incredibly entertaining, and quite fun. Farah laughs.“You could try.”“Maybe I should. But you might have to kick the door down for me.”“What do I even say? ‘Todd, I’m here to rescue you’?”“I mean, that sounds good to me.”“Very romantic.”Farah laughs, and smiles at Dirk, and for just a brief moment, he lets himself forget that Todd has been kidnapped, and that they are driving rather anxiously to find him, and he lets himself just think of seeing Todd again, of all the stupid things he’ll say, of Todd’s pulled faces to all those things. And he smiles. Dirk’s powers are surprisingly good at finding Todd. They even pick up Bart on the way. He does not, however, knock down the door and dramatically kiss Todd.Farah kicks down the door to the controls office, Dirk walks in, and Lieutenant Assistent spins round.
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This is absolutely not how Dirk saw this day going; nor Todd, in fact, seeing as he is rather loudly thinking about how bizarre the entire situation is. Dirk wonders what Todd hears in his head; probably most of Dirk’s observations about Todd’s thoughts, and Dirk spends a moment ruminating on the loop he thinks he might create, but Todd steadfastly ignores falling into this trap. He’s checking the Deliveroo app on his phone. The driver is struggling to find them. Pizza and explanations only works in films.“We were trying,” Assistent says, looking distinctly uncomfortable about being handcuffed (as he should, Dirk thinks, miffed), “to unlock further potential in the powers of Blackwing subjects. But it turns out the powers just didn’t discriminate - everyone, not just Blackwing subjects, would develop powers from the chemicals, after long enough. And we believe these powers could still develop. We wanted to find out how and if these powers linked, hence…”Everyone looks at Todd, and he flushes a little under the attention. He folds his arms. “So you’re telling me my psychic - link thing with Dirk could get stronger? Could we communicate, ever?”“We just don’t know,” Assistent says, shrugging. God, I’m going to have to listen to him forever , Todd thinks.“Hey,” Dirk says, offended, clutching his chest. “It’s not like I enjoy listening to you .”He can tell that Dirk is disappointed by Assistent’s lack of knowledge; and, really, Dirk is too. He doesn’t want to be listening in to all of Todd’s innermost thoughts forever. He wants a level of privacy between them. It doesn’t feel right knowing everything. It’s cheap. Todd looks over at him at that thought.“You think so?” he asks quietly.“I mean, instead of you opting to tell me things because that’s what you want to do, I just hear it all. There’s no barrier. So things don’t feel…” Dirk trails off, searching for the word. Todd can’t find it either, and is instead interrupted by the sound of their pizza arriving; he and Farah break away to squabble over how much to tip their driver for finding them in the middle of nowhere, and Dirk ponders a little more.He just wonders if things lose a little meaning when he doesn’t feel like he’s learning them organically.Dirk and Todd get a whole pizza to themselves, and sit on the hood of the car, watching across the gravel of the abandoned car park as Farah continues to interrogate Assistent. Bart is starting to look faintly bored, which worries Todd, but he tries to ignore the thought that she might just kill them all for fun. He glances over. Dirk has the energy buzzing around him as if he wants to say something, but is waiting for the moment and the courage. Say it , Todd thinks. Dirk looks up with surprise, as if forgetting they’re hotwired together.“Do you really love me?” he asks, his bottom lip jutting out in that face he does a lot to Todd but not to anyone else. It’s almost a pout, but too earnest.“Do you?” Todd asks back, immediately sensing that Dirk is not pleased in the slightest that he has just deflected .“I suppose so,” says Dirk. “There’s no-one else I’d rather eat pizza with.”“Dirk, that’s-” Todd is about to say terrible , but shakes his head. Maybe it isn’t terrible. Maybe it’s just the words I love you , but in a form that’s manageable, that isn’t going to strain. And maybe, just maybe, that’s something that Todd can do, too. “I guess there’s no-one else in the world I’d hunt down after getting kidnapped, six times. With anyone else I’d give up second time.”Dirk laughs. “I’d give up when we ran out of McDonald’s money.”“God, I’m glad I was close by.” Todd smiles, and before either of them really realise what’s going on, Todd has placed his hand over Dirk’s. He keeps it there; pulling away would just feel wrong, and besides, he kinda likes the warmth of Dirk’s hand. “But maybe we can try not to get kidnapped for a while. Like, a month - maybe two.”“I can’t promise anything, Todd,” Dirk points out, “but I can be vigilant.”A beat passes between them as they eat, a rather pleasant one. Todd wouldn’t mind more moments like this in his life, where for once he’s feeling calm, like nothing is about to crash over his head, and he can just relax.With Dirk. He doesn’t think he’d have much fun on his own anymore.“I have a confession to make,” Dirk says suddenly, blurting it nervously; Todd’s surprised, having only felt the briefest of anxious bubble-ups in Dirk’s mind before the crescendo. “I’ve never kissed anybody before, Todd, so if we’re going to be getting up to any of that sort of hanky panky then I’d really rather ask that we do it at home.”The first thing Todd thinks to say is, “ hanky panky ?” and then, “yeah, okay, sure, I mean I wasn’t in a rush or anything” (which is a lie and it annoys him that Dirk knows it).He has another slice of pizza. Todd, much like Dirk, sleeps almost all the way back home, sprawled out in the back of the car. Dirk and Farah save him some of their takeaway anyway, which he eats when he wakes up, watching the comfortably familiar sight of the streets he knows (and kind of loves, he thinks) pass them by. Dirk is singing along to The Temptations when he wakes up, and for a moment before he remembers that Dirk can hear everything, he thinks wow, Dirk really can sing . In another life, I could’ve been a singer , Dirk thinks back instinctively. “Like a cabaret singer. I could’ve been in one of those jazz clubs!”Farah doesn’t ask where the hell this conversation has suddenly sprung from, which Todd supposes is nice: she lets them keep their secrets. He thinks about Dirk in an old thirties jazz club, dressed in a nice suit full of lush colours with an interesting tie and a bowler hat, and he laughs. “In your dreams.”“Well, yes, that’s generally where I imagine these sorts of things.”Farah drops them off at their apartment rather warily, waiting until they’re both definitely and very firmly inside before she drives off. Dirk is rather glad to find the apartment empty of any further potential kidnappers, and he shrugs off his jacket, leaving it on the coat stand he insists that they have. Todd is less fond of it, and more likely to put his coat almost anywhere else, but he’s so relieved to be back home and with Dirk that he follows suit.Dirk is so anxious about the prospect of kissing Todd that it seems to possess every corner of his mind. Todd sighs.“Dirk,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you suck at kissing. Everyone sucks at kissing at the start.” He pauses. “And I don’t care if you’re not good at it, cause I guess we have time to… to work on it.”Dirk gasps. “Todd Brotzman, that was so cheesy I think I almost felt your embarrassment firsthand,” he says, touching his hand to his heart. “That was adorable . But you still have to kiss me first.”“I hope you enjoyed that, because I’m never being that cringy again.”“I’ll hold you to that.”“I’m not a romantic.”“Sure,” says Dirk. You just keep driving across states to find me because we’re really great man friends - what is it they call them? Bros? “Shut up,” sighs Todd, and kisses him. This, he knows, will not shut up and actually only increase the deluge of thoughts pervading his mind: but much to his surprise, when their lips touch, Dirk goes completely quiet. The only thing Todd registers is a little gasp that Dirk might’ve made physically.The silence is strange.Dirk’s thoughts come flooding back in when they separate, wondering desperately why he hit radio silence. He looks curiously at Todd, who is beginning to crave the relative quiet of his own head again. I don’t need to hear your thoughts when I’m kissing you , Dirk muses, because I know what you’re thinking. “I’m thinking that wasn’t bad at all,” Todd says.“I can tell you’re lying, Todd, remember?”“Shit.”“I appreciate it,” Dirk adds, kissing Todd chastely. He looks at him for a moment, and his heart swells with gladness both that they found each other, and that he’s got Todd to look out for him, no matter what.‘ Next time I’m kidnapped ’, he thinks, ‘ keep in touch, Todd ’ . ‘ As if I have the choice ’, Todd thinks, affectionately.