Chapter Text
When Mona promptly turned into a motorcycle, Dirk didn’t have time for niceties. He had to get to The Boy, now, and he was done trying to explain things to the man currently freaking out next to him. So, he turned to Lieutenant Assistent, grabbed the security pass he’d been clutching in his hand and took it before he had time to protest.
”Sorry, but I really need this, ta-ra!” Dirk said, shoved the pass in his pocket and put on the helmet.
As they went speeding on along the corridor, Dirk spared a brief thought to Assistent, who’d been left staring after them in bewilderment. He hoped he hadn’t foiled the man’s escape out of the facility by nicking his pass. He seemed rather nice – for Blackwing – and wouldn’t want him to be severed in half by the knights.
The phone was ringing. Somehow the phone was always ringing. Dirk had almost started conjuring up theories about it, when he realized the reason it felt like it was always ringing was probably because no one ever bothered to answer it, and so the noise went on.
”Todd, get the phone!” he yelled from his office, annoyed at having his important work interrupted like this.
He’d spent the past ten minutes lovingly rolling pizza slices into little wraps.
Well, solving a case might have been more important work, but they didn’t have any cases at the moment and therefore this was the second most important thing on the agenda. Come to think of it, maybe they didn’t have any cases because no one answered the bloody phone.
”Why do I have to do it?” Todd yelled back indignantly from somewhere in the lobby.
”You’re the assistant!” Dirk reminded him, in a how-could-you-not-understand-this tone.
Todd appeared in the doorway of his office – which wasn’t very big at all by the way, just a room with a desk, chair, a little sofa and some clutter, but the fact that he had a room of his own in the agency made Dirk feel more important. Todd stood there for a second, looked like he was going to give him the finger, but then turned around and mercifully went to pick up the phone.
It turned out to be about a very short and easy, although interesting case which had involved a sentient record player and a dead mailman, and from then on Dirk decided that maybe Alexander Graham Bell wasn’t a total tool for inventing the telephone.
But someone needed to be there to answer it, and Todd had other things on his mind.
”I know you’ve dubbed me the role of an ’assistant’,” Todd started, when Farah was driving them back home after they’d finished up the case. ”And that’s fine, really, but I don’t want to be the guy who has to sit at a desk and be like a secretary or some shit.”
Dirk sighed. ”Then what do I even pay you for?”
”You don’t pay us,” Farah and Todd said in unison.
”Oh, right,” he said. ”Farah? Do you feel like taking up front desk duties?”
”I mean, our filing system’s a disaster and my hands are itching to organize all the mess,” Farah said thoughtfully and very truthfully.
Everything in their life was a bit of a mess, which Farah had gotten used to but not entirely accepted yet. Especially when it came to them three living together in an apartment that was just big enough to house them, but also small enough for random clutter and chaos to slowly but steadily take over.
”But,” Farah continued, ”if I’m sitting at the desk, who’s going to be there to save your asses all the time?”
”Oh no, you’re right,” Dirk sighed again. ”And we can’t ask Mona, she’s too busy being a houseplant most of the time, which isn’t exactly the most efficient thing.”
He pushed his hands in his trouser pockets, as if to help him meditate on the issue. They were the same trousers he’d worn when they saved Wendimoor, the ones he’d gotten shot at in and hadn’t worn again until now. He hadn’t gotten the bullet hole mended, and the bloodstain was still visible on the fabric. He’d reasoned it was sensible to keep one ’get shot at in’ pair of trousers in his ensemble so he could wear them whenever he had a hunch they might run into trouble. That way, if he got shot at again, he wouldn’t ruin another pair of decent trousers.
Mercifully there had been no guns involved this time.
As he explored the pockets aimlessly, expecting to find nothing but the calming void that often inhabited pockets, an object found its way into his hand. He took it out of the pocket, surprised.
It was the security pass he’d taken from the poor Mr. Lieutenant Assistent. On the back of it was his contact information, including a phone number. He stared at the little row of numbers for a while.
Oh, okay, the universe was giving him an idea.
I believe I have something of urs.
Meet me at the city square park (in seattle) in 3 days at 2pm next 2 the statue of the ugly angry guy riding a headless horse & I’ll give it back.
Dirk looked down at his phone, wondering if the text had maybe been too vague or threatening. Well, it was too late to do anything about it now, all he could do was wait. And hope that he hadn’t just made a massive mistake. What if he was a long way from Seattle? Would anyone in their right mind come to see him based on that text? And what if he’d brought Blackwing with him?
He felt himself sweat slightly under his jacket, both from nervousness but also because the spring had provided a rather warm day. He wondered if he should he have worn his ’get shot at in’ trousers today. And yet, when he’d carefully chosen his clothes for the day those trousers had been furthest from his mind. That should prove he’d be fine. Shouldn’t it?
He shifted his bum on the bench and looked at the clock again. It was still 2.10 PM, just like it had been when he last looked at it ten seconds ago. He looked around as subtly as he could. He could see the main entrance to the park quite clearly, but all the people entering that way were couples, children, wrong people.
He turned around on the bench, trying to see past the bush that was blocking some of his view of the other side of the park, when he spotted a pair of sunglasses peeking through the bush and startled violently.
”Ah!” he squeaked, and pointed at the shades.
There was a loud rustle in the bush, a muffled ’fuck’, and the sound of someone stumbling. Then, out of the bushes emerged one potentially assistant shaped Mr. Assistent, wearing black, discreet clothes and Ray-Bans and looking ready to bolt at any second.
”You came!” Dirk exclaimed happily, jumping up in excitement.
Assistent took a step back, hands going to his belt. Dirk looked at his belt, eyes wide, but then saw he hadn’t brought a gun. It had just been a reflex. He was relieved; he hadn’t brought a weapon either.
”Don’t worry, I’m harmless,” Dirk said, although he realized the effect of his words might have been stumped by his almost maniacal grin. He let the grin fall off his face and tried to go for a more serious, calm look, but judging by Assistent’s tense pose it wasn’t working miracles.
”Man, I should have known it would be you,” Assistent said, shaking his head. He sounded slightly defeated, and his voice had a very different tone compared to the high, panicked one Dirk had heard when the knights had attacked.
”Yes, me,” Dirk said, doing a little jazz hands movement. ”How long did you stand there for?”
”I don’t know, fifteen minutes?” Assistent said, sounding irritated now. ”You were late.”
”By, like, four minutes,” Dirk shrugged. ”Would you have stood there all day if I hadn’t noticed you?”
Assistent didn’t answer. He was looking around furtively.
”I didn’t bring anyone with me, if that’s what you’re worrying about,” Dirk said. He sat back down on the bench to establish a more casual air.
Then, once again remembering that this man had literally been part of Blackwing, he hesitated.
”Did… you?” he asked.
Suddenly it occurred to him that this idea was probably very stupid.
”No,” Assistent said in an offended tone. He removed his shades, put them in his pocket and sat down on the far end of the bench gingerly. Then he sighed. ”I have nothing to do with Blackwing anymore.”
”Oh, well, that’s good to hear,” Dirk said, relieved. ”I mean, sorry for the loss of your job, I guess, except I’m not actually sorry, so, yeah.”
”No, that job sucked.”
”Well, you probably don’t need this, then,” Dirk said and handed him the security pass. He’d never really expected him to need it in the first place.
Assistent glanced at him quickly. Now that his eyes were visible and they were meeting in a normal place in daylight, Dirk could take a better look at his face than he had during their rushed meeting at Blackwing. He could tell that Assistent looked like someone who might be a nice person. He looked small and harmless. Well, mostly. Dirk had learned to never judge books by their covers. Unless they were good covers with nice, colourful illustrations. But that had nothing to do with Assistent.
He took the pass from Dirk, looked down at it, and then let out a short disdainful breath through his nose.
”No, I don’t need it,” he said, then shoved it deep down his pocket. He looked back up again, but avoided looking at Dirk by observing the steady stream of people who were still entering the park every now and then.
”Is your name really Assistent?” Dirk asked, for his part observing Assistent.
”Yes,” he replied, in the deadpan voice that insinuated he’d had this conversation many times before.
”Is your first name Personal? Or, or, Sales?” Dirk joked.
”Fuck you, your name’s Gently, how’s that any better?” he snapped back and turned his eyes back to Dirk’s, looking annoyed. ”Oh, no, wait, I guess it’s not as stupid as Cjelli.”
Dirk looked down at his lap with a pout. Not cool. He tried not to let that comment get to him, but he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable about the fact that this man had very probably gone through his ’project Icarus’ file. It felt like he had the upper hand. Most people had the upper hand on Dirk. It wasn’t exactly hard to achieve. But still, it stung a little. It also made him feel even more determined to hire and get to know Assistent, so maybe some day he’d have collected enough information about Assistent to surpass whatever he knew about him from his file and HA! Then he’d totally be the winner of their nonexistent competition.
”I’m sorry,” Assistent said when Dirk didn’t reply. He did sound awkward, so maybe it was sincere.
”I’m sorry too,” Dirk shrugged. ”For leaving you to fend for yourself back there. With the knights.”
It was Assistent’s turn to shrug. ”They were mostly after you, so I got away okay.”
When a silence settled between them again, Dirk decided to take his chance before Assistent would go for the ’okay, this was weird, thanks for my pass, let’s never see each other again’ line.
”Are you unemployed?” he asked, snapping his head to stare at Assistent, who flinched at his intensity.
”Excuse me?” he spluttered.
”C’mon, are you?” Dirk pressed on.
”Yeah? Okay, yeah I am, thanks for asking, it’s been just awesome,” he said, and there was that familiar funny voice of his starting to make a return. It took all of Dirk’s willpower not to imitate him. He sounded like a bloody cartoon character.
”How would you like to be…,” Dirk said slowly, then used his fingers to make a drumroll on the bench that even Amanda would probably be proud of, ”an assistant?”
”Is this a joke?” Assistent asked, standing up.
Dirk stood up as well, ready to run after him if he bolted.
”I have a detective agency, now. A Holistic Detective Agency,” he made a wave with his hand to indicate the shiny new plaque of his that was proudly hanging on the agency’s wall. ”Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The best agency ever.”
”Get to the point, please,” Assistent said impatiently.
”We need someone to be our…,” Dirk started, then tried to think of a word that didn’t sound unappealing. Desk boy? Lobby boy? Secretary? Manservant?
”Our phone answering, stationery boy!” he announced happily, although he still grimaced at his final choice of words.
Assistent stared at him blankly.
”Okay, so, technically I already have an assistant but Todd’s always like ’Diiirk I’m so lazy and incapable of picking up the phone and-’ no, actually, Todd isn’t lazy, I take that back, he’s brilliant. But he doesn’t have the patience to man the desk and honestly I wouldn’t even want him to because I need him on our adventures, once he totally saved us from being crushed in a death labyrinth, and Farah, - Farah’s cool – also can’t take that job so we need someone else and the universe was telling me to pick you and you already know how weird things can get so you’d fit right in, what do you say?” he said, and then took a deep, much needed and loud breath.
”No!” Assistent shouted. ”You think I want to hang out with you, a bunch of freaks, after I saw your friend turn into a cannon and a motorcycle within two minutes?”
”Oh come on admit it, that was awesome and besides, you might get to meet aliens,” Dirk said coaxingly.
”Dammit, don’t try to rope me in with aliens, I should never have told you that,” he said.
”Pleeeease?” Dirk said. ”You’d get to see all sorts of cool things but you’d have a much calmer job than working for a bunch of sadistic, government meanies.”
”Wh-,” Assistent was lost for words for a second. ”Why don’t you just pick someone else?”
”Why-,” Dirk copied his worked up tone, ”not pick you?”
Assistent crossed his arms.
”How much would you even pay me?” he asked, frowning.
”Uh…,” Dirk started, and scratched his neck. ”Here’s the thing-”
”Oh my God,” Assistent interrupted him incredulously, and started walking away briskly.
Dirk’s feet were stuck for a second, and then scrambled after him, albeit a bit awkwardly since he still had a slight limp from his leg wound.
”Shit. Wait! You don’t have to decide now, I’ll show you around first! Let me show you our shiny new office! It’s so cool!”
roughly a week later
Dirk tried not to gloat. But he did anyway. A smug smile wormed into his face every time he glanced at Assistent behind the front desk.
Todd and Farah had gone to Bergsberg for a week to see Tina and Sherlock. He wished he could have gone with them, but they’d agreed that someone should stay behind to ’mind the shop’, even if they weren’t working on a case at the moment. Farah had bravely volunteered, but Dirk could see she really wanted to go to Bergsberg, and since he was secretly rooting for her and Tina’s budding romance – of which neither of them seemed to be aware of – he refused her offer so she could go see her.
Besides, Todd and Farah being away provided good time to slowly introduce Assistent to his future work place. Assistent had dropped by for three days in a row just to chat – it turned out that he did actually live in Seattle, quite close by in fact. He’d been quite twitchy and suspicious at first, like he was expecting something completely bonkers or deadly to manifest into the agency and traumatize him, but when nothing happened and he seemed to get over his initial image of Dirk and his strange world, he calmed down considerably and let his curiosity lead him.
At some point in their conversations he’d ended up sitting at the front desk because the nice swivel chair was conveniently there, and while he was sitting there he ended up answering the phone as well when it rang – it only made sense, since the phone was directly in front of him – and by Friday he’d started organizing their paperwork in a way that was both completely accidental and somehow natural.
Apparently he had a thing for files, which was good because Dirk and Todd hadn’t bothered to even think about keeping proper track of their cases (which infuriated Farah). Maybe it was his military background – they read a lot of files in the military, didn’t they? Dirk had heard Assistent muttering something about how ’Friedkin didn’t even know how to read files, stupid idiot’, so maybe he was also deriving some sort of savage pleasure from being in charge of a filing system, as if it was to spite Friedkin somehow, although Dirk didn’t know how. Friedkin wasn’t even there, none of them knew where he was.
Or maybe Assistent was just very precise. He looked like a person who was meticulous about almost everything in a polite, obedient way, while also looking slightly bewildered most of the time, like he couldn’t believe what life was throwing his way and what the people in it were saying to him. Dirk could relate to some of that. He never quite fully knew what was going on, either. But he’d always been good at not understanding things, so it didn’t faze him.
In any case, the files Assistent was working on started to come along very nicely.
As a big part of creating extensive case files was to recount the exact details of each case on paper, Dirk ended up telling Assitent everything about their adventures. Assistent would type away furiously on the computer while Dirk talked, intent on capturing and organizing their stories, even if it stretched late into the weekend and was therefore technically outside his working hours.
It was delightful, since it gave Dirk an opportunity to boast about how geniusly he’d cracked each case, and relive some of their wildest adventures through dramatic reenacting. It all seemed to interest Assistent so much that Dirk began to suspect that maybe the man, despite his slightly jittery nature, did like some wild excitement in his life now and then. Clearly Blackwing had been a mistake and had given him a bad impression; that place sucked out the soul of everything that was wondrously weird in the world and spat it back empty.
But then again, maybe it wasn’t all Blackwing’s fault – even Dirk could see how creepy and weird the circumstances were during his and Assistent’s first actual meeting. He’d shouted in his face while they were chased by an army out of a child’s drawing. And then there’d been the whole thing with Mona.
At some point Dirk had realized he should probably mention the fact that Mona was in the room with them in the shape of a plant. It’d be polite. And even if Assistent hadn’t had intimidating memories of Mona, Dirk was pretty sure that he’d still want to know that one of the plants in the room was sentient.
When he’d told him, Assistent had backed away to the door, stared at the innocent looking ficus tree in question for about a full minute, and then left without a word.
But he had come back hesitantly the next day anyway. He’d sneak suspicious glances at the plant now and then, even though Dirk told him there was nothing to fear. When Mona remained as the ficus tree, Assistent eventually relaxed, although he absolutely refused to water the plant.
”I think I get it now. How it works,” Assistent said, a day before Todd and Farah were due back. Dirk had been explaining a chain of events that had occurred in a case, pacing back and forth next to the front desk.
”How what works?” Dirk repeated, stopping his pacing and cocking his head forward like a confused chicken.
”Your thing. Your, your power. When you uh- shouted at the glass in Blackwing, you said you weren’t a machine, that it wasn’t how it worked. So I think I get it now, the universe thing, how it all happens I guess,” Assistent said, the speed of his speech quickening at the end. He avoided looking Dirk in the eye.
”You mean… you were there?” Dirk said slowly, remembering his desperate outburst at Blackwing. ”On the other side of the glass?”
”Yeah. My job was to observe the… subjects… the- well, you. And keep track of things. Inform Friedkin of what was going on, stuff like that,” he replied. A blush was rising up his neck.
”So you ’observed’ me all of those times when I was put through those stupid tests for sixty-something days?” Dirk asked indignantly. He’d hated that feeling, of being squashed under someone’s microscope, and he hadn’t known that Assistent had been one of the eyes peering into the lens, although he probably should have.
”Well, they hired me a bit after your capture, so it was more like fifty-something days,” Assistent said, shrugging and looking at the floor.
”And how did that feel? Did you write interesting notes? Did I make a very boring zoo animal?” Dirk asked, knowing he was behaving in a waspish way, but feeling like it was his right. He leaned his hands on the desk so that he was slightly looming over Assistent.
”I’m sorry,” Assistent said, quickly looking up and then down again. ”I didn’t understand you. They tried to make you seem like something chaotic that needed to be… contained? I didn’t like the job, it was fucked up, but I didn’t know what to do.”
Dirk’s shoulders slumped, and he relaxed his pose against the desk. He’d always hate Blackwing, the whole operation, but it was no good blaming a guy like Assistent who’d thought he’d be joining some cool X-Files type of job. It’s not like he could have broken Dirk out all by himself. And this was the second time he’d apologized for working for Blackwing, when he hadn’t even asked for this job and didn’t owe Dirk anything. Or did he? Dirk didn’t even know himself.
Sometimes it was hard to settle scores in his complicated life, when nothing made sense and good people turned into evil witches, and goons like Friedkin saved him from being shot by Bart’s old friend. What was up with that Ken, anyway?
”It wasn’t your fault,” Dirk sighed, moving his head in quick, tiny shakes to arrange his thoughts.
”I did feel sorry for you, you seemed nice,” Assistent said. ”Even if I was a tiny bit scared of you.”
”Really?” Dirk asked. There was no reason to feel proud for being thought of as scary, it wasn’t his intention in life at all, but a small part of him was pleased anyway. He’d been so vulnerable during those sixty-something days, that it was good to know he hadn’t seemed completely weak.
”Yeah,” Assistent admitted and gave an uncertain little smile.
They were silent for a few seconds, and then it seemed Assistent wanted to move on from their Blackwing talk – it occurred to Dirk that maybe they’d gotten a bit too personal for Assistent’s liking, Dirk wasn’t sure, he didn’t have almost any boundaries himself when it came to talking to people – because Assistent turned his attention briskly to the computer again and straightened his posture.
”Can you get back to talking about that case, maybe skip the theatrics so we can get this done?” he asked, and then glanced back at Dirk, as if to see if he’d crossed a line by being too mean or something, but Dirk only grinned and nodded in return.
It had felt nice to see Assistent smile, even if it had been a tad awkward. It made Dirk feel like they were already moving on from that ’shrieking at each other in a life-threatening situation inside a military establishment’ type of acquaintance to a possible beginning of some sort of friendship.
He remembered how Todd hadn't wanted anything to do with him when they met for the first time, and now they were the best of friends. Yeah, it’d be fine.
When he got to the end of the case, Assistent finished typing and stretched his fingers with a poorly hidden yawn. He was now completely up to date with their cases which felt significant, almost like there was cause for celebration. But since neither of them knew what to say or do, Dirk settled for a hearty, half-yelled ”yay!”, to which he received a nod from Assistent.
”Good night then,” Assistent said curtly, when Dirk had walked him to the door and they hovered there.
”You’ll come tomorrow too, won’t you?” Dirk asked eagerly yet rather desperately.
Despite hanging out for almost an entire week they hadn’t really discussed the job details like they probably should have if Dirk was a proper employer. But, it wasn’t a real job, was it? And surely Assistent knew nothing involving Dirk and his job was normal.
The only responsible thing Dirk had thought of discussing was the issue of money – mainly because Assistent had mentioned it. He didn’t have any regular wages to offer. They’d had a couple of clients by now and they’d paid them something, or sometimes they’d just bump into money when the universe allowed it. It was mainly managed by Todd and Farah, to pay their rent. Not that they were in any great trouble yet, what with the amount of money Lydia Spring gave Farah, although a great chunk of it had been used to attain the agency’s business space.
Apparently Assistent had earned rather hefty wages when he worked for Blackwing, too, and could survive off on his saves for now, so they'd reached an unofficial agreement that if they somehow ever got hired by a generous millionaire or something to solve a case, Dirk would give Assistent his share for sure. It wasn’t the best of agreements and probably violated about a hundred different employer-employee codes, but that’s just how it was.
At the door the gentle yet cool night wind was sweeping in, and Assistent hesitated on the threshold, but only for a little while.
”Yeah, I guess… I don’t even know why, but sure,” he replied.
Dirk beamed.
”Brilliant,” he said, clapping his hands together. ”I’ll try my best to attract some aliens for you.”
Assistent rolled his eyes. ”Whatever, man,” he said dryly, but Dirk thought he looked sort of hopeful.