Molten Wings of Wax
Dirk Gently did not have friends.
Dirk Gently could not make friends.
From a young age he had been aware of his particularity, his peculiarity. This innate quality which offered him perceptive insights into the Universe and its interconnectedness, pulled him along as he watched its pathways and workings unfolding before him, and thus rendered him its instrument. This special skill that was not a skill, this cosmic intuition – which people sometimes erroneously, maybe ignorantly, labelled as 'psychic,' language failing to capture just what exactly Dirk Gently was – had set him apart as different, as odd, as freakish. His association with the Universe had dictated his life as a lone leaf in the macrocosmic stream of life. No, not a leaf, slowly drifting – a ship in a storm, buffeted by tsunami waves and typhoon winds. A marionette tugged along by strings. A fly caught in all the interconnecting webs of life that others could not see, wiggling madly while venomous spiders lingered in the shadows, watching for their moment to sweep in and devour him whole.
He was meant to use this gift, this curse, to help others. In a life of ambiguities and questions, of this one thing he was absolutely certain. Why he had been chosen, he had no idea. But this was his destiny, and he could not escape it.
This destiny, Dirk believed, was also the cause of his solitariness. His isolation. He had no friends because the Universe had decreed he should not. Dirk Gently was a lone wolf (or perhaps a lone panda or a lone corgi), and that was just the way it was. He had dealt with this fact, accepted it, had even come to understand it – in the limited way he ever understood anything the Universe did or revealed to him. He had successfully tricked himself, at least partially, into believing that he didn't care if he had friends or not. A one man show of Fate and Holism. He had done fairly well on his own all these years. What did he need friends for? Why chase after something the Universe had unanimously and irrevocably decided he could never have? Dirk Gently could not make friends because the Universe, in its infinite wisdom and experience, had made it so. No thought, word, or deed on his part could change that fact. It was just the way it was.
Yet, no matter the logic Dirk spun to convince himself, he could never rid himself of the desire for friends. He did not need friends, but he wanted them.
Then Dirk had met Todd Brotzman, and for the first time in his life, he had a friend – maybe even a best friend. And the Universe had approved! It had led him to Todd! Had given him a travelling companion, a partner to watch his back. An assistant to help muddle through these crazy, absurd cases and keep him from biting off more than he could chew. Someone to keep him from going over the deep end, and when he broke, as he inevitably always did, would help pick up the pieces and put him back together. Someone to keep him grounded and sane, to care about and protect him, and – failing that – to mourn his loss when he finally met his end.
It was a lonely, somber, sad thought to know he could be killed – bloodily, painfully, violently, cowering in terror in a lightless room – and not a single person would care if he ceased existing.
What a lovely, a deliciously pleasing change it had been to have Todd at his side! Dirk had hoped with every fiber of his being that Todd would be that one person, if there must only be one, who would care about Dirk. Despite all the negative opinions Todd held about himself – none of which Dirk agreed with – he was the closest thing Dirk had ever had to a friend. A pretty good friend at that: bandaging Dirk's cuts with hot pink band-aids that brought to mind nostalgic images of a childhood he had never had, joining him on wild quests for treasure and into the labyrinths of death mazes, giving advice and trusting the advice Dirk offered in return. Intimately sharing with Dirk his deepest, darkest secrets that he had never breathed to another soul. Saving Dirk's life.
Dirk had been convinced this case was going to kill him. He had been beaten, punched, threatened, grabbed, tackled, shot, and electrocuted. Guns had been pointed at him, fingers locked around his windpipe. He had been knocked unconscious, shoved into vehicles, and attacked by a literally blood-stained holistic assassin. He had been shot with not one but two arrows. He would have died, but Todd had saved him. He had taken the electrical current that would have stopped Dirk's heart into his own body. Dirk had very little and precious experience with friendships, but he knew this much: nothing said friendship like risking your own life to save another. Todd had reacted impulsively, immediately, unflinchingly. He hadn't even needed to think about saving Dirk. He just did.
Dirk shifted and rustled in his hospital bed. He tried sitting up, but a white-hot burn shot through his shoulder. Nausea and pain overwhelmed him. He gritted his teeth against it and slowly laid back down. Blood loss, it appeared, was not as easily cured as he had anticipated. He had refused the nurse's earlier offer of pain medications. The pills made his brain foggy. He hated the fog, the confusion and voices that accompanied it. He needed to remain awake and aware. Vigilant for any new sign from the Universe. Alert should any Men of the Machine come knocking at his door or any other threats present themselves. He would continue unmedicated as long as possible. Suck it up and keep silent. Until the pain became unbearable anyways. He knew too familiarly the government drugs they forced down your throat, keeping you docile, calm, and manageable.
He would wait and watch. Watch and wait. Counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until his release, and then...
Yes, Dirk, and then what?
He didn't know. Grab a decent meal? Return to and re-organize his apartment? Try to track down the shark-kitten? He would find another case, he supposed. Keep himself occupied. Browse the local and global papers for classified ads and weird and bizarre occurrences. Wait for his internal lightbulb to go off and point him in the right direction. Another case for Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective. Except, well...except he was alone again, wasn't he? Completely and utterly. His first real case and while he had solved it, had saved the girl, in the process he had created a time loop full of destruction and corpses, been nearly fatally injured, killed someone, finally made a friend and lost him.
"No one is coming, Dirk," the nagging, doubting voice inside his head whispered. It had lived inside for years, but this past week had been largely silent. Real people, real voices drowning it out. "No visitors. No friends. No one cares about you, whether you live or die."
"Todd does," Dirk argued. "He saved me."
"Of course he saved you," the voice replied impatiently. It was often impatient with Dirk's endless idiocy. "He's a good, honest, brave person. A hero really. Unlike you. He couldn't let you die. It's not in his nature. He would have done the same for anyone. Don't flatter yourself. He's a good friend to everyone and you're...not. You can't be a decent friend when you don't have any friends in the first place. It's not the Universe preventing you from making friends, Dirk. It's you. You're an embarrassing, deplorable, bumbling idiot. Stumbling blindly through life, crashing into people's lives and dragging them into disaster. Into your mess."
"Not disaster! Adventures. Cases." Dirk's eyes gleamed at the word, its sweet taste on his tongue. He thought of all he had accomplished, of how Farah had declared him a "pretty good" detective.
"Disasters. Screw-ups, like you. Lydia Spring is orphaned, Farah is unemployed, Amanda's disappeared with four soul-sucking anarchists – after the advice you gave Todd to tell the truth – and Todd, well you ruined Todd's life, didn't you? Obliterated it – epically and royally. Turned it upside down in your own selfish pursuits. It's not the Universe's fault you can't make friends, Dirk. It's your own. You're inadequate, incapable, insignificant, incompetent, and insufferable. You're annoying, pathetic, and weak."
"No."
"Yes. Todd was right; you are a monster."
Dirk wanted to deny the voice, to declare it wrong and unfounded, to claim Todd as his friend and point to their relationship as evidence. But Todd had called him a monster. Worse than "freak" or "prat," "weirdo" or "wimp," or a thousand other insulting and derogatory phrases that had been hurled at him in his life. Todd believed he was a monster – cold, calculating, unnatural, and malicious. He believed Dirk had purposefully and spitefully deceived him, believed he was a bad person capable of harm and evil, when all Dirk had ever wanted to do was help people, even at the cost of his own mortality. Maybe he didn't always, okay maybe he rarely, succeeded in being the good person he wanted to be, but he tried. He had risked his life to save a young girl he had never met and had no filial ties to. Would a monster do the same?
"But you didn't do it just for Lydia, did you? You wanted to prove yourself. Wanted to be a detective," the voice spat the word viciously, accusingly. "Even when the bodies piled up around you, and you got real detectives killed, you were enjoying yourself. You were excited to be on a case, to be the one leading, trying to fit the pieces together and figure out the puzzle. You're nothing but a scared, pitiful, clumsy little boy playing pretend. Trying to make believe you're something more than you are – a miserable loser and a terrible friend. You deserve to be alone."
Dirk's watery blue-green eyes were filled with tears. His jaw worked, opening and closing his mouth like a mechanical fish gaping dumbly. No sound emerged. The voice was right. He was a terrible friend. He was all the things it claimed. "You're a liar," Todd had proclaimed. Not yelling, but a calm, quiet, assured anger that was much more frightening. "You're a liar, and you ruined my life...just to have a friend. You deserve to be alone, Dirk."
Todd was both right and not right. Sure, Dirk hadn't revealed he had run into their week future (then present, now past?) selves, but he'd had zero context. Nothing on which to base his assumptions but his own word, no understanding. He had only exchanged a few brief sentences with himself. Considering he had unexpectedly met himself face-to-face (he had not failed to note, he was rather more attractive than he had believed) in the midst of a devastating, blood-drenched time-loop, he was lucky not to have gone insane. He could have justified the occurrence as an apparition, a delusion brought on by too many late nights and too little sleep. He could have dismissed himself as a figure of his own imagination. But he hadn't. He knew it wasn't a random mirage or a stress-induced hallucination; he knew (well, he hoped) he wasn't crazy. He had chosen to trust himself, trust in the connectedness and designs of the Universe. Dirk felt he had handled the situation very well considering. What could he have been expected to do? What else did Todd want from him?
So Todd was wrong: Dirk had had no clue what was happening, and he had definitely not purposefully deceived him.
Dirk had introduced Todd to his past self by calling the former bellhop his best friend. That, admittedly, was foolish. Presumptuous. Why had he done that? Why had he raised his own hopes, only to now have them cruelly dashed? Todd had never referred to Dirk as his best friend – that role probably belonged to his sister – and, in fact, had from the moment they met fought Dirk on the idea they were friends at all. Hardly even acquaintances. But he had clung to what he had told himself in that brief corridor meeting, and had pursued Todd's friendship with the energy and eagerness of one confident of the outcome. How was he to know his future self was only a mere week older? Stupid, he shouldn't have called Todd his best friend.
Was Todd right? Did he really crave friendship so badly that he was willing to crash into and ruin another person's life?
Evidently Todd had been right about other matters: Dirk was eccentric, crazy, and stupid. He should have been more forthcoming, offering what information he had, however scant. Isn't that what best friends did – shared the truth with each other? Idiot, idiot, idiot.
He was a terrible friend. Todd's words had stung, hurt a part deep within him he hadn't known could hurt, and he had reacted defensively. He had taken a jab at Todd, used privileged secrets intimately confided, and he had used those secrets to defend himself. Had turned those intimacies into something dirty. Dirk had realized his mistake immediately, and tried to take it back, but the damage was already done. "After all this is over," Todd had pronounced distinctly, carefully, irrefutably, so Dirk could not mistake the veracity of his words, "don't ever speak to me again, Dirk."
Todd had been true to his word: he hadn't spoken to Dirk since they had sent the time-machine back to Zechariah Webb and saved Lydia. Even while Dirk had bled out on a dingy floor in a dank basement, Todd had not spoken to him more than absolutely necessary. He addressed his qualms and concerns to others, never Dirk directly. When Estevez had driven Dirk, unconscious from the severe blood loss and pain, to the hospital, Todd had not accompanied him. Nor had Farah, who was concerned only with her recovered Lydia. After completing his duty and having his own wounds tended, Estevez had left. Left Dirk completely alone in a foreign hospital. No one had come to see him.
Alone. He really did deserve to be alone.
All those years alone, and only now was Dirk realizing there were different levels of loneliness. Varieties, like fifty-thousand flavors of Ben Jerry's ice-cream. He had known what it was to be orphaned, to be friendless, to be cast out upon society without a single person on whom he could depend. But this loneliness – abandoned, forsaken, left to his guilt and shame, friendless after having known what it meant to have a best friend, declared unworthy and unloveable – this was the worst loneliness of all.
The tears welled in his eyes and spilled over, trickling down his marred and bruised cheeks. He did not try to stop them, did not reach up to wipe them away. Did not attempt to reinvigorate himself and resume his usual delightful, delighted, outlandish, endearingly quirky persona. He allowed himself this one moment of utter brokenness, wallowing in his emotions unconcealed. He cried and wept, a million pent-up tears years overdue. Alone and broken in a stark hospital bed. There was, after all, no one there to see him cry.
When the nurse arrived during her rounds, Dirk tried to roll to his side, but the slightest motion hurled burning, agonizing waves through his shoulder. He reached up instinctively. The bandage was thick beneath the thin fabric of his hospital gown. A generic, loose square of cloth that flapped in the slightest breeze. A pale azure Dirk Gently managed to pull off handsomely.
The gown was scratchy. The sheets were scratchy too. Dirk hated them, hated his lot in life, but he found the strength to offer the woman a small, apologetic smile. Please excuse my weakness.
The nurse saw, and ignored, his wet cheeks and puffy eyes. Large and red-rimmed. The man-boy – he was long and lanky, but oddly childlike, boyish and strangely innocent – had open, pleading eyes in a sweet face. His hair was mussed and tousled, tumbling onto his cut forehead. Who was she to muse about his appearance? If she wasted such thoughts on every patient, she'd never have enough hours in a day to complete her duties.
She checked his vitals and scribbled on a chart. She noticed that over the past hour, his blood pressure and heart rate had increased significantly. She had been stationed at the nurses' desk for the last few hours, and had only been called away twice. No one had entered or left this room, she was almost positive. No visitors except, she suspected, the demons in his own head.
She looked again into his sweet, open, friendly face. He was attempting to draw her into conversation. Loneliness cannot be quieted no matter how many words you speak, she wanted to advise him, sensing within the same shadows she had witnessed in a hundred other patients. The same shadows that haunted her own soul. They don't teach you that at nursing school: that hospitals are the romping grounds of broken souls, unsuppressed fears, and inner demons. That the cancer victims, the battered wives, the shattered young men, and abused children are always the ones who least deserve it. This particular man-boy had been shot twice with specialized arrows and suffered major blood loss. He was lucky to be alive. But she had seen it all her in twenty years here. Almost nothing surprised her any more. There were no accidents, no injuries, no wounded body parts, no evils that she did not already know. Facsimiles all of the same human deficiencies, vices, cruelties, and stupidities. The stories she could tell you!
Sentences, many uncompleted and barely formed, spilled forth, toppling over each other as they rushed from his mouth. There was no delay between thought and utterance. He prattled on and on like a young child. He reminded her of her little grandson. She bestowed a knowing, benign smile upon him, meticulously and kindly changed his bandage – her hands were dry but warm – and smoothed the sheet over his legs. He did not cease his chatter for a second. He watched her – his eyes bright but also, she knew, imploring. She avoided looking directly into those gentle eyes (funny that he should possess a surname so perfectly suiting), innocent and lovely, but sad and pained. She evaded the unspoken question perched at the corner of his pink lips. She could see the dark monster hiding within, watching, biding its time. Waiting until she left so it could drag the boy into the darkness and tear him apart, dripping venom lies and oblivion, tearing all the goodness from his being until he was hollow inside.
He was trying to fend off the lurking monster with his cheerful jabber, shine a light into his own soul. Please don't leave me, she heard him beg without speech. Don't leave me alone. But she couldn't help him. She couldn't help any of them. She had other duties to complete, other patients depending on her. She was a nurse, capable, as far as medicine went, of healing physical injuries. She was not a psychologist or a spiritualist. She was not his mother or his friend. She was no one to him, and after his release, he would be nothing more than a passing memory in her brain – an idea, a feeling, more than an actual person.
She had demons of her own to deal with.
The nurse finished re-dressing his injury and prepared to leave. As she worked, she was quiet. She did not answer any of his questions, did not reply to his intimate communications, but she allowed him to ramble and gab. She did not interrupt or roll her eyes or tell him to shut up. He could tell she was listening. She was patient, her capable and weathered hands caring for him, light touches like fairy wings on his shoulder. Soft, as he imagined a mother would be. How desperately he had craved gentle human touch, no matter how trivial and light!
She smiled at him and nodded at his incomprehensible, seemingly unconnected – but everything is connected – sentences. Gushing forth like water from a hose. Stream of consciousness from a constantly over-stimulated mind. Banal nonsense – at least to her, though he poured himself, his fears, his desires, and his trauma into those words. He appreciated her attentive silence, sensed in her if not a kindred spirit than at least a kind soul.
The nurse paused near the door before departing. She half-turned and looked back at him. Her ardent mocha eyes met his. He read, or thought he did, kindness and compassion and...something else...sympathy? Sorrow? He had never been very apt at reading people (he was what others labelled "socially awkward," if they were nice, or "spastic" and "queer" and "creepy" if they were not), and he did not understand. He had not spoken anything disheartening, had he? He had not given her cause for upset. His voice remained light, congenial, masked by his usual good-humor and spark.
Yet her eyes glimmered wetly and her lips stretched tenderly. "I'll bring you something to help you sleep," was what she said. "You need to rest. This will knock you right out. You'll be in such a deep sleep, you won't even dream."
He did not refuse her offer. "Thank you."
She nodded once and left.
After what felt like an eternity of days, Dirk was finally released from the hospital – not that he had any idea what he was going to do now. But thankfully, he was free! He had been becoming stir-crazy, trapped in that room, among the other groaning and dying patients, confined to a narrow bed. His tattered, blood-stained clothes were not returned to him. The hospital provided him with a few generic articles – a white t-shirt, grey khakis, matching drab hoodie – that strangely made him feel simultaneously American and stripped of his individuality (oh the indelible, terrible memories of his Blackwing days such a thought recalled!).
Though his legs worked perfectly fine, he was discharged in a wheelchair. "Hospital policy," grumbled the nurse who steered him to the exit. Not, Dirk was disappointed, the nice female nurse who had checked on him regularly, liberally doling out sleep-aids when he asked, and once even smuggling him a bit of chocolate and a paperback detective novel. This nurse was big, burly, male, and decidedly lacking a congenial bedside manner.
Still Dirk chattered to him just as animatedly as he had the female nurse. Prolonging the stretches of loneliness and silence that were sure to follow.
The sun was hidden behind dull clouds, but the day was pleasant and warm. The air smelled fresh and tangy, heavy with the city and traffic, but clean of death and disinfectant. The male nurse was not listening to Dirk's happy prattling; he interrupted to ask for his chair back, and unceremoniously left Dirk on the sidewalk, without any thought as to where he would go or if anyone would come to collect him.
Dirk patted his closed fists against his sides, like an overgrown child unsure of what to do next. He sighed. "Very well," he said aloud, trying to be strong. "Here I am again." Here he was alone in the world. Alone. Again.
"Well, not quite alone," the voice in his head reminded him. "I'll be with you wherever you go!" What an itinerary of abuse it had planned for the coming days! "What did you expect? You fly too close to the sun and you end up burned."
Suddenly, Todd was there. "Where?" Knapsack strapped to his back. Big blue eyes blinking affectionately.
An illusion. It had to be an illusion. Dirk's sanity had finally cracked. He had desired a best friend for so long, he had now conjured one from his gray matter, his imagination, and his heart. God, he really was pathetic. "Todd," he stammered, "you're...here. Hmm, but the case is over."
Todd swallowed the lump of guilt welling in his throat. "How's your shoulder?"
"It's..." Screw optimism. "Terrible, actually. Look, I don't – I don't understand. Did you want something from me or...I can't help you." He couldn't help anyone. "I can't do anything to help your situation."
"I don't need help. Here." Todd unzipped his bag, and pulled out a familiar yellow jacket. "I got this from your apartment."
"Oh, um..."
Todd handed him a swatch of off-black cloth as well. "That's a Mexican Funeral t-shirt. I don't have many left, so try not to...get shot in it." It was an awkward joke, but he was trying.
Dirk didn't understand what was happening. "Look, I am sorry, but I don't understand. You're...What do you want? Why are you here?"
Todd could see from Dirk's face that he was being sincere. He really didn't understand why Todd had come, bringing nothing but a shitty t-shirt as a peace offering, as if that would make everything better. He felt the guilt swelling inside him again, but he concealed it with a shrug. "I'm here because I'm your friend. Besides, I don't want to miss out on when the next case starts."
Dirk couldn't find the right words. For once, he was struck speechless. The evident surprise on his face was almost painful. Todd had said some nasty, horrible things. God, he really was a terrible person. Dirk was like a little puppy – eager, always following at your heels, and licking your face – and he had committed the equivalent of kicking said defensive, vulnerable, fiercely loyal puppy. Cast it out onto the cruel streets. And now here he was, begging it to come home again. How could he be so arrogant as to assume it would want to return?
"So..." Dirk held the shirt to his chest. "Didn't you say this band hated you?"
With those words, Todd knew everything was going to be okay.
Dirk had forgiven him, though he didn't deserve it.
A true, rare moment of happiness followed. A diner with friends, eating American food in a booth near the window. Just two sane guys doing normal things. Discussing the future and the agency with confidence, with hope. Laughing and joking. A happy ending...a new beginning.
Then: disaster.
He felt it. The warning bells, the pull of the Universe, the unease in his stomach as the cosmic webs were disrupted. Todd was in the bathroom, so he politely excused himself for a moment. Friedkin in a black suit, like an undertaker or a businessman who had made a deal with the Devil, leaning against a pillar. A mock salute. He looked misleading small, but Dirk knew the muscle-mass concealed under that suave jacket. You can dress-up a shark, put a tie on it, adorn it in fancy slacks, but it's still a shark.
"Not now." And then – nothing.
Dirk awoke in a small, dark, bare room with a cot. The door was locked. He huddled on the bed, pushing himself into the corner as though he could blend into the wall. The air was bland and stale, as if it had never known sunshine or the world above ground. He had no idea where he was – not that he often did anyway – but he wasn't surprised. These federal types were secretive. If they wanted to make you disappear, then disappear you did.
His shoulder and cheek throbbed painfully. Sergeant Friedkin had punched him, which he thought was terribly unnecessary. The young agent seemed particularly prone to violence, which worried Dirk. He hoped Colonel Riggins would arrive soon. Collect him from this cell and explain what the hell was going on.
Footsteps down the hallway. Three sets – two heavy, one light. The unmistakable click, click, click of high heels on cement. The heavy steel door swung open with a great beeping and squealing. A woman stood silhouetted in the light, two men flanked on either side. She stepped into the room, and Dirk saw that she was rather pretty – auburned haired, big eyed, full lipped. She would have been attractive, if not for the permanent scowl on her face.
"Project Icarus. Or should I say Dirk Gently?" The voice had escaped from his brain and transplanted itself into the woman. True the pitch was different, more feminine, smoother, but he recognized the loathing, condescending tone. "I must say, of all the Black Wing subjects you have presented yourself as the most interesting. A 'psychic' who wants to be a detective." Her gaze passed over him coolly. "A British Hardy Boy."
"Where's Riggins?" Dirk's voice emerged small and panicked. He hated himself for it, hated this woman glaring down upon him.
"Colonel Riggins has been re-assigned from the Black Wing case." The woman smiled, a falsely amicable smile full of spite, derision, and rancor. She stepped closer to him. Took his face in her French-manicured hand and inspected his cut and swollen cheek. "How aptly named you are, Icarus. How embracing of your namesake. Young Icarus dared to fly too close to the sun, deluded by dreams of ambition and grandeur, of becoming more than he was, and his waxen wings melted to useless globs. And do you know what happened then, Dirk?"
He did not answer.
"He plummeted to his death. Lost to the raging sea. His broken body dashed upon rocks, bloated and decayed. Never to be seen again. All because he dared a little too much." The woman watched his face to see if he understood. She smiled and turned towards the door, click, click, click. "If I was you, Dirk, I would not hold any grand notions of escape or rescue."
The door slammed behind her, plunging the room into a dense gloom and silence. The voice in his head was back, raging and rampant. But Dirk held it at bay. He curled up on the cot, tightening himself into a small ball, so he could see his chest. He read three upside-down words over and over until they lost their original connotations. The Universe had known, had prompted Todd to give him the gift that would get him through this.
He focused on the text, the image, the soft touch of fabric on his skin, the scent of Todd's apartment where the shirt had been stored all these years. He held onto it and he held onto hope. This the proof of his worthiness, proof he was deserving of love. The symbol of friendship.