A/N: I was inspired a while ago to write this but just recently I figured out how to complete it. With the recent Trickster updates I feel like this is an appropriate time to do so. This probably happens right before they enter the game, but isn't canon. I love this pairing. Enjoy.
TT: Roxy? Are you there? - TG is now an idle chum - TT: I'm coming over. - TT is now an idle chum - TG: fuck
TG: course
TG: where else would i b
TT: You've just been online all day without any communication.
TT: You haven't even attempted to contact the auto responder.
TG: hacnt felt like it
TT: Are you feeling alright? You aren't sick or anything?
TT: I could send Sawtooth over if you require assistance.
TG: m fine
TT: Are you sure?
TG: y
TT: 100% fine?
TG: 46278% fine
TT: That's not statistically possible.
TG: shut the fuck uo dirk
TT: And your typos are at an all time low.
TT: Are you sure you are okay?
TG: dont
TG: iant it about time for jaek to be online
TG: lookit all thos tpyos
TG: lookie how dine i m
It was just before dusk when he arrived at the white and gray community situated where Falling Waters, New York was supposed to be, floating calmly on the flood waters. Dirk carefully maneuvered the rocket board down to the block that Roxy is located. When he landed he captchalogued the board back into his inventory and went to the door. He knocked only because the internet said it's polite to do so, but when there was no answer he opened it anyway. He looked around the large empty foyer. She didn't spend time here so nothing was out of place from when he was here last. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, the architecture creaking softly under his weight. He knew the layout and made his way quickly to her room. He knocked again but again he entered when there was no answer.
He was actually expecting her to be passed out on her pile of plushies or scarves or some other collection of soft objects. He did not expect her to be sitting on her bed glaring at him over the tops of her knees. She looked so small curled up like that.
Dirk took quick note about the state of her room. Messy like normal with her various hobbies strewn about. Two fenestrated panes were powered off on her floor with one active on her wall. There weren't as many bottles around but there was an alarming amount of broken glass along the edges of the room.
"Roxy. Will you tell me what's wrong?"
"Everything is fine." Her angry tone indicated otherwise.
"I can't fix it unless I know what is wrong."
"Then I guess you can't fix it. Especially since nothing is wrong. You can't fix me." The conflicting statements pushed the probability up that she was lying about being alright.
"I don't want to fix you. I want to help you."
"I'm fine."
"Roxy..." he tried to console.
"Dirk," she cut him off with a snide snarl. "Go home."
"Not until I know you are alright."
"I'm telling you I am alright."
"And you are lying to me." He started walking towards her.
"Fuck off, Dirk." He paused at the venom in her words. "Just fuck off." There was a sense of exhaustion and exasperation under those.
"What is going on, Roxy?" He took a step closer. "How much have you had to drink today?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying, asshole. I am stone cold sober. I don't have to be drunk bubbly happy Roxy all of the fucking time. I want to be sober today. I want to be sad today. I'm fucking allowed to be sad every once in a while. I'll go back to pretending tomorrow. Now just get the fuck out and get back on your rocket and fly off into the sun. No one wants you to be the knight in shining armor today."
"Roxy." He reached the edge of the bed. He sat down and reached out for her. Physical contact was comforting according to his research.
The punch was not considered as one of her reactions to him, but he supposed he should have included it in his analysis. He held a gloved hand up to his burning cheek. The hit was hard enough to skew his glasses slightly.
With angry stiff movements trying to cover her nerves and fears, Roxy scrambled off the bed and scurried out of the room, fleeing from her friend. The white walls cast in shades of gray brought no escape as she ran lightly down the hall. She was so familiar with the bones of the structure that instinctively she stepped only on the solid sections, making her flight silent. Quickly she went to the observatory. She wiped her face with a distracted palm as she entered the cylindrical room. Remnants of withered green and traces of dirt were scattered about the floor from the last cache of pumpkins she has appearified for the colony. She quickly crossed the room to stand at the window. The view barely crested over the tops of the surrounding buildings but it was enough sky that she could see the clouds streaked with pink, yellow, and orange from the sun setting somewhere over the ocean. Another tear rolled down her cheek.
"Just go away, Dirk."
"No. I'm not leaving you like this."
"You can't fix me."
"Why not?" There was a pained edge to his tone.
Roxy scoffed at him. "Because I am not one of your robots. I am actually human you know. Living, breathing, feeling, with a heart instead of a CPU."
He didn't say anything in return. She let him come up close behind her, let him reach out for her, let him touch her shoulder before whirling around, trapping his arm under her, throwing her weight against him and bearing him to the ground. His torso hit hard with her extra weight and force against it, knocking his shades up to his hairline. She had one arm pinned against her side and used her knee to pin the other against his.
The snarl on her lips and the feral gleam in her pink eyes were met by steady orange ones filled with calculating concern. She could almost hear his thought processes generating ideas about her.
"Let me help you."
"Shut the fuck up, Dirk."
As he opened his mouth spout another platitude she leaned over and shut him up with a fierce kiss. Their teeth clacked painfully together from the awkward angle. Dirk froze up at the attack. Again this wasn't an action he was expecting. Why was Roxy acting so unpredictable today? He quickly ran through scenarios in his head of what to do as soon as she release him from the kiss, but all plans were scattered when she began to move her hips against him as if... she was grinding sexually. Dirk could barely process the new information before she was pulling away from him.
"Fuck. Nothing. This isn't... fuck." And she was moving again but this time drawing away from him, getting to her feet and fleeing again. "It's not supposed to be me. Can't even do that right," he caught her muttering before the door slams behind her.
Dirk lay there for a moment more wondering what the fuck just happened. He was sure his lips would be bruised if not bloodied. Without moving he began a new line of thinking. He rejected all previous assumptions about Roxy and began assimilating the data about the girl he was interacting with right now.
Roxy was sober.
Roxy was upset about something. Not necessarily something specific since honestly the situation surrounding her life was generally fucked up.
Roxy was using violence to deter physical contact.
No, revise. Roxy was using violence to deter physical comfort.
Roxy instigated sexual overtones to the violent physical contact.
Roxy was unhappy and... unsatisfied with... her initiation of such contact?
Hypothesis formed. But would testing it be a good idea?
Slowly Dirk sat up and considered the possibilities. Sighing softly he captchalogued his shades and went exploring for Roxy.
It took him a while to find the lab's entrance without using one of the fenestrated planes. He slid down the ladder as the light above faded into twilight. The deep shadows clung to him against the faint glow of the control panel that gave him access to the cavernous server room. The lawn of green cubes with their tiny LED status lights did nothing to dispel the darkness of the room. There was a bright spot on the far side so Dirk headed in that direction. The far wall of the cavern narrowed down into a hallway that was relatively brighter than the surrounding area. Dirk slowed his approach, cautious of the sniffling sound he heard from within. The light got slightly brighter at the turn.
"Get a hint, Dirk."
"No." He approached her again.
"What do I have to do to make it clear I don't want anything to do with you?"
"Nothing."
"Fuck off."
He reached out for her again. She snarled at him but he didn't falter. She leapt to attack him again but this time he was prepared and shifted his hand to grip her wrist and used her momentum to spin her around and into the wall. He kept his body close to her and pinned her against the wall with his hips and a hand clamped over each of her wrists.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Instead of answering he just leaned in and kissed the back of her neck. She paused her struggling for a moment.
"Dirk?" She felt the light brush of his lips again. His body trapped hers against the smooth wall. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She hoped that he couldn't feel it. When he added a little nip to the collection, a soft unwanted moan rose in her throat. It was immediately swamped with more of those soft barely-there kisses. At that, she started fighting against his hold again, trying to twist her body against him to get some sort of leverage. Then suddenly he dropped her wrists and took a half step back. She took the momentary advantage and flipped around to face him but was thrown off guard as he immediately invaded her space again, somehow grabbing and trapping her wrists again. She tried to suppress the shiver of excitement that shot through her at being caught. His amber eyes almost glowed in the dim lighting for a moment before he closed the distance between them completely and kissed her. But it wasn't the gentle kisses that he placed on her neck. It was fierce and vicious and a mirror of the one she gave him in the observatory.
The moan again was unbidden and only encouraged him more. He pressed himself against her from chest to hip even as she tried to push off the wall only to press back against him. His hands gripped her wrists tightly until she was sure that there would be finger shaped bruises on them. She shook her head to try to throw him off but the way he had her trapped there wasn't much maneuvering room. There was another deep moan as he rocked his hips against her in a similar fashion from when she had grinded down on him.
Finally he pulled his head back, keeping her trapped with the rest of his body. Her eyes flashed up at him with a mix of lust, confusion, and anger.
"How dare you," she began in a low dangerous tone. "You don't love me, yet you think it's alright to play with me like this. Do you really think this will fix me, Dirk? You don't even care about me like this. I'm not Jake."
There was a moment of quiet silence. His thin lips were pressed together in a tight line. Roxy's eyes flicked down to them and felt pride in the redness of bruising to come on the pale flesh. She looked up back to his eyes and found a dark look that made her breath catch in her throat. "Do you really think that? Really, Roxy? There are three people in my universe that I care about and love. There are three people in my universe period. I love you, Roxy. I don't love Jane over you. I don't love Jake over you. I love all fucking three of you. I would do fucking anything for any of you if it is in my powers to do so. And if it's not, I will figure some way to do it anyways. Now shut up and let me love you, damn it." And then he was kissing her again still harsh and passionate but now Roxy could feel its intent. Instead of fighting it she gave in and responded to the kiss.
The intensity didn't ebb away, if anything Dirk took her involvement as a sign to increase it. When she licked at his lips he retaliated by nipping lightly at her tongue, by sucking and pulling at her lips, by slipping a leg in between her thighs. His forcefulness left her gasping and moaning into his mouth. He released one of her wrists to grab her waist to pull her away from the wall and further up his leg. Her now free arm grasped his shoulder, her fingers digging into his shirt and skin painfully. Lifted up to her toes, Roxy rocked her hips, desperately seeking the friction that her body desired. His grip on her hip grew tighter and aided her rolling to reach a faster tempo.
Her hand shifted up to the back of his head, gripping his hair tightly, briefly before dropping away like it burned her. He caught the hint, released her other wrist, and cupped the back of her hair. Her growl at the gentle gesture was cut short as he fisted the short hair tilting her head back with a sharp pain. She moaned as she caught his smirk before he ducked his head to her exposed neck and began to attack the pale flesh with teeth and tongue. She was openly panting and moaning under his hands.
He pulled away from her neck to evaluate his work, approving of the red and purple slowly blooming from broken blood vessels under the skin. He enjoyed listening to her breath hitch as he raised his knee up, bracing it on the wall behind her. There were deep moans as he flexed his fist in her hair. He leaned in again and tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, his hot breath ghosting over her cheek. The hand on her hip shifted down to caress her ass and upper thigh, guiding her up against him. It was his turn to moan as her knee rubbed up against the erection hiding in those baggy jeans.
It was getting harder to keep her at a steady rhythm the way her hips were writhing against him. The friction between them burned hotter until Dirk was sure he would have a burn on his thigh and Roxy a matching set between her legs. It didn't stop them from working into a frenzy against the laboratory wall.
The darkness shrouded them with the pale instrumentation barely highlighting the planes of their faces bringing a sense of intimacy to their actions. The silence backgrounded their harsh breathing and soft sounds of pleasure mixed with pain. She struggled against him just feel his control over her body. He held her tight enough to leave bruises underneath her clothes on her hips, waist, thighs, shoulders, and neck.
"Dirk," she breathed.
"Yes, Roxy?" his question was not more than a rumble at her ear but she could hear that this was affecting him almost as much as it was affecting her. She was affecting the great unrufflable Strider.
"Say it." His motions never stopped even as he felt her muscles tighten under his grip. He contemplated her request, her demand. There were a dozen or so phrases he could say but there was one with the highest probability.
"I love you, Roxy."
He felt her shudder as she pressed herself against him. She gasped wordlessly as her body released its built up pleasure. He pulled back just enough to catch her wide eyes and open mouth as she lost the fight to keep herself under control. It was beautiful.
They climbed out of the laboratory a while ago. Not a word passed between them as Roxy rummaged around the kitchen to prepare something that might be considered dinner for two. Since it was much too late to let Dirk fly back to his own apartment, Roxy simply grabbed his wrist after the food had been eaten and led him to her room. She pushed him towards the bed and curled up against his side with one hand gripping the white fabric of his shirt.
Then she started crying.
They lay curled up on her bed. He strokes her hair as she lays on his chest, letting silent tears soak into his t-shirt. Dirk didn't try to comfort her or even ask what she is sad about. He is simply there for her.
Eventually she calmed down from the painful sobbing. She breathed in his scent, a clean saltiness from the ocean mixed a male musk.
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Do you think she loved me?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think he love you?"
"I hope so."
"Will you hope for me too?"
"I think Jake is better suited for that."
"You love him too." It was a statement not a question.
"Yes.
"And Janey."
"Yes."
She fell into silence again but reached out to take his hand. She ran her fingers along and in between his, tracing vein and bone hidden underneath skin. She slipped her wrist into his loose grip so that his fingers lined up with the darkening bruises. He finally reacted, giving her a soft pulse of a squeeze.
"I don't want to have to pretend," she broke the silence softly.
"Then don't."
"I'll break."
"You are strong."
"See what I mean about pretending?"
Dirk fell silent again.
"And it's really sad now. Once we all get together, I'll be forgotten."
"No you won't. I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep. It's alright. I understand. As soon as you see Jake, you'll understand what I mean. Not that you'll remember it. You'll be so taken with Jake. Janey will be so taken with Jake. Hell, I might even be taken with Jake."
"Roxy..."
"Just say it again."
"I love you, Roxy."
"Again."
"I love you."
"Lie to me again."
"Roxy."
"One more time."
"I love you."