i have a headcanon about this, Dirk always top Alpha Dave, but when he is bottoming….he really likes it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and Dve gets confused uehueheuh hope you like it!
Dirk: *nervously spouts off ten thousand words about the simulation problem, the inability of the human mind to truly experience anything objectively and the classical philosophical debate of what truly constitutes reality and free will, fully aware that dave has completely tuned him out, yet unable to stop because he recognizes he looks like an idiot and is determined that his next sentence will fix it even though he knows it absolutely will not*
Dave: cool but I actually subscribe exclusively to the philosophical school of updog, it’s pretty intense
Dirk: *has extensively researched historical memes and knows exactly what updog is, and is now faced with a completely unsolveable dilemma, does he walk right into the obvious set up and ask, innocently, what’s updog, and allow dave to cheerfully slam dunk him into a garbage can? if so can he pull it off casually enough that dave will think he didnt know exactly what he was doing? or will Dave see through it and be insulted by what he perceives as patronizing behavior? should he explain that actually he knows what updog is and just put all his cards on the table for the sake of honesty? Fuck no that’s totally awful that is so goddamn uncool. Do we divert the conversation onto something else? Pretend he didn’t hear him? FUCK*
Dave getting to spend time with Dirk and discovering that Dirk’s outward stoicism is actually just a symptom of him being a completely socially inept bag of anxiety who is doubly tongue tied around him specifically because Dave’s opinion of him matters too much and he’s afraid to do or say anything that might put it in jeopardy
Dave finding that absolutely hilarious and just being tremendously, tremendously relieved that no matter how much of a hopeless dork he is Dirk “held his breath through an entire dave soliloquy bc he didnt want to interrupt and then tried his best to respond intelligently to every inane thing he said no matter how rhetorical it was or impossible an intelligent response is” Strider still has him beat and that’s beautiful