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The first time he comes to you it’s a day after Jane’s disastrous birthday fiasco. It’s late and you’re alone in your room, whispering things meant for Fefetasprite, knowing full-well that she’s visiting another one of the sprite’s for the night. But it’s nice to pretend. He comes to you shaking and quiet and suddenly. One minute you’re sprawled out alone on your bed, the next there’s a heavy weight to your right and you’re bolting right up. A hand is clasped over your mouth to muffle your shriek and a tired voice whispers “Roxy, please. It’s me.”
You lick his hand once, twice, three times to finally get him to remove it from your mouth before you speak. “Dirky!” you sing-song, scooting over to make more room for him. “Now what brings you to the humble Lalonde abode, hmm?”
There’s a long pause, but you don’t push it. You let the silence stretch before he finally gives a short “Broke up with Jake,” in response. Your heart breaks for him because you heard that quiver in his voice. A tiny, selfish part of your heart also broke for yourself because you’d be lying if you said you didn’t want him to care about you like that. “Oh, Dirk,” you sigh, reaching out into the dark to bring him closer. You hit his nose and knock his glasses askew before you manage to pull his head down to your shoulder and you can feel his breath against your neck.
“I’m sorry,” you say quietly, petting his stupid spiky hair. “He’s a big fat dumb who doesn’t know what he had.” Dirk snorted very attractively against your skin. “I was the one who dumped him, Rox.” You cease your petting for a moment. What an interesting development. “Admittedly, I could tell he wanted to end things,” he sighs, “And okay, yeah, Striders don’t get dumped, but that still kind of hurts like a bitch.” He attempts a laugh and you wish you could just keep him there in your bed away from everything bad forever.
You pull his head up and press a kiss to his forehead. “Like I said,” a kiss to his nose, “Big,” cheek, “fat,” cheek, “dumb.” Lips. You’ve tried this at least once before, towards the very beginning of your session. He pulled away then, but he didn’t this time. He hesitated for just a moment before he kissed you back, albeit very softly, and with no tongue whatsoever. “Diiiirk,” you whine, pulling away. “Roxy,” he mimics.
“Let me do this, let me help you,” you whisper, pressing your lips right up against his ear. You hold your breath as he thinks for a moment or two before exhaling when he brings one hand up to your hip and the other up to his head, taking off the anime shades.
Increasingly messy kisses are exchanged, clothes are discarded on your already messy floor, and you’ll admit that you’re very glad to have an entire planet to yourselves that night. You know it probably wasn’t his first time, but you both knew it was yours and on some level he knew how much you wanted this. You’re more than happy to let him be your first. Hell, you think you’d be fine with him being your only. You want to be his completely and for him to be yours, but if you can’t have that right now you can at least have this.
You don’t wake up until noon the next day, groggy with fantastic sex hair. Your clothes are folded neatly at the edge of your bed, your room is straightened up, and there are pancakes on your desk. Now Dirk, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found.
You cry for an hour and contemplate getting a drink before you decide the pancakes and a shower would be better, even if both were cold.
A month passes and it’s as if the night never happened. Alright, maybe Dirk spends more time with you than he did before, but that could easily be because of his breakup with Jake and the potentially awkward Janey situation. Not to mention the fact that Jake was now going all-out trying to get back on Jane’s good side. Dirk had alchemized you an absolutely adorable pink cat-like gas mask so you could go to his planet but didn’t even flinch when you planted a kiss on his cheek in gratitude. Sometimes your heart hurts and always you really, really hope he isn’t gay.
The second time he comes to you he’s about as excited and happy as he gets as he drags you across his land. You find the skeletons less than enjoyable and you’re a little bored but you put up with it because maybe this isn’t a real date but you’re going to be the best not-date this boy has ever had.
Four hours later you begin to regret that decision because you’re lurking around in a dank little tomb and you’re hungry and tired and the mask is hurting your face. “Dirk can we go back to my house and make cookies? I’ll even watch your brother’s shitty movies,” you offer. “Yeah, of course, ten minutes, alright?” he asks and when he says it he’s still happy and genuinely interested and how could you say no?
Ten minutes turns into two hours and you’ve taken to jabbing at his butt repeating his name over and over again until he notices.
“Dirk.” Jab.
“Dirk.” Jab.
“Dirk.” Jab.
“Yes?” he finally straightens out to look at you. You’re sitting on the floor, leaning your head against the hard wall of the tomb.
“Can we go now?”
He apologizes profusely and says of course we can go why didn’t you ask me sooner and you keep reminding him that you did but then he walked too far away and you’re too tired so looks like he has to carry you back to your place. He does so with style.
In your own, much more comfortable house, you let Dirk put in that shitty movie and you try to remember what Jane taught you about baking cookies. You think you have a pretty good mix going on when Dirk returns to your side, much cleaner than how you left him. He swipes some from the bowl and licks some off of a finger and makes a face. “Rox…what exactly is this?” he asks slowly. “Let me try!” you grab his hand and lick the remaining cookie dough from his finger yourself and oh. That’s pretty bad. Either Janey lied to you or you didn’t remember the directions correctly. Dirk gives into a bout of laughter at the sight of the face you’re making and maybe the lack of cookies is worth it.
“You know,” you say slowly, walking forward so as he’s pressed up against the doorway to the living room. “I could think of something much sweeter,” you laugh before pressing a kiss to his neck, clumsily grasping at his cute little Batman belt and hoping he doesn’t pick up on how insecure you feel right now. “Roxy,” he manages, sounding a little more strained than usual. “You know…these little dates, outings, what have you…they don’t always have to go back to sex,” his statement carries a lot less weight when he gasps and brings a hand up to touch the back of your head as you finish leaving a mark on his neck.
“Dirk, Dirk, shhh.” You say, pulling back to look into his face and pet it very nicely. Date, he said, but you know more than anyone how oddly he can talk sometimes. It’d be best for your emotional stability to not over-analyze that remark. “No one…” you almost stop yourself “No one has to know about. Stuff. You and me and this.” You gesture helpfully to yourself and then his pants. Dirk smiles a little and scratches the back of his neck and looks like he wants to say a bunch of things but just goes with a soft “If you insist, Rox.”
This time is softer and in your opinion nicer than the first time. You’re all his and he’s not yours, but it’s nice to pretend. You can convince yourself, at least for now, that that’s what you wanted and you can be fine with this. At least this time when you fall asleep and wake up again he’s still there, pants back on with a blanket wrapped around you, watching that shitty movie. You fall asleep again but when you wake up he’s gone, leaving behind your gas mask.
You don’t cry this time. You take a pillow and you scream and scream until you’re exhausted and then you drag yourself upstairs and sit in the shower until his scent is washed away.
The third time he comes to you Jake is throwing a stupid party. It’s two and a half months after Jane’s birthday and Jake had finally gotten not only on her good side, but also back into her heart. In an attempt to be a good boyfriend and maybe to get Jane to forget what an asshole he was on her actual birthday, Jake insisted on throwing her a party on his planet for her sixteenth birthday. “After all, a girl only turns sixteen once! And boy oh boy, what a special occasion that is!”
The party is awkward in the beginning, with both you and Jane trying hard to diffuse the tension. Crappy board games are played and Erisolsprite grumbles quietly alone the entire time. It only takes half an hour for Dirk and Jake to be back to their normal idiot selves around each other which really shouldn’t make you as jealous as it does. You grow steadily unhappier as they bring up stupid inside jokes and nudge each other. Jane nervously comments that if she didn’t know better she’d say they were flirting and you most certainly do know better because those assholes are definitely flirting.
If at all possible, your mood worsens when Jake brings out a bottle of vodka and offers it around. Jane automatically declines, glancing at you. Jake tries to offer the bottle to you but Dirk steps in and takes it. “Jake, man, don’t be a dick,” he frowns, jerking his head subtly in your direction. You have the good grace to pretend to be far too interested in the grass to notice. “Give it here, I was just going to offer it to our brilliant old pal Roxy!” Jake insists, grabbing Dirk’s hand.
“Jake.”
“Dirk!”
Why wasn’t anyone removing their hand from the bottle? You could control yourself, you’re pretty sure. You were sober for months, after all. “S-stop it,” you can hear Jake laugh and you glance over to see his face pressed up against Dirk’s shoulder and the looks being exchanged are hurting your heart. Jane looks incredibly perplexed and a little bit pissed and suddenly you have a raging headache.
“Janey, I’m gonna go,” you announce softly, standing up and refusing to look at the two boys laughing not twenty feet away. You don’t cry until you get home.
You’re so tired of not being just enough for anyone. On Jane’s real birthday she didn’t want to have a party with you, no matter how much work you put into it, Jake couldn’t even remember you couldn’t drink, and Dirk.
You know perfectly well that you’ve dug yourself into this hole but that didn’t make you any happier about it. You were his and he wasn’t yours and this time it wasn’t nice to pretend because it wasn’t true.
The third time he comes to you, you’re the one who’s quiet and shaking and sad. Back on your bed, Dirk comes over to you, sitting down without invitation and you know it’s him even though you haven’t lifted your head from your knees since you sat down.
“Roxy, what happened?” he asks quietly, making a pitiful attempt at pulling you to him much like you did for him months ago. “Surprised you could look away from the boyfriend to notice,” you sniff back, too tired to bother being nice.
Pause.
“Boyfriend?” he’s incredulous and you have less than no idea as to why. “Janey and I noticed, Dirk,” you say, finally lifting your head up to look at him through wet eyelashes. “Roxy,” he sighs but you cut him off. “And you know what? Maybe I don’t have a right to feel hurt but what about Jane! And… what about me? Dirk,” you’re crying again but if you’re going to make a big confession it might as well be dramatic. “I know I’m just not it for you. But you’re it for me, alright? I wanted that. What you and Jake…I’m sorry. I really just can’t do this anymore,” you once again gesture helpfully between yourself and his pants but this time he doesn’t smile like he did the first time.
“You know you’re the one who wanted to keep this a secret,” Dirk finally says and you laugh even though you don’t think it’s funny. “It’s not like you felt that way about me anyway,” you mumble, wiping at your eyes angrily.
“Did you really think that?” his voice is pinched and sounds strange and when you look up at him he kisses you very softly, very quickly. “Roxy. Look, I know I’m not the best at explaining, well, feelings.” He starts off, exhaling slowly. “But you have to understand that yes, I really do feel that way about you. I don’t know exactly how or even when, but I know that yes, you’re really it for me. And I love you, okay?” This is the first time you had ever seen Dirk really blush and you’re absolutely loving it.
“Are you serious?” you ask in a small voice.
“Dead serious,” he nods, stone faced. “I will grow a beard, that’s how serious I am. I’ll only wear tweed with leather elbow-patches.”
Any remaining sense of seriousness evacuated the room when you burst into laughter and Dirk eventually joined you.
The third time he came to you, nothing happened. You finally bothered to watch the shitty movie and you tried on his glasses and convinced him to talk to Fefetasprite and nothing happened. The third time he came to you, you were his and he was yours and you didn’t have to pretend.