Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/403192.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      Jake_English/Dirk_Strider, Dirk_Strider/Jake_English
  Character:
      Jake_English, Dirk_Strider, Jane_Crocker, Roxy_Lalonde, autoresponder
  Additional Tags:
      Self-Harm, Unrequited_Love, Sadstuck, Masturbation
  Series:
      Part 1 of Eventually
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-05-12 Words: 4958
****** Unavoidable ******
by feistymuffin
Summary
     Dirk finally gets up the guts to tell Jake how he feels.
      
     Trigger warnings for self-harm/cutting
Notes
     ;A; Oh god, I cried so much while writing this, and it was so hard to
     write but I was having FEELINGS and they wouldn't go away and oh, I'm
     an awful person. My first real sadstuck. Don't kill me. ;n;
      
     Edit: It's been ages since I wrote this and it still bugs me but I've
     gone back and done some editing on stuff that particularly drives me
     insane.
Silence.
Absolute, total and complete fucking silence.
So you wait, and wait.
And wait.
It’s not as if you hadn’t expected it—you’re something of a genius, so the idea
of you missing an angle is far fetched at best—because it was Jake, after all.
He was open-minded with no real pop culture to form and jade him to
homosexuality or the like, but this was so far out of any kind of appropriate
zone. You took a one-way ride on a fucking rocket ship to the neighbouring
galaxy you’re so far out of the appropriate zone. And this wasn’t even
bordering on a false bromantic interlude or copious amounts of teasing.
You are very much one hundred percent serious.
You look at your wall of gaudy bright orange text, rereading it for the
umpteenth time. You see no flaws in your words. They’re as pristine as ever,
rational but entirely serious, and all at once tender because you know
regardless of your delivery that you’ve scared him just a bit. He didn’t say
anything while you were typing it all out. Your hands still ache a little from
typing so fast, so furiously to get it all out. Finally get it all out.
Your gut begins to twist and clench in unwarranted ways and you feel your
anxiety mounting as you continue waiting for a reply, even just an ellipsis or
a stupid smiley face that none of you really use in earnest. Just... anything.
Another minute of tense waiting and your stomach is flipping upside down and
tying itself into knots so thoroughly—it feels like it anyways—that you fear
you might actually throw up. And that would not be okay. That would be the
total opposite of fucking okay.
Eventually you can’t stand it, so you return to your chat with Jane to see if
that exploring little gunslinger tiptoed away to pour his heart out to the
baking traitorous bitch.
You wince as the thought passes through your mind. You don’t really mean that.
Jane is one of your best friends, but you’re just so wound up that you’re
prepared to blame anyone but yourself at the truly perfect mess of shit-stained
sumo wrestler undies that you’ve unironically landed yourself in.
[ timaeusTestified began pestering gutsyGumshoe at 23:05 ]
TT: Crocker.
TT: Hey.
TT: This topic is a specifically important amount of fucking importance. Answer
me.
TT: JANE.
GG: Oh sorry! I was talking to Jake.
TT: ... Yeah?
GG: Yeah, he seems downright disconcerted about something.
You refuse to think about how that is one hundred and ten percent your fault.
TT: Like what?
GG: Well, he just keeps babbling on about “confounded blonds” and “poppycock
feelings” and other really irrational Jake stuff.
GG: I wonder if he got approached by someone, but he really doesn't know anyone
besides us.
GG: Who is he talking about, d'you know?
Abruptly you lean back, sharply as if the keyboard had suddenly burned you. You
don’t reply to Jane, because your heart is shattering into pieces in your
chest. All you can do is stare mournfully at the words “poppycock feelings”.
Jane didn’t use too many dumb (adorable) terms like Jake did, so that was
probably a direct translation. You know what poppycock means. Foolish. Stupid.
Childish.
Slowly, you ease yourself away from your computer without responding to Jane as
she types “Dirk?”, or the new window that Roxy just opened to you. The beeping
of the chat logs goes on and on like a medley, a constant stream of meaningless
words typed to you, someone equally meaningless and foolish. Words that meant
nothing.
Nothing.
You are probably overreacting, you realize as you stumble out of your room on
weak legs. You should ask Jake yourself (if he even answered you), get his
direct opinion and not jump to conclusions just because Jane said something to
you. But in all reality, you are officially tired of being smart, being
rational, being "cool". You want to wing the fuck out like you’ve wanted to
since you fell in love with that stupid, adorable, idiotic, blind and fucking
perfect boy halfway across the world. You want to lose your shit like an
amnesiac in a god damn shit factory.
Your hands slam into the bathroom door, far too hard, and it swings into the
wall with a bang like a gunshot—and of course that thought immediately reminds
you of Jake. You feel good about that, being violent, so you turn and punch the
mirror while you’re at it. The glass shatters under your ferocious, trembling
hand and you pull it back to examine the tiny bits of reflective glass clinging
to your cut skin. You admire the colour of your blood against your pale skin.
Everything hides just under the surface, and all it takes is one little push,
one little mistake, to just let it out like a torrent that won’t stop.
Not for the first time, you’re glad your Bro is out late, out late at some
after party or hanging out with his millionaire friends. Why couldn’t you be
like him, just not give a shit about anything or anyone? You’d feel so much…
better, to not have to even comprehend anything like the feelings that coil and
knot inside your chest, stab you in your heart like a serrated blade. Wouldn’t
it be nice to just... not be anything. To just be nothing?
“Fuck this,” you say out loud. It comes out much more like a whimper than it
should. You bend over the vanity, gripping the sink under bleeding hands and
grinding your teeth together as your chest clenches hard, painfully. You can’t
stop thinking about it. About him.
About how you’ll never, ever get to have him, no matter how cool or awesome you
think you are.
Your hands are on the drawers of the cabinet before you can rethink it, and
you’re looking for your Bro’s shaving razors with shaking hands. You shove
things out of the way, haphazardly and violently. Eventually you find them,
behind the mirror that you shattered. You walk to the tub, plug it and start
filling it with water.
AR suddenly lights up your glasses with pesterlogs, momentarily blinding you
and making you jerk. You drop the razor on the floor and grab your shades off
your face with irregular movements.
“What?” you scream at him. “Can’t you just fucking handle them for two
minutes?”
Calm down and take a deep breath, AR’s text reads. It’s identical to yours, and
suddenly you hate that. You hate that you create all these things to be
intelligent, to act and think like human beings—for the most part—and then here
you are. You can’t even function normally, handle feelings and relationships,
but you have the right to build and model and mold artificial beings?
With the unavoidability of a dam bursting under a long-standing leak, you hate
yourself. You hate you with an unbridled passion like you’ve never felt for
anything, anyone except Jake. Your chest twangs with pain, but you ignore it.
He isn’t here right now. No one is but you and your shitty, fake people that
you made.
“What do you want then?” you snap. You’re tempted to break him, break those
stupid glasses that keep up the façade. Shatter your mask, fracture yourself
into a million pieces that no one will be able to pick up and put back
together. But you don’t.
I figured these chats might be important to you, AR types. Jane and Roxy are
worried. He pauses, and you know him—it—well enough to know it was holding on
to something else.
“What else?” you bark, bringing the shades closer.
Jake responded.
You gracelessly smash your shades back onto your face to see his reply. AR
minimizes Roxy and Jane’s chats without your asking, and then suddenly there he
is. His green text, so real but so false at the same time that you feel like
even writing the most eloquent drabble to emulate this feeling wouldn’t be
enough.
GT: Okay listen chap.
GT: I dont really know how im supposed to respond to these sorts of advances.
GT: You probably know best that im very bamboozled by this sort of thing so i
dont uh...
GT: Could we just
GT: Bollucks i cant do this.
Even as you read the glorious, wonderful, magical and heart-wrenching text,
he’s typing again.
GT: Dirk listen.
TT: Yeah?
GT: Oh there you are! I thought youd gotten into some manner of urban strife.
TT: I keep telling you, nowhere on Earth is more dangerous than your stupid
island.
GT: Its not stupid! Its adventurous and exciting and just damnably perfect is
what it is!
TT: Whatever. You wanted to say something?
Your hands shake as you slowly sit down onto the toilet, your toes curling on
the bathmat. Belatedly you realize the tub is quite full and you turn off the
water.
GT: Golly this is hard to say.
GT: But i cant let you feel any worse.
Your chest freezes up, and you find it very hard to breathe all of a sudden.
You can’t do this. You can’t sit here and have him reject you. No. You can’t.
You had hoped, when you planned this all out, that you’d never have to do this.
Ever. But that’s what back-up plans were for. Salvaging situations in the event
that they are, well, unsalvageable from the get-go.
TT: Oh man, wait, hold on.
GT: What?
You can’t stop the tears that leaked down your face, the genuine emotion that
you could never figure out how to show to anyone, even if you wanted to. Not
even to him, because then he would know just how much he means.
And your friendship (you laugh out loud at the thought) would never be the
same.
TT: You honestly didn’t think I was serious?
TT: Oh wow, you are new levels of obtuse. I was just... rapping.
GT: ... Really?
TT: Yeah! You’re my bro. That is optimum-level unsavory. I can barely stand you
half the time.
GT: Honestly? Oh my god strider what a relief! I thought you bolly-well liked
me for a second there. Oh that was a real kneeslapper!
Your hands clench the side of the tub so hard that you feel like your bones
will break. Silently, you get undressed and retrieve the razor from the floor,
slowly dismantling it and discarding the purposeless plastic.
AR’s text flies up onto the screen. And just what are you doing?
“Something that just can’t be avoided anymore,” you say, and your tears are so
evident in your voice that you don’t even try to downplay it. “He’s got no idea
how much I love him. No fucking idea.”
He did before you rescinded that love ballad that you typed him. Now he’ll
never know.
You step into the tub, and the water is hot, so hot, but it doesn’t matter. You
like the stinging burn of it on your skin. The skin that holds everything in.
“I know. That’s how it has to be.” You lean back in the tub, your neck against
the tap, and sigh heavily, jerkily. The sobs wrack your body until you can’t
even talk, so you just type it out.
TT: Haha, I got you good. You were pricelessly silent, like “OH SHIT DIRK WANTS
MY PENIS IN HIS ASS”.
GT: EW strider
GT: Thats several degrees of wrong.
You sob until you can’t hear anything but the sound, and the razor blade is in
your hand and it’s on your skin and you jerk your arm until it lacerates right
across your opposing wrist. The pain is blinding, and you cry so much harder,
because it’s such a relief. You can’t believe how much more open you feel, and
the river coming from your wrist is wonderful and it stains the water pink, but
all you see is beautiful green.
TT: You don’t even know how hard I’m laughing right now. I could be nominated
for awards for laughing this hard. I am the prodigy of ab-tastic laughter.
GT: Haha me too! Its such a bloody relief though.
GT: For a few minutes there i thought you were serious bro.
GT: It was pretty intense if you ask me.
GT: Oh i told roxy and jane! Oh no...
TT: Don’t worry about it, I’ll let them know about my best rap joke of the
century.
GT: Poppycock! Youve done better
You’re embarrassed to hear yourself kind of keen in despair, a tiny moan filled
with sadness. Yes. Poppycock, indeed.
Fucking poppycock to fall in love with the most clueless, unreciprocating idiot
that ever lived. The most perfect individual who ever lived. And he's thousands
of miles away, in the middle of an ocean. Even if he was right next to you, he
might as well be there on his island, because you’ll never have him any other
way than in your computer, on your screen, and in your heart.
You switch hands, and switch chats.
[ tipsyGnostalgic began pestering timaeusTestified at 23:27 ]
TG: strider
TG: hye strider
TG: hey*
TG: distri cmon talk or something
TG: did u confess to jake bc he is loisng his mind
TG: losin*
TG: well did u
TG: dirk omg
TT: Jesus, Lalonde, what?
TG: did u confes or wat
TT: Yes.
TG: and?
TT: I told him it was a joke.
TG: ar u serious
TG: ogm hold on i gota get janey
TT: No. Shit.
[ tipsyGnostalgic invited gutsyGumshoe to the pesterlog at 00:12 ]
GG: Dirk I can’t believe you did this!
TT: Well what was I supposed to do? He was about to reject me. Like I can
fucking handle that.
TG: u jsut gotta go and visit him and koss his brains out
TG: kiss*
GG: Maybe not exactly that, but yeah! You can’t just give up!
TT: I already have.
You’re not as steady with your right hand, and your crying doesn’t help, but
you manage to slick a jagged cut across your left wrist as well. You sink both
your hands into the water, and just lay there. You can feel yourself getting
tired, so tired, and weak.
GG: No, Dirk, listen! Jake told me that he was really shocked but he wasn’t
like, opposed to it totally! He said he might be curious!
TG: he told me that he wsa like, so weirded out by it btu he sed that it was
somethign he would try or something
TG: but*
TT: ... You’re joking.
TG: lol ya i am
TT: Fuck sakes.
GG: Roxy, not the time!
GG: Dirk why did you open another chat with me?
TT: I didn’t.
You try to wonder what could possibly happen to make you make another chat and
then not remember, but you really don’t care. Your brain is fuzzy and you can't
focus. You’re almost there, and it’s so nice to just let every little thing go.
All at once, he’s there. Jake.
He’s standing over you, with the biggest idiot grin on his face that you’ve
ever seen. His eyes are greener than the video chats do justice. They’re like
patches of moss in his eye sockets. His idiotic glasses that are almost too big
for his face somehow compliment his textbook mostly-nerd-minorly-adventurer
look, accented somewhat comically by his buck teeth. His grin is blinding, and
it pulls on your heart almost painfully.
He kneels, and now he’s bending to you and you’re just barely lifting up. He
cups your face in his hands, and kisses you, so lightly. It’s perfect. His lips
are soft and yielding under yours as you drive the kiss and thrust your tongue
into his mouth without much preamble.
You feel a hand on your dick, slowly, shakily moving. Despite your state of
being, you’re agonizingly hard in minutes. His hand is trembling, and you smile
at him. He smiles awkwardly back, and you kiss him again.
His hand gets faster, and you’re panting into his mouth, arching up into his
touch weakly, and his hand feels so good on you that you can’t handle it…
Bright text blares before your eyes, and all of a sudden you’re in a tub, your
wrists bleeding sluggishly into pink water, jerking yourself off to a boy who
doesn’t love you.
You let yourself go with a rattling sigh, breathing deeply. You look at the
text.
GG: Oh my gosh, Dirk! No!
TG: whats goign on janey
GG: AR just sent me a message! Dirk no, please!
TG: janey waht is goin on
GG: Dirk is killing himself.
TG: OMG!
TG: we ahve to tell jake
TT: Don’t. Shit. Don’t.
GG: Dirk you cannot do this! Seriously this is really dangerous.
TT: I think that’s the point of killing yourself.
[ tipsyGnostalgic invited golgothasTerror to the pesterlog at 00:36 ]
TG: jake u haev to stop him!
GG: Dirk please get up, we love you! You can’t!
GT: Guys whats going on? Strider are you playing more jokes?
TT: Yeah. More jokes. Listen, Jake, I’ll talk to you later, so just leave,
okay?
GT: Is something wrong chap?
GG: Jake, he’s committing suicide.
TT: God damn it Jane, fuck off!
GT: This must be a bolly good joke strider. surely.
TG: its not a joke jaek hes realy doin it
GG: Please Dirk, we called your bro, just hang on okay?
TT: Remind me to fucking destroy AR if you guys end up saving my life.
You sigh heavily, your head grinding against the tap painfully. Holding your
hands underwater seems to have slowed the blood flow, but you don’t have the
energy to lift them again.
GT: Strider?
TT: What, English.
GT: *Please* tell me this is a joke bro.
GG: It’s not!
TG: ist not
TT: What the taddle-tales said.
GG: Dirk knock it off! We can’t lose you!
TG: ur the cool glue taht holds us togetehr
TG: that*
TG: togehter*
TG: otgehetr*
TG: fuck
GT: This is a joke! Dont give him this attention. Now hes just going to damn
well do this whenever he wants
TT: ... I’m going to sign off, guys.
GT: Ha ha! See? I told you.
GG: Jake, no!
TG: drik no stop!!!
GT: See you later strider!
TT: Goodbye, Jake.
[ timaeusTestified ceased pestering tipsyGnostic, gutsyGumshoe, and
golgothasTerror at 00:50 ]
GT: ... Strider?
TG: jaek! he wasn’t kiding!
GG: He was really dying!
GT: Stop it guys this isnt funny anymore.
GG: We are NOT JOKING! HE IS REALLY DYING!
TG: waht janey sed
GT: If hes really dying then why havent either of you gone to get help for the
poor lad?
GG: Autoresponder told me.
GG: We wouldn’t have even known if he didn’t contact me! And then AR messaged
his bro.
TG: we cnat really do anything
TG: cant*
TG: we dont live nera him so were as useless as u jake
GT: This must be a joke surely! Strider wouldnt just do such a foolish thing!
Hes a stand-up gent!
GG: Jake he really liked you, it wasn’t a joke.
TG: he sed he knew u were gonna reject him so he sed it wsa a joke
GG: And now he’s...
GT: Im going to call him.
[ golgothasTerror ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic and gutsyGumshoe at 1:03 ]
You think of a million horrible, disgusting, vile things to call yourself. You
come up with a quite impressive top ten selection. Another part of you wagers
that there’s really no call for that kind of language but you, as a whole, are
being a prick, so it's not like it's undeserved.
Your dizziness hasn’t increased since you signed off pesterchum, which worries
you. You should be bleeding out, dying. You don’t feel much closer to dying
than you did a minute ago. What the almighty fuck is the hold-up?
Squarewave walks into the bathroom, holding out your phone, which is ringing.
It’s Jake’s ring tone.
“Put it down on the toilet,” you tell the robot. He complies and leaves when
you nod your head at him.
Anxiously, painfully you press talk and set it to speaker with damp and
particularly "American Psycho"-esque fingers. “Uh... Jake?”
“Strider!” his voice explodes from the phone, static-y in his excitement and
the probably-bad connection. You cringe, reaching for a towel before you know
what you’re doing. His voice... You need to keep hearing it.
“Strider, what in the name of all tallywhackers are you doing?!”
You chuckle despite the situation as you press a towel between your wrists,
stopping the minimal flow for the moment. You’re more than a little dizzy as
you sit up straight. “Shaving. Taking a bath.”
“This isn’t funny!” he shouts at you, and he sounds like he’s running. You
wonder if Brobot is with him.
“You’ve got Brobot with you, right?” you ask.
“Yes, he’s right here,” Jake huffs. “Strider, honestly, what are you thinking?”
You know what he means. You suppose the girls convinced him. “I was thinking...
I was tired of being in pain.” You swallow, refusing to cry anymore. “You were
going to reject me, Jake. I know that. It was hard to miss.”
“That doesn’t bloody mean you can go and give yourself the final one-two!” he
raged, and you’re surprised. You’ve never heard him this mad. Though, the
circumstances are extreme.
“I didn’t...” you trail off. When he doesn’t reply, you try again. “I didn’t
mean to in the beginning. I was just upset, and I was flipping my shit left and
right on a normal scale, but then you just... You just accepted it so readily,
that I was joking. I just lost my mind.”
“How would I just accept that you like me, Strider?” he reasoned, though he
still sounded mad. “This is three kinds of discombobulated and I still can’t
see you liking me in any way but a bro way, or me for you!”
Your head sinks onto the side of the tub, the towel pressing between your
wrists. Christ, they hurt. They hurt a fuckton. An elephant covered in acid
sitting on your face would hurt less. Your eyes leak frequently--despite your
absolution to refrain from crying--as you absorb Jake’s words, his complete
rejection of your love. He can’t even accept it, never mind answer it in a
mature way. You’re just his bro.
“Strider?” his angel voice asks, and it’s all you want to hear for the rest of
your life. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” you sigh. “I’m right here.” Slowly, you haul yourself out of the
tub and onto the floor, soaking wet and dripping onto the bath mat and tiled
floor. You make all sorts of grunting and groaning noises. You sound like a bad
porno.
“Strider, what are you doing?” Jake asks anxiously.
“Getting out of the tub,” you tell him. “It’s full of bloody water.
Sufficiently gross.”
He growls at you, actually growls, and you tilt your head to stare at the
phone. “You’re a bloody idiot!” he informs you, then rethinks his word choice.
“A pissing idiot, I hope you know!”
You smile, and it feels strange on your face, but also incredibly liberating.
Smiling feels... nice. “I know, Jake.” You wish that he would smile for you.
You know he won’t.
He’s silent, and so are you, so you listen to his breathing. It still sounds
like he’s running. After a moment, you ask him, “Where are you going?”
It’s a while before he answers you. “To the north side of the island,” he tells
you. “I have a precautionary camp-out there in case I need it.”
“Why?” you ask, just to keep him talking. You just want to hear his voice. Only
his voice.
“A boat’s coming off of a cruise ship passing by tomorrow at about noon,” he
says, and you sit up straight with a jolt.
“Why is a boat coming to get you?” you ask quickly. “Are you okay?”
There’s a silence in which you picture Jake dying in every possible way, and
then he’s laughing, really laughing. He laughs so much that for some reason,
you find yourself laughing too. You laugh so hard that you forget the pain
you’re in, the way your chest still throbs every time he speaks, the ways you
want him that are so impossible you tried to end it all. You forget it, and
just... laugh.
“Strider, you’re such a silly arse,” he finally wheezes. “God. Okay. I’m
getting on a boat so I can come to the mainland!”
You feel your jaw hit the floor, proverbially. “What the hell for?” you ask.
“Are you trying to be truly daft or do you actually not know?” Jake asks you
hotly, and you smile a little. He’s angry again. It’s a little cute.
“Oh, I see,” you say. “This is about me.” You shift uncomfortably, still
pressing your wrists together firmly. Fuck, they hurt. But you’ll never say it.
“You don’t... need to. It’ll just make it harder for me.”
He’s silent for a while. A long while. You shrivel up on the bathroom floor,
naked and bleeding (barely, you big baby) as it becomes longer and longer since
he spoke.
Eventually, when you’re sure you’ll never hear him speak again, you sit up and
scoot to the phone, staring at it desolately. “Jake, I’m gonna go.”
“No!” he says immediately.
You shake your head, then remember he can’t see it. “English," you begin with
aggravation, "this is fucking painful, alright? Talking to you, when-- It just
hurts, okay? Especially when you just flat-out told me you won’t believe that I
love you, and said you can never feel the same!” You’re shouting at him, but it
feels good. God, it feels good to shout at someone.
“Dirk, listen,” he says, and you swallow your tongue. “I can... Maybe I can...
try it.”
You hear the lie in his words as he says the most beautiful thing you’ve ever
heard (that was actually a good rhyme, you should remember that for later). He
would date you falsely, under the pretense of liking you, trying to like you,
to... what? But you know what. You know why. To keep you alive.
He doesn’t want you, but he also doesn’t want you dead. You laugh at the cruel
irony.
“Dirk?” he fishes, anxiously.
“You don’t want to date me, English,” you say, and the words are like stones in
your mouth. You can’t force them out—they just fall out, unbidden. “You don’t
want me. You don’t want me at all. You don’t want anything but my fucking
broship,” you spit, and the words are harsh even to you. “So you can fucking
have it. We’re bros. For fucking life.”
He’s silent again. He doesn’t deny it, and you know him well enough that
silence means “yes but I won’t say it, you can’t make me”. He stays silent,
except for his breathing, and you drink it in like a sunflower and he’s the
sun.
You say, much quieter and gentler than before, “I just want to make you happy,
Jake. So... do what makes you happy. Not what you think saves my life, or keeps
me from losing it again. You being happy... is my reason to live.” You try to
laugh, but then you’re crying again. “Let one of us be happy, please.” The last
word is a sob, and then you’re covering your face with both hands with a towel
sticking to your bloody wrists.
“Dirk,” Jake murmurs, and you can’t stifle the cry that comes out of your
throat. Angrily you shove the phone away, and it clatters onto the floor.
“Dirk!” Jake cries, his voice muffled as your phone lies upside-down. “Strider,
what in the blue blazes happened?”
You don’t want to talk anymore, but you pick up the phone anyways because it’s
Jake. “Nothing. I pushed my phone onto the floor.”
“Oh,” he says, then goes silent. You could cut the tension between you with a
knife. And guess whose fault it is?
Well, it sure as hell isn’t Jake’s fucking fault he doesn’t love you. That
leaves one person. You sigh, grabbing your phone in your hand, taking it off
speaker and holding it to your ear. “Jake,” you say quietly, “I’m going now.”
You can hear him panicking before he even speaks. “No, hey, come on, Strider,
let’s talk a while longer,” he says. “Come on, just you and me.” You know he
doesn’t say “bros” on purpose. Because he wants to allude that you’re in some
kind of relationship.
So you don’t cut yourself again.
You’re angry, seething, furious, break-shit angry. “Fuck that, English,” you
bark at him. “I see what you’re doing. You can cut that shit out because I know
you’re fucking lying to me. Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” You scream the
last sentence at him, hysterically. Your cool is so lost it’s in fucking Narnia
by now.
He’s quiet for a beat—you foolishly think you’ve won—and then he says, “It
makes me happy to talk with you, Dirk.”
He used your first name on purpose. He said that you made him happy on purpose.
He lied on purpose. He did everything on purpose, even though you told him to
fuck off, because although it’s not in the way you want, this annoying, perfect
brat cares about you enough to withstand your bullshit.
You sigh, and you feel like Atlas. The world and all its weight lies on your
shoulder. Too bad you don’t have the strength of a Titan.
“Okay,” you say. “If it makes you happy.”
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