
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/892044.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      Dirk_Strider/Dirk_Strider
  Character:
      Dirk_Strider, Courtyard_Droll, Jack_Noir
  Additional Tags:
      Self-cest, Threats_of_Violence, Masturbation, Propaganda, Caliginous
      Romance_|_Kismesis, HSWC, Homestuck_Shipping_World_Cup, Dirk's_Issues
  Collections:
      2013_Homestuck_Shipping_World_Cup
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-07-21 Words: 4422
****** Restful Royals Target of Prospitian Plot? ******
by jadebloods, Neigedens, t34lbloods_(perculious)
Summary
     A routine reconnaissance misson to the Droll's courtyard turns deadly
     because that other Dirk just doesn't know when to quit. (Homestuck
     Shipping World Cup 2013 Main Round 1: Propaganda)
Notes
     This was Team Circledirk's entry for the Homestuck Shipping World Cup
     2013 Main Round 1: Propaganda. Originally posted here. Below is the
     expanded version with some extra stuff we had to cut out to meet the
     word count limit.
     Bri (Neigedens) wrote Derse Dirk's parts and the Enquiring Carapacian
     article, Ella (sfingella) wrote earth Dirk's parts, Laney
     (t34lbloods) wrote the letter from future Dirk, Sxiz (sxizzor) drew
     the article illustration. Ketsu gets an honorable mention for doing
     some HTML coding for us. Lala participated by being adorable and
     friendleader-y.
Dirk should have known that it was going to be a weird day when a crumpled
piece of paper suddenly appeared out of thin air over his face and dropped
inelegantly on his nose, startling him out of... well, not sleep, exactly.
Instead of sleeping, he'd started going into these weird extended astral plane
trances that were restful but definitely not as restful as sleep, either. On
top of that, it had started to seem less and less like that other guy, the one
in the doofy pajamas, was someone he became when he was asleep and more and
more like he was somehow both of them all the time. The effect was
disconcerting as hell, like he was constantly looking at film that had been
exposed twice, and he wondered if this whole thing wasn't starting to have
adverse consequences on his sensorimotor processing.
It just wouldn't do to have a dude's proprioception all out of whack, you know?
He blinked a few times after the note shocked him into alertness, ignoring it
for the time being-- these notes were usually more of an annoyance than
anything else-- in favor of trying to shake off the other guy first. He focused
his eyes on the ceiling above him until it was mostly all that he could see. If
he let his eyes relax a little bit, he could see the garish purple of the
sleazy Dersite rag and even make out a few words of the tabloid article against
the mostly blank white canvas of the stucco ceiling.
Something about… plots. No, socks? Maybe both. Did it matter? Fuck no.
Closing his eyes only made it worse, made the image clearer and brighter, more
focused, so he rolled over to his side and stared out the window, watching the
sun start to peek up over the horizon to spread gold and yellow over the
reflective surface of the ocean. He spaced out for a while, feeling his body
for bruises and trying to rub the stiffness out of the long muscles in his arms
and legs. Without sleep, true relaxation had been hard to come by, so he had to
forcibly remind himself to unclench each muscle before pressing his palm down
and sliding it over his skin.
He had to curl up a little on his side to reach his calf muscles and
hamstrings, massaging tight knots out of the cordlike fibers and feeling up the
back of his legs and down the front, then back up again on the inside, pulling
up goosebumps and small shivers as his touch got lighter. He drew his knees up
to his chest, stretching the sore muscles of his back and hamstrings, and
tucked his hands between his legs. Once there, they naturally gravitated to his
dick, which per usual was arguably more awake than he was. He cupped himself
through his shorts and held them there, applying gentle pressure and
deliberating.
Dirk could have laid there for hours feeling himself up, breathing heavy and
slow and then heavy again while drifting in and out of not-sleep, but instead
he shook his head and stretched back out, reaching for the bedposts and trying
to shake off the morning moodiness. No, if he did that he'd just get
frustrated, so instead he reached over the edge of the bed to grab the crumpled
piece of paper that had broken him out of the piss-poor excuse for sleep he'd
been getting these days. His spine cracked and his muscles felt too warm when
he moved around, but luckily it was right there on the floor. Holding it up
over his head, partially to block out the purple that still covered his field
of vision, he read the mysterious note.
     Hey fuckhead,
     I know I told myself last time that I wasn’t gonna pull this shit
     anymore, but hey. Shit happens. Or more accurately, you happen. Over
     and fucking over again. Am I interested in dissecting right now
     exactly why I have this pathological need to push and nag myself
     about my fuck-ups even when I know it won’t change shit? Nah. You and
     I’ve got all the time in the world to dig deep into our collective
     psyche and work out that particular quirk. What matters is that right
     now, I’m pissed, and all I can think about is you fucking around not
     even knowing that you’re about to screw everything so deep you’re
     hitting the goddamn prostate. If I have to be in deep, so do you, you
     smug little assdick.
     You can’t even handle a simple fucking situation without adding
     layers and layers of Strider bullshit. You gotta complicate
     everything for yourself so much that half the time you’re just
     running around trying to clean up the shit you tracked into the room
     in the first damn place. Trying to handle the most basic of
     situations with your fucked-up brain is like running a race through a
     funhouse. You need to know how much you fucking blow. I hope someone
     knocks you to the ground. I hope you choke on robodick. I can’t tell
     you what you’re about to fuck up, but when it happens, I just want
     you to know I can’t stand you.
     Fuck you,
     Dirk
Okay, not so mysterious after all. Why was he playing? This wasn't his first
love letter to himself, so he couldn't exactly claim plausible deniability.
Dirk shifted his shoulders, digging back into the mattress and flattening his
body as he shifted the letter to one hand, using the other one to rub absently
at his chest. He pressed his lips tightly together and read it again, and then
again, dragging his fingers over his stomach and trying to catch enough nail to
scratch as he heard his own voice in his head reciting the letter, telling him
to choke. So much for getting rid of the morning moodiness, right? He chewed on
his lip and then read it again, mouthing along with the words this time and
really digging in with his fingers for good measure.
Maybe he should have spent a little more time wondering about how, exactly, he
was about to fuck Future Dirk over, but who gave a shit about that guy anyway.
Future Dirk was routinely a dick, and that wasn't anything new. Right now he
could feel his heart beating in the balls of his feet as he told himself one
more time to fucking gag on it, and that was much more interesting than the
rest of the angry hatespiral by some pathetic futuredouche.
He blinked, and when he opened his eyes he was looking at the sleazy Dersite
rag once more. It was on the desk by his bed, and this time he made the
decision to reach out and grab it.
Also by the bed: a pair of socks that he didn't remember putting there, but he
chose to ignore those. Instead he read the magazine's headline, which said:

                       [http://i.imgur.com/XV9rE3d.png]
[http://i.imgur.com/KBXXge3.png]
The brave Prince and Princess of Derse slumber peacefully in their palatial
penthouses... but what heinous acts of espionage could be lurking under their
very noses*?
an exhaustively researched investigative report by @WANT_MORE_SOCKS
Dersite citizens return safely to their homes each day, secure that their
Prince and Rogue are safe as well, but is there a chance that the two
youngsters could be in peril? Sources close to the two humans say that the
danger is real, and ever-present!
As everyone knows, the Prince and the Rogue inhabit the top rooms of the
tallest towers on Derse's moon. They sleep, waiting for the day when their
Noble presence will be required to assist our King and Queen in future
conflict. However, though they slumber high above, their rest is not easy,
according to anonymous palace guards and several neighborhood eyewitnesses.
According to a palace official who wished to only be identified as a CONCERNED
DENIZEN, the Prince and Rogue are frequent sleepwalkers. "There have been so
many times when I've seen one, or both of them, floating on their way back up
to their rooms. Once I saw the Prince close to a turret I happened to be
guarding, and I asked him if he was alright. He said yes, and that he was
sleepwalking, so I didn't concern myself anymore."
But should CD, and all other patriots of Derse, be concerned? Of course, the
adventurous spirit of our Nobles is an excellent indication of their
enterprising natures (you can be sure the royals of Prospit don't have the
hearty constitutions needed to sustain such hotfoot tendencies!), but it could
also lay them open to attacks from enemy agents. And given both the Rogue and
the Prince's extensive skills, this is hardly surprising.
Yes, like a highly prized, valuable pair of socks, the Prince of Heart in
particular is high on the enemy's list. Derse's resident royal extraordinaire
is a modern wunderkind. His elaborately styled hair and aquiline features (as
well as the Dersite-crested, hand-stitched socks!) make him the envy of dozens
of his swooning loyal subjects. His extensive skills in battle, his amazing
tactical ability, and above all, his noble bearing, all make him a target that
the enemy would love to neutralize.
"The Prince's title is Prince," the same anonymous palace official went on to
say. "Like, that's his class and aspect? I don't really get it, but since he
was already a Prince of Derse before he was a Prince of whatever else, that
makes him, like. Double princes, or something."
The palace would do well to make sure such a "doubly" valuable asset to our
national defense and morale is protected... before the perfidious white shell
menace takes the power out of their hands! ♟
(*FOOTNOTE: A nose is a cartilaginous protrusion on a human's face just above
the mouth that contains their olfactory system.)
It was typical bullshit scaremongering, of course, though Dirk had to wonder
how they knew all that stuff about him and Roxy. It seemed like a bad sign. He
gave the newly appeared socks a wary look; at first he'd wondered if they were
another present from his future self, given where his hand had been tending
before he'd fallen asleep. Or...whatever he was right now.
Was he asleep? His mind provided an answer: no, he wasn't, he was still lying
in bed, zoning out and this close to masturbating. Well shit.
For a second, all thoughts about the article were forgotten. He wondered if
he'd just earned some kind of bilocation merit badge, or if something even
weirder (and less dumb-sounding) was happening here.
He sat up, his purple-stockinged feet appearing in front of him. One thing he
could say about that article: it had made him much more conscious of those. He
put his shades on. No interface popped up, but of course it didn't. His shades
on Derse didn't have an AR inside of them. He took a step forward. Every time
he blinked he could see the fading sunlight peeking through his other bedroom
window, but with each step he took he became more sure of himself. He was on
Derse and there was no sun here. On Derse there was no such thing.
Before he could think too much about this, his attention was arrested once more
by the article, and he gave it another quick read. Jesus, talk about yellow
journalism. This shit was positively goldenrod. And with only one source in the
entire piece of crap to boot.
One source... Dirk's eyes scanned the article quickly and landed on that
source's psuedonym. Concerned Denizen. Right. Just who could that be?
He found himself slipping on his shoes and going to the window. He stepped up
onto the ledge and took off outside, scanning the ground for the courtyard by
the palace.
In the future, it was possible he would recognize this as the first time he was
conscious in both places at once, but at the time he was just floating along,
lost in thought. It occurred to him that the best way to silence the article's
mysterious source would be to talk to the guy in person. Face to face. Man
to... chess man. Whatever.
It also occurred to him that, given that he could still feel what he was doing
back in his bedroom-- the bedroom on Earth, the one with the billiard ball
sheets-- given how far south his hand was, now was probably not a good time for
him to be sailing off. But really, fuck that. He wasn't so jaded by stoicism
and his solitary lifestyle that flying wasn't cool shit. Really, not only was
flying a trip, but he was also high on the novelty of being conscious of two
things, two places at once. He could feel the breeze ruffling his hair as he
sailed down the moon's chain, and the scrape of his fingernails over his own
chest as he huddled in bed.
He'd been to the courtyard before, so he mostly sailed there on auto-pilot. In
the meantime, though, he found his eyes drifting shut, and of course when he
did so he was arrested by the way the other Dirk was clenching his fist in his
T-shirt.
Back on earth, Dirk yanked his shirt up higher, tucking the fabric in a bunch
under his chin. He'd let the letter drop to the mattress a few minutes ago, and
since then he'd been imagining scenarios even more hypothetical and gutless
than the ones where he somehow magically wound up in the same physical space as
Jake. He shoved his shorts down over his hips to the middle of his thighs,
trying to push away the random, intruding thoughts about chess men. Seriously,
who gave a fuck about black carapace at a time like this, anyway?
"I hope someone knocks you to the ground," he mumbled to himself, reciting the
line from the letter by memory this time and focusing intently on the stucco
pattern above his head so that he wouldn't have to see the cobblestone of the
Derse courtyard. He cleared his throat and said it again, louder and unaware
that the other guy might be equally aware of what Dirk was doing, before
dragging his hand down and sucking in a sharp breath.
Meanwhile, Dirk sucked in his own breath, clenching his teeth as his feet hit
the stones of the courtyard. The ground had come up to meet him more quickly
than he'd expected, and it made the breath catch in his throat which,
unfortunately, didn't work well as a distraction from the hands (his own
fucking hands) on his cock.
With a forced effort, he opened his eyes. He saw the Droll some ways away from
him. The Droll was who Dirk had been looking for in the first place, of course,
but the guy looked lost in his own conversation with... someone. Dirk wasn't
focused enough to see who it was the Droll was talking to, but shit, let him
talk. Dirk wasn't up for any conversation with people who weren't himself at
the moment. He closed his eyes and tried to will away the not-so-distant
sensation of what the other Dirk-- what he was doing. "Not now," he said, his
teeth still firmly clenched without his even noticing.
The backtalk was almost enough to throw Dirk's stroke out of whack. He hadn't
expected that, but maybe he should've. The doucheprince was him, one of him,
after all. Maybe it was more surprising just to find that the other guy was
conscious of him as well. In which case, it was his own fucking fault, wasn't
it? How inconsiderate could you get, flying off on some ill-conceived
reconnaissance mission when your other self is trying to get his swerve on?
With, uh, himself?
He exhaled shallowly, determined not to stop at any cost. He wasn't going to
let frilly nerd pajama Dirk ruin this for himself. "Man, you knew what I was
doing. You brought this on yourself, and ain't nobody surprised by that because
isn't that exactly what you like to do? Fuck yourself over? Or maybe just fuck
yourself." He punctuated the sentiment with a particularly brutal twist of his
hand, forcing his mouth to drop open.
In the courtyard, Dirk had lost all the focus he'd managed to gain. "Fuck you
and fuck the horse you don't even deserve to ride in on." He voiced this
thought aloud in something between a groan and a mumble.
He heard voices suddenly, voices that, blessedly, weren't his own. Good.
Despite the rough way he was gripping his own dick, he was really fed up with
his own fucking self right now. You'd think a guy with limitless time at the
literal end of the fucking world would understand that there are times to
pleasure yourself and times to let it go. Literally.
He almost groaned aloud again. He almost rocked his hips forward, actually, but
he wrenched his eyes open before that could happen. When he did, he was staring
at two people who were much closer than he had expected. One was the Droll,
which wasn't surprising. Dirk had several hazy, dream-memories of talking to
the Droll on similar outings in the past. The other carapacian was familiar
too, in a much different way. Dirk had never seen the Archagent in person
before, but the guy was in the newspaper a lot. Dirk had always pictured him
being taller. Still, Dirk froze.
Jack might not have been that tall, and his smooth, shellacked face didn't
betray much expression beyond a sort of scowl around the brow-area, but his
eyes were narrow slits and they were regarding Dirk in a way that could only
remind Dirk of the brushes he'd had with sharks while swimming. Not that Dirk
had ever gotten close enough to a shark to study its eyes, but Jack's presence
filled him with the same dread that he just wouldn't be able to swim (or float)
away fast enough.
Another eerie certainty: the Droll might have been easy enough to fool, but
Jack would not be so naive. Dirk would have to take the chance and close his
eyes; his shades gave protection, but they could only hide so much. So Dirk
closed his eyes but nearly let out a gasp again. The image back in the
apartment was even more intense; he was still lying there jerking off. It was
pure spite, Dirk realized with bitterness. It wasn't his own hand jacking him
off, it was pure spite, and for a second he wasn't even thinking of future
Dirk's letter; he really did want to knock his sorry excuse for a self down. He
wanted to feed that motherfucker a fist right in the goddamn teeth and grind it
in there so he'd really get the flavor.
He heard snippets of an unintelligible conversation in front of him. The
Droll's high, piping voice was distinct from Jack's rasp, which was getting
sharper every minute. It was a struggle for Dirk to pull his mind away from how
his thumb was tugging on his foreskin. Despite the distractions, it was like
Dirk had some wretched sixth sense that just knew when sadistic chess men were
about to pull out the knives.
But his other self was... still going strong. If anything, his extra-
dimensional boner was getting worse. Mortal peril being an aphrodisiac was a
discovery he could have gone without making today, that was for fucking sure.
Finally Dirk opened his eyes. Jack was staring right at him. Clearly, even as
Derse's adored mascot, Dirk had worn out his welcome here. Time to go.
He could hear their voices still behind him as he made his discreet exit. He
heard Jack say that, for a guy who was asleep, Dirk was really booking it. The
queen, Jack said, should probably be informed about this. Maybe, Jack said, he
should bring the Prince to her and display these astonishing abilities.
The unspoken sentiment in his voice was that if the Prince didn't feel like
coming, Jack wouldn't mind convincing him.
Dirk really was booking it, meanwhile. There was a ledge out of the courtyard
about 20 feet away. Relative safety, just 20 feet away. He heard the Droll
saying, cheerfully, that no, that wasn't necessary. When the Prince was out,
the Droll said, it was considered polite to just let him be on his way. The
Prince was a poor conversationalist but a great listener, especially on the
subject of hats, as evidenced by the news article the Archagent had undoubtedly
seen this evening. Stabbing, the Droll said in a helpful and unworried tone,
was considered very impolite.
Dirk turned his head just enough to see behind him, and it was only by the
grace of the squid-gods that he managed not to jump, because Jack evidently
hadn't taken the Droll's advice. Jack was right there, holding onto Dirk by the
shoulder pad-epaulette of his fucking pajamas.
Perhaps more importantly, Jack had the second thing, after his scowl, that made
him so easily-distinguishable: that fucking knife. It glimmered even in the
perpetual gloom of Derse's courtyard, ready to be lodged squarely in Dirk's
gut.
Even from the physical and mental distance from his comfy bed, it felt like
both of his hearts had stopped beating and splashed down into his stomach, and
both Dirks froze, willing their breathing to remain neutral. He had been
getting pretty close-- so close that the surge of terror had almost finished
him off-- but that sensation was rapidly draining away. As far as bonerkills
go, Jack Noir with his knife out and pointy-ass teeth bared was pretty fucking
deadly. Not that he wasn't deadly in the normal way, too. Yeah, twice the
deadly, and if Dirk wasn't careful, he was liable to wind up twice as dead. He
had no idea what would happen to Earth Dirk if Derse Dirk got cut to ribbons by
this exoskeletoned psychopath, and frankly, neither of him was in the mood to
find out.
He'd have to suck it up and work together with himself to get through this.
Step one: let go of your dick, you moron. You can mourn the missed opportunity
when you're back in your stupid tower. Dirk calmly let go of himself and folded
his hands on his chest to monitor his breathing, and then he closed his eyes so
that he could focus entirely on the situation out on Derse. If he really
concentrated, he found that he could... push himself forward into the mind of
the other guy and sort of predominate.
Jack was staring at him with a scowl and a heaping helping of suspicion, knife
at the ready, presumably half a second away from deciding that circumstances
were way too fishy to warrant anything but a righteous stabbing. Dirk could
easily win a fight against this guy, but that would blow his cover. Fuck, if
only he had access to AR's outcome probability feature, but his glasses were on
the table and it would take more time than he had available to grab them. His
heartbeat throbbed in his ears and his dick throbbed against his leg, and all
of this was very distracting, but mostly he was filled with rage at the
indignity of getting himself in this situation. Fortunately for him, the
indignity wasn't over yet. No, Dirk had only one option at his disposal:
exaggerated theatrics.
He let his shoulders hitch a little, and just as Jack started to lunge with the
knife, Dirk flailed his arms suddenly, dislodging his shoulder from Jack's grip
and knocking the knife out of Jack's other hand. To cover it up, he let loose a
loud, obnoxious snore to rival anything that Roxy had ever cooked up in her
entire dream life. This bought him a moment of mayhem and confusion-- Jack's
eyes, usually barely slits in his hard carapace, got about as big with surprise
as Dirk imagined they could get, which could be funny if he wasn't so terrified
and pissed off and turned on-- which was all that he needed to float just a
little bit farther, out of anyone's reach and back up toward the moon where he
could at least suffer in peace.
As he floated off he chanced a glance back down at the courtyard. Jack had
already gotten the knife back and was staring up at him with obvious annoyance.
Join the fucking club, douche. Dirk sighed and took inventory of the situation
as he continued to rise. So much for that fucking plan. He'd have to try the
Droll on another day, assuming that this incident didn't cause another media
frenzy. PRINCE AVOIDS CERTAIN DEATH BY THE FRILL OF HIS SOCKS, or some stupid
thing. Whatever, that was Derse Dirk's problem.
Earth Dirk pulled back, letting go of his other self's mind and settling back
into his own. He opened his eyes and saw only the glow of the morning sun on
his white walls (though if he let his eyes go unfocused, he thought he might
have seen a great and terrible tentacle squirming in the darkness). Fuck. His
heartbeat had just been starting to come back to normal from the morning's dual
excitement when it picked up again in anger, mostly at himself. Both of his
selves. His earlier self for being so fucking reckless and impatient, and his
dream self for being so cavalier as to think that he could have pulled
something like that off. He should have known that it was dangerous to go out
when his attention was compromised. He should have known that.
Mostly he was just pissed off because he had no idea whether the letter-- which
he stood up and moved over to his desk to begin writing immediately, while his
blood was still boiling-- constituted what his alien friend liked to call a
"causal spoiler". Would he even have started jerking off if he hadn't gotten
it? Was he, effectively, screwing his own self over right now by writing it?
Who the fuck cared. He had sentiments of seething hatred to express to the one
person he couldn't even hurt anymore. Not without time travel, and he could
believe in a lot of weird shit, but he wasn't sure that time travel was one of
them, mostly because he'd never be that fucking lucky. Dirk set his teeth,
gripped his pen, and began scribbling with black satisfaction.
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