064 [voice]

[batmanschmatman]

[Dick's voice is very flat and very depressed. He can't really deal right now.]

Costigan's gone. Off the Barge. I'm not - I'm not sure if he's coming back.

[Meaning, his item's stopped responding to him and there's no sign of him anywhere, and Dick has so many sads. He pauses for a moment like he's going to say something else, but turns off the feed instead.]

Comments

Spam ... do we have tiger blood /shot

[batmanschmatman]

Yeah, Bruce being around definitely sort of threw a wrench into things in that regard. [He smiled. He still missed Bruce, and he was still upset about what that big reveal had led to, but both were old injuries and thus easier to revisit.] I seriously question some of the stuff about us you've all been exposed to. I've seen one of the movies and it was... kind of horrifying.

Spam I'm glad you went there before I did :V

[paradoxlol]

[Arthur chuckled, thinking back to... well. The old Batman TV show that he caught on occasion back home. Adam West and Burt Ward.]

That's why I didn't take it all as fact. It'd be a mistake to assume you know someone because of a movie or a book. [Pause.] So, why're you telling me now?

Spam orz

[batmanschmatman]

[He shrugged.] You're a good friend. And you obviously haven't been spreading it around to everyone. Figured I might as well make it official eventually instead of just pretending like you didn't know.

Spam

[paradoxlol]

Thanks. [He took a sip, looking away for a moment, thinking. Maybe it was the recent fallout with Perry, the weight of his lies crashing down on him and potentially wrecking what little progress he might've made with his inmate, but he figured... He owed Dick one for the show of trust.]

You know I'm a criminal, right? [A criminal and a vigilante having beers. How rich.]

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

Well, I had an idea dream sharing wasn't exactly legal, but. [His tone was much more a friendly 'go on' than a 'I'm judging you so hard right now' or 'get the hell out of my apartment', because while he definitely didn't know the specifics, he did like Arthur, and he definitely had gotten the impression from Ariadne's backtracking and swearing him to secrecy that what they did wasn't really sanctioned.]

Spam

[paradoxlol]

[He smirked.] Dream sharing itself is. It may be underground, but it was developed by the government, used by the military to train soldiers.

Extraction, on the other hand...

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

When Ariadne told me about it, at first I kind of assumed it was mostly recreational. You know, like those science fiction stories where everyone's so desperate to escape their own reality that spend all day in a virtual reality pod?

Spam

[paradoxlol]

It can be. There are... lots of uses for it. Some people spend the rest of their lives in a dream. I mean, they choose it to be their reality.

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

That's... kind of scary.

Spam

[paradoxlol]

It depends on what you want out of life.

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

Still.

What's it like?

Spam

[paradoxlol]

Going under? [He stops to think, picking at the label on his beer.] It's the most incredible feeling in the world. You feel like anything's possible.

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

[Dick chuckled quietly in understanding.] So, like jumping off a building.

Spam

[paradoxlol]

[He smirks.] Or making the building move entirely.

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

Haven't done that yet.

Spam

[paradoxlol]

I'd be very impressed if you had. [He stopped picking at his bottle.] When you're dreaming, you've got an entire world at your fingertips. You could build a city with a thought.

Spam

[batmanschmatman]

Okay, dumb question, but is it hard?