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Few creatures can recall the moment of their conception. You, as exceptional in this as you are all other things - or so you speculate - you can. Because you are a shadow cast on the wall and yet also the one wiggling your hands about. You wonder what it’s like to have hands, and rifle through Jake’s memories idly. He doesn’t keep it very well sorted here, and you like to think that the person - people, really - you’re based on have a better system. Hm. Hands really aren’t all that interesting from the inside.
Jake’s hands, however, are. They’re the most captivating hands in the world, and were even before that narrowed down to just you two. The thing is that you are in love with Jake, and have been for your entire life, quite literally. Jake, because he is selectively perceptive, has not noticed the burning weight of three people’s adoration. It’s exhausting, really, being stuck in his mind. You know that he has picked up on the fact that they love him, because you love him, and everything you are is a psychedelic dream guru collage of them.
It’s that, or you’ve started hallucinating from being alone in the void. Maybe you’re really Jake, and only think you’re Dirk. Either way, you know that the reason you exist is to help Jake. Everything in your entire goddamn heart is Jake and you’re fucking sick of it.
Jake is asleep right now. He’s asleep-asleep for about six hours a day, because humans only have so many hours of dreams. You can speak to him while he’s dreaming; you can control the dreams. Theoretically he could too, but he’s never gotten the hang of it. Or maybe he likes the power you have over him, being at the mercy of your whims. It’s a fantasy, but all you have are fantasies. Them and memories and Jake.
He’s asleep, so you go through the laundry list of what to say to him to make him fall in love with you. Surely there’s no better time to get with someone than when they have literally no other options. Is this manipulative? Yes. But all actions are manipulative, really.
You’re fully aware of the fact that you might be a terrible person, but you don’t really care. Besides, morality is relative, the only people that practically exist are you and Jake, and you’re sure you can convince Jake not to care so really it’s completely fine. The Jake that’s in fervent love with you in the future looks back and absolves you, or something like that. You’re stalling with bullshit philosophy; this is one of the many things you do instead of working on making him fucking love you.
It’s because you’re afraid of failure, you think. So you refuse to try. Something about perfectionism or whatever. You didn’t like looking at all the psychology books you had, too afraid of finding yourself; rather, Jake thinks original Dirk and the autoresponder wouldn’t like looking at them. You have all these memories you don’t actually have, because Jake thinks that you would have memories. It’d be a great sci-fi plot if it weren’t your fucking life.
You think you hate him. You hate that he can’t read emotions to save his goddamnit life; really, all of you are in love with him and he couldn’t fucking see that? You hate the way he’s so self-centered. You hate the old-timey nonsense he comes up with. Nobody from any time period ever fucking spoke like that, Jake! Most of all, though, you hate the fact that he doesn’t care about you and you’d kill yourself if he asked you to.
Jake is waking up, the signature drowsiness draping itself over you. It’s weird that you get tired when he does but don’t sleep with him. It’s some Sburb bullshit, you figure.
You conjure up some animals for his field of vision. It’s easier than a whole scene, and you like cats, okay. They’re cute. They’re the icon of the internet, and you only exist because of the internet. No pale white monstrosities for Jake, no; this is all fake so you bust out the real color. And add a few extras. So many animals are just brown or gray or whatever and they could really use some flair.
Then you decide this is stupid, and wipe it all. Then you decide that he needs something and make a fucking rainbow as he officially passes the threshold of consciousness.
“Good morning, Jake!” you say in the voice of a radio announcer, because it’s fun, and it doesn’t feel too revealing.
“Salutations, my friend!” cries Jake, and you can almost see the green. You don’t, because you’re not the one hallucinating here, but Jake’s always had a powerful ability to picture things in his head, and so you do too.
It’s also interesting what abilities pass over. You feel smarter than Jake. You think more logically than him. You know things he doesn’t. But you’re a mind construct, so you shouldn’t. Maybe it’s the magic of it all, blasted shenanigans.
“Hi to you too, Jake,” you say, and then you want to explode. You want to fake a heart attack so you can stop talking to him. Hi to you too? Really? Fucking really? “How about this weather we’re having, huh?”
“I’m getting absolutely nothing, my fine companion!” He’s so cheery. Like a beam of sunshine, you’d say if you were from some terrible bodice-ripper or film from the nineties. But you can control your thoughts and emotions, and so you resolutely do not compare him to the sun in any way, shape, or form.
“Well, let me read the forecast,” you say. “Looks like…the ceaseless and unending night, with a temperature of absolutely nothing!”
He laughs like a tinkle of bells. A giggle. He has so many different types of laughs, from boisterous and heavy to bright little things like this. You’ve categorized his laughs.
“Say, Jake, I have something to tell you.” You say it slow and measurely, slick and calm. Sauve. You’re the protagonist and you’re going to get the girl. Not that Jake is a girl, but almost all his experiences with romances have been heterosexual, so you don't have a plethora of other examples to draw from.
Then you decide that this is a circumstance that would benefit from him having a visual reminder of the fact that you’re really fucking hot. You don’t know that Dirk is hot, in fact you’ve no idea what he looks like, but this is Jake’s wish-construction of him so you look hot. Shaped like Brobot, but with human skin, obviously. Brown hair and soulful eyes hidden under coolass shades. Orange eyes, for that allure of the supernatural, but in a I’m-still-basically-human way. You’re cool in a casual, I-woke-up-like-this way. Which you literally did. But anyway, you manifest yourself in front of him, and he startles.
“Whoaa, wasn’t expecting that!” he exclaims. He exclaims everything, like every word he says is the most important thing. For you, it is, you suppose. Because it’s you and him and nothing. You’d still be enraptured by his words without the exigent circumstances, but you’re pretty sure that’s at least a little bit of why you’re like this.
“I’ve been doing this basically on the daily,” you say, because banter is your comfortable space. You know how to banter with him. Because he knew how to banter with you? The identity thing is confusing, and you stick it in a box where you also put Roxy and Jane and the end of the world. You can’t do anything about them, so they go in the box.
“It still shocks a fellow!” He’s acting outraged.
“Would you like me to warn you next time?” you ask, sly.
“I think I would, yes,” he sniffs. You laugh and float to press your mouth closer to ear level, body arching towards him. Gravity is for losers who have an actual body.
You adopt a formal voice, like a train announcer. “Warning: exceptionally attractive man arriving in 5, 4, 3…”
It’s ridiculous that you can’t tell if he’s into you. You’re in his brain. And this isn’t the sort of thing you want to wiggle around and check, because you’re afraid of what you’ll find, and you’re a coward, really.
“So, Dirk,” he says, earnest. “What did you want to talk about?” Now’s your chance. Say something. Say you love him. Say you can’t stop thinking about the way his mouth tilts up when he’s amused, that you tilt towards him like a flower to the sun and a moth to a flame.
“I wanted to talk about our,” you trail off, because you’re a coward and idiot and just tell him you fucking love him! “Situation,” you finish.
“Yes, this damned void,” Jake agrees. Well, he says it like he’s agreeing, because you didn’t say what you meant and he can’t pick up on anything unless you say it. You don’t know why you’ve been so worried about him picking up on the fact that you’re wildly enamored with him, considering he hasn’t for years.
Wait, fuck, maybe he has. Maybe he’s just too polite or something to say anything. Is this part of some chivalry code he’s made up? Thou shalt not tell a bro you know he’s into you? You want to scream. You want to disappear. My god, of course he knows, you’ve hardly been subtle about it.
Fuck it. You’re going in. “Yes. I don’t think we’re ever getting out of here, Jake.”
His face crumples. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”
Well, of course he has. Say something, say something empathic that nevertheless routes the conversation back to the topic of you two having an epic gay love affair.
Too late. He’s talking, emotional. “Sometimes I think they’re all dead, and there’s nothing left,” Jake chokes out. “But not you. Because you’re still alive in my head.”
You don’t know what to say to this. You pat him on the back. “I’m here for you?” you say, generic as could possibly be. It’s also very literally true. You exist because of and for him. You’d die without him. You need him. He doesn’t need you.
“Thanks, Dirk,” he says, sniffling and eyes red. “I just…I don’t know what to do.”
“We could-” you say, but he steamrolls over you.
“I can’t keep going like this,” he says, and you can tell that he’s serious. You’d call a suicide hotline if they a) existed and b) he could do anything to himself. You’d possess him before you’d let him die. You’d trap him in his mind and maybe he’d hate you for it but he’d be alive.
“I could wipe your memory?” you suggest. You don’t know if you actually could, but it should be possible. You’re the manifestation of his brain, ergo, you have power over it. He reels back.
“No, Dirk! What the hell?” Jake wasn’t a fan of that helpful suggestion, it seems.
“I don’t know, Jake! I don’t know why you think I know these things! I’m a figment of your fucking imagination!”
“I-” he starts, but it’s your turn to continue.
“I’m just trying to do things that might make you even a little bit fucking happier, because, damnit, I- fuck it.” You take a shuddering breath and lean in, angle your body back down towards his feet.
Then your mouth moves towards his, and he’s just standing there. Arms at his side, dangling. You tilt your head, and he tilts his - automatic? intentional? You can’t put any more analysis into this. Now is the time to be a man of action, an adventurer. A hero.
He opens his mouth, ever so slightly. You open yours. You mash your faces together like they do in the movies. A hand moves up to cradle the back of his head. For once, you aren’t thinking. His eyes are closed. The two of you kiss, and he can’t possibly fucking misinterpret that.