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When you try to confess, your mouth still tastes like copper.
Your ears are still red from being caught with your pants down or, less metaphorically, with your tongue down your best friend's head's throat. You wanted to make it count, especially given what is inevitable between you and Dirk.
You get him alone soon enough, pushing him under one of the stone fixtures that litter the world your island has become. He looks unruffled at being manhandled so, straight faced but no less questioning than any other would be. Once you get him however, you lose your nerve, wetting your lips and tasting blood on your tongue again. That isn't the only thing making your stomach flip straight over though.
"I," you start before gulping, trying to organise the words in your head. Dirk's stare is unrelenting, enough to make beads of sweat form on your forehead. "I'm aware of your feelings for me."
Dirk's face changes then. His mouth pulls and you think you see his eyes flicker from behind his sunglasses. You watch his brow twitch as if he forcibly has to calm it. You don't know what bigger picture this makes. "What?"
Your teeth threaten at your lower lip. This is the part where he's supposed to take initiative. All the times you envisioned this, he would admit everything, never breaking his gaze, as if daring you to deny him. Sometimes you thought of him forgoing all manners of talking and just kissing you, too pleasantly and too forcefully for you to think of complaining. Most of the time you thought he'd be the one to bring the topic up. You're starting to think your daydreams were on the wrong track entirely.
"You think of me in a, ah, romantic fashion? Do you not?" you press as your hands go to thumb the ends of your sleeves, fraying them and pulling loose strings.
Dirk makes a sound that causes your head to shoot up to look at him again. You don't remember dropping it. His face is unreadable. Not that it is emotionless, but simply that you can't read what the twitches and constant movement through his face is supposed to be telling you. They say you can tell a lot about what a person is thinking through their eyes but you've never been able to read emotions very well anyway so you don't bother insisting that his eye wear goes. Instead, you wait, your heart thudding so hard it causes your chest to ache.
"What makes you say that?" he says and his voice is far more even than his brow.
He's playing mind games with you again, you're sure of it. There's no way you could have been so far off the mark with Jane and with him on the same day. Although, logically, if you mistook Jane's feelings for something more you do have a track record now. You never were good at reading emotions. "Don't you?" you ask and your voice is smaller than you intended. You've been trying to talk louder, more boisterous, anything to cover up the fact that your brain is weary from just thinking about conversing.
"That would be weird," he answers immediately and your heart falls to the pit of your stomach heavily. He continues hurriedly and you don't have time to shove it back up into your chest where it belongs. "Probably would go against all sorts of bro codes. So against it, like, rubbing it up the wrong way like some homoerotic sense of friction. What do you think?"
"Sounds weird all right," you answer, pitifully even by your own standards. You watch Dirk open his mouth as if to say something but close it again, pulling into a line.
"Yeah," he says after a minute. "Yeah."
The tone of his voice makes you snap out of your confused state. Sadly, it just gives way to the flood of mortification pouring right into your cheeks to the tips of your ears. You clear your throat, trying to fix this before Dirk notices. You can still save this. "Uh yeah!" you try before pulling back, floundering for some way to brush your embarrassment off. "I mean, that's good. I must have just, you know, completely got the wrong end of the stick as per usual!" You break off into a forced laugh, deep from your throat in a way that makes you want to cough. "Sorry about that, bro, I didn't mean to accuse you so suddenly."
Dirk's face has straightened out again and you're glad of it. You still feel scrutinised and judged but at least it doesn't feel like you're affecting him. "Don't mention it," he says and your head makes it sound like a threat.
It takes three days of side stepping around your friends and avoiding eye contact with Dirk to partially get over your embarrassment.
Something feels different in regards to this than it did with Jane. You originally blame the fact that you had to do it face to face with Dirk. You never had to see Jane's face as she undoubtedly judged your narcissism for ever thinking her to be interested in you. It also spared you the embarrassment of stuttering and falling over your words. You block out the exact words you used from your head so you can stop repeating them to yourself and nitpicking every mistake. Something else inside you tells you that's not why you feel rotten.
You feel like an idiot.
There was never any doubt in your mind that Dirk was that way inclined. Your first clue had been how adamant he was that there was nothing attractive about your dear sweet Neytiri and how he could never agree with you about the attractiveness of any of the fair ladies that adorned your walls. You obviously jumped the gun, presumed far too early and then warped later evidence in your own mind to fit your hypothesis. So what if the robot brushed back your hair when tending your wounds? So what if you've been asked to strip by iterations of Dirk Strider more times than you can count? So what if your best friend has never once in six years mentioned having any interest in women? You clearly just made an error of judgement. But that's not all that's bothering you.
Two and a half years wondering about Jane was one thing but it was a completely different ballgame, imagining yourself with Dirk. It was never white picket fences, flowers and holding hands. It was always fast and powerful, always accompanied by the burning in your gut, the spinning of your head and the uncertainty on your tongue. You could never imagine Dirk being in anything but complete control and you allowed your mind to delegate itself to being a damsel in the majority of your dreams. You don't know what to make of how distressed yet unsaved you are right now.
You just feel guilty. Now that you don't view Dirk as an imposing force, every thought you've ever had about him feels tainted and dirty, like you've consciously betrayed him in some manner. You've sullied his character for your own fantasies and what sort of best friend would get something so huge so grossly wrong? You've spent days of your life mulling over how Dirk would kiss you under the mistaken impression that he'd ever want to. You'll never find out if he tastes like sugar or like salt; he'll always taste coppery to you.
But, after three days, you think you can get past it. You made a small mistake, like anyone could. Dirk's probably forgiven you for your accusation and, while you probably made him awfully uncomfortable with your insinuations, he didn't seem too offended. Now you don't have to deal with the formalities of dating your best friend. It can stay as it always was without matters of the heart interfering. That's what you always wanted, right?
But as you've resolved this in your own head, Dirk meets your gaze from across a stone fixture and your heart skips before throbbing in your chest. You swallow and then you regress.
You have cleaning to do before you allow anyone to see your bedroom.
The most obviously incriminating stuff goes first. Posters of scantily clad women, blue or otherwise, are rolled up and quickly stashed behind your wardrobe where no one can see them. Your comics are pushed under your bed in a neat pile where you hope the long edge of your throw over will hide them from plain sight. (The glow stars on your ceiling are pulled off one by one and stashed in your top drawer where no one can make fun of your grandmother's sentiments.)
The Nightcrawler poster catches you.
It's been an important addition to your room for almost two years and the corners have become crumpled from you repeatedly fixing it to the wall. Unlike your Neytiri poster, it's not noticeably damp from saliva, perhaps because you've entertained the notion of having a rendition of Dances With Wolves with an attractive blue lady more than you've entertained the notion of such with a handsome blue man. But, all the same, you can't risk someone noticing what you've done.
You roll up your Nightcrawler poster and hide it away with everything else you're ashamed of.
What you've been doing hits you worst when you go to LOTAK.
You spend a lot of the first few days camping out in his bedroom, coming up with battle strategies some of the time but goofing off more often. Although being in constant company still makes you feel crowded and stifled you like the idea of being in your best friend's presence. It's like a never ending sleepover, minus the pillow fights Dirk refuses to have and the smores that neither of you know how to make.
Without the girls however, you've more time to think. Dirk talks more than you expected and you talk less than you had originally planned to but there are still long stretches of silence between you that leave you alone with your thoughts again. You catch your eyes following the movements of his body, pulling up through tendons and slights. Less often, you catch yourself entertaining notions about him again and you have to forcibly tug yourself out of your mind before your face gives it away. You've never had to hide your expressions and you fear it's left you an open book, especially to one as smart as Dirk. You wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you embarrassed yourself in front of him twice.
Your eyes tend to drag to the slideshow projected on his wall when you're trying not to stare at how he sucks in his cheeks when he's concentrating. It flickers from his brother's movie characters to lewd images of animal people in the blink of an eye and you find it unnerving but feel it would be impolite to ask him to change it. It is, after all, his bedroom.
Besides, that just makes you think more. There is no doubt in your mind that this is not something that would be considered the norm. You don't think it's being intolerant to find sexualised bunny men disconcerting. You wouldn't hesitate to call it weird if it was some third party.
It just makes you wonder. If this is something Dirk views as run of the mill yet he thinks your inclinations are weird, just how bad have your thoughts been?
It's not something you want to think about. But you have an awful lot of time to think.
You put it in a box and try to forget all about it.
You force yourself not to think about Dirk in anything other than necessities. You think about where he is when you can't find him in tombs. You think about what to say to him when he's talking to you. You most certainly do not think about the leather of his gloves and how they'd feel if he ever held your hand. You don't think about sugar and you don't think about salt. You try not to think about copper but your nightmares cannot be helped.
It's easier once you start adventuring with him. It's harder to think about him romantically when he's barking at you to duck lest you get sucker punched by a wily skeletal monster. It's hard to think about anything other than copper when he's cleaning his wounds.
When you sleep, it's harder to forget. While it's natural for you to pine over the loss of the girl of your dreams that never graced your sleeping self again, you would even rather have nightmares about a fish empress returning the favour and punching you in the face than another dream about Dirk Strider. But no matter how you push any concious thought of him back during the day, it all floods in at night and you're more likely to wake up sweaty and clutching the fabric of your sleeping bag for dear life when the last wisp of your imagination is his face rather than any horror your brain can come up with.
You try your best to make up for your mistake with Dirk too. You make him watch Avatar again, although he has subjected himself to it multiple times over the course of your friendship to appease you, and once you're done you make him watch Tomb Raider. Subtlety has never been your forte but you try your best to comment on the attractiveness of any woman you see just enough for bro banter but not enough to sound like you're trying too hard; you learn with practice and pointed looks from Dirk that the line between enthusiasm and overcompensation is incredibly thin. You learn to tell when you push it too far, when Dirk starts to pinch the bridge of his nose or dig his blunt nails into the palms of his hands, and you're able to back off, quickly enough you hope, before he starts putting two and two together.
You think you put on a good enough front to fool anybody. You almost fool yourself.
It's going fine until you ask Dirk to be your best man.
There was a logical reason for this in your head. Of course, you were extremely high on whatever bizarre sugar rush you had been forced into and that probably made the idea of marrying the first person who showed interest in you sound logical. You're sure you had the best of intentions. You want your friends to be happy and since you're happy when they're happy surely the way to make them happy is to similarly involve them in your own happiness, artificial or otherwise. Dirk clearly doesn't share your view but you never really saw him as the type to cry at weddings.
"You're an asshole."
Harsh. It almost surprises you but really you're too far gone to do anything but grin, curiously cocking your head to one side. Dirk continues to rant and ramble, metaphorically pointing fingers and literally thrusting his finger into your face but sadly most of it flies over your head before your sugar addled brain can even process it. You've never seen Dirk lose his cool and something tugs inside you. You think you'd be frightened if you were sober.
"God, are you ever going to get how I feel through your skull? Either you're the biggest fucking idiot this side of paradox space or you're being deliberately obtuse and you're just the biggest asshole."
You catch that and something sparks inside you again from under the haze. You open your mouth, no doubt to chime something else out that makes you sound like a gritty horror reboot of some children's television presenter, but he's not finished.
"Do you think I don't have emotions? Like I'm some sort of robot? Well guess what, I have feelings, Jake. I guess it's just my fucking luck that I'm stuck having them for you."
That's what sticks with you until the morning after, when you're lying on a cold slab clutching your head and nursing your dignity. Dirk has a knack for making you feel small even when you're ten feet high.
Dirk looks sheepish when he finally approaches you.
Your hands immediately go to rub at your eyes, despite the fact that you cried yourself out of tears hours ago. You can't help but worry that your eyes are red and puffy, and that they're going to give you away. The last thing you want is to let Dirk know you've been crying. It might make him feel guilty, but worse it would be a sign of weakness, another thing you failed. You press your arm to the bridge of your nose, peering over it as he tentatively sits beside you.
"Hey," he says and it's as awkward as the small nod you give in return. He's silent for a moment and the silence between you is no longer comfortable. It hangs heavily in the air and your thoughts are more vicious than they ever were in his bedroom. "Nice outfit."
It's so out of the blue that you choke on the air you're breathing in, desperately trying not to crack a smile between quick breathy sounds of stifled laughter. "I'll take that as ironic."
"No man, it's cool," he insists before shrugging and glancing away, "Kind of reminds me of those banana suits though." You don't stifle the laughter this time, instead letting it out in a series of guffaws. He jolts but quickly recovers, his own shoulders shaking slightly.
"I'm sorry," you choke between laughs. His shoulders stop shaking and the laughter eventually dies in your mouth. "Sorry," you repeat, looking down at where the toes of your boots are pressed together,
"Don't apologise," he says bluntly and you bite your lip to stop another sorry from pouring out. "Look I." He stops again, running his hand through his hair and breathing fast through his nose. You feel like you're imposing on some internal battle he's having. "I'm sorry."
You're surprised. Not really because of Dirk putting aside his pride but more because you're not sure why he's apologising until he continues. "I should have just told you but I guess I panicked. I mean, fuck." He stops and you creep your hand up his back to rest between his shoulder blades and hope it isn't overstepping your boundaries. "I think we've reached the conclusion that I'm a control freak. Like, I wanted everything to be on my own terms and I guess I didn't take into account that you had your own."
You rub your hand in circles and his fingers pinch at the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up his forehead. His eyes are tired and you feel guilt creep up your throat again. "I'm sorry for last night," you say and he stiffens again, "I mean. I guess I was tighter than a boiled owl and there was no room for common sense in my noggin." He doesn't answer and you gulp. "I should have known better."
"Fuck that, man," he says and his voice is low enough to start you. "Honestly? I pretty much lied to your face and despite all the shit my campaign of whatever the fuck put you through? You believed me."
"I always have been pretty gullible," you say, trying to laugh it off but any noise that comes out is hollow enough to make Dirk wince.
"You've always been a good friend," he corrects, "You believed the best in me."
The silence stretches out as you try to work up the nerve to respond. If he notices how your hands are fisting in the back of his cape and how you keep pushing your feet together, he doesn't mention it. "Is believing you didn't like me really believing the best?"
He opens his mouth before closing it again. The silence stretches out again and he deliberates for so long you think he might be ignoring you. But eventually he answers. "No it's not. But believing that I didn't subject you to my never-ending horseshit thinking it was some fucked up 25th century mating ritual? That is. So thanks."
Despite having cried yourself out earlier, you feel your eyes well up again and quickly try to blink them away before Dirk sees. Except you're not distraught any more. All you feel is hope.
You fall back on to the ground behind you, forgetting you're still clutching Dirk's cape and dragging him down with you. And then you're laughing, relief being almost overshadowed by something else, burning bright and bubbling up inside you. "We could have been stepping out this whole time if only I'd known how to hold my horses," you say, thinking of sugar more than salt, "How bonkers is that?"
Dirk holds his breath and then you finally hear him laugh, once and rough, before he stifles it. You can work on that. "Jake, no offence, but that sounds like it would have been the biggest mistake we could have made."
When you finally make it home in the middle of April, the first thing you do is take out your Nightcrawler poster.