"Okay, first of all, never ask me about my bro's dating life ever again. I don't want to know. I don't want to have an opinion. That is exactly the type of shit that I do not want to be involved in."
Your name is Karkat Vantas and you are currently trying to have a conversation with your friend, Dave Strider. Trying because right now he is mostly dismissing your questions in favour of looking kind of pissed off.
You are also kind of pissed off that he's getting pissed off.
Mostly though, you're really pissed off at your moirail, Dirk Strider, and at this entire situation in general.
"Second, no, I will not be your go-between. I will not be your middle man. I will not ferry notes back and forth across the playground, 'do you hate me, check yes or no', because you're both too chickenshit to actually ask each other what's up.
"And you can ask anyone else and you'll get the same answers. Go ahead, ask Roxy or Jane if you haven't already. Don't ask Jake if you actually want a chance in hell of fixing this. There is shit that you do not involve your boyfriend's ex in, it doesn't matter if it's different quadrants or whatever, and fights between the two of you is one of them.
"But because I for some misguided reason actually give a shit about the two of you and your potential happiness and, most importantly, because we are all sick and tired of watching you two pine from afar like some trashy teen romance paperback, I will actually give you one piece of advice.
"Actually go talk to him."
Dave walks away and you figure you're not going to get anything else out of him so you let him. You know that he's probably right, but it doesn't stop the twisting feeling in your gut every time you think about asking Dirk why exactly he's been avoiding you.
Okay, so maybe avoiding isn't quite the right word – he's not exactly fleeing from rooms when you enter them. In fact, he even makes perfectly civil conversation with you whenever you're together.
The problem is that all of your interactions lately have felt...hollow.
He's clearly on edge, but never mentions anything to you. He doesn't object to you hanging around him, but never seeks you out anymore. All displays of physical affection have completely disappeared and your cuddle pile is starting to gather dust - even as ridiculous and slightly unsettling as those stupid puppets he insisted on filling it with are, there's something upsetting about the obvious signs of disuse.
It feels like there's a huge wall between you that hadn't been there at the start of the relationship and you don't know how to fix it.
Or, more to the point, you're too much of a coward to fix it. It would probably be more accurate to say that you are currently avoiding him. You've stopped going to places where you know he'll be and stopped striking up conversation whenever you see him. And every time you pull away and he doesn't even try to reach out or bother to ask you why, you feel more afraid of what the answer will be when you finally build up the courage to ask him about it.
That definitely makes you a hypocrite, but you know that too.
Okay, so Dave isn't probably right, he's definitely right.
Damn him.
"Strider, you and I are going to talk – and I mean talk, not make sounds at each other in an asinine projection of normalcy – and I'm not going to leave until I get answers and am satisfied that you are actually telling me the truth."
He doesn't react in any obvious way, but you've spent enough time together (before all this) that you can read the line of tension in his shoulders that betrays just how much effort it's taking not to.
He doesn't say anything though and as the fear gnaws holes in your stomach you can already feel the calm you'd intended to maintain begin to unravel.
"You've been avoiding me, but pretending not to. I want to know why."
Still nothing and you feel angry, frustrated prickling starting in your eyes and it only upsets you further that you're getting so upset. The longer the silence stretches, the more you know that this was a bad idea after all.
You think he might be intending to actually just ignore you until you leave and a feeling of hot-cold sick rushes over your skin, making it feel tingly and too tight.
You think you might cry or throw-up or pass out. So instead you get angry.
"You know what, fuck you. I knew I was taking a risk by getting into a moirallegiance with a human, but I didn't expect you to behave like this much of an ass. If you didn't want to do this anymore, that's fine, but you could at least have the common decency to let me know.
"I'll save you the trouble – we're done."
It's as you turn to leave, your heart pounding in your ears so hard that you think your head might explode, that something finally happens.
You're jerked to an abrupt halt by Dirk's hand on your wrist. The tension from his shoulders has travelled down his arm and made his grip a little too hard to be comfortable, but you don't say anything.
It's your turn for silence.
"I'm sorry," he says, voice scratchy and rough. You don't bother not to notice that the skin under his shades looks a little irritated and puffy. "I fucked up. I know I fucked it all up, but I don't know how to fix it. I'm sorry."
You don't bother saying anything, whether out of anger or consideration you're honestly not sure. Maybe it's a bit of both.
"I've only been in one other relationship before and I fucked that one up too. Don't know if you've noticed, but I get kind of intense. And clingy. And I knew on some level that it was bothering him and hell, I can even understand why because I'd get sick of me too, but I'm no good at figuring out when it's too much. When I'm too much, I guess.
"I thought that this time things might turn out better if I backed off preemptively and when you backed off too I thought maybe I was still being too clingy. I'm not even slightly in control of this situation and I have no idea what I'm doing and it's killing me.
"If you still want nothing to do with me, I understand. I just didn't want to end things with a misunderstanding."
"Oh for fuck's sake," you say, but there's really no heat anymore and you're already bending down to where he's crouched on the floor, carefully so as not to dislodge his hand from your wrist. "Welcome to the club, Dirk. I have had two failed relationships, meaning that I am twice as experienced as you, so I think that I have the authority to say that none of us know what we're doing. As much trouble as you have with not being in perfect control of literally anything, you're going to have to learn to deal with it because this is a level of melodrama that really doesn't suit you.
"And by the way? Being able to come to me with your problems is pretty much the entire point of being in a moirallegiance. The fact that you decided it was a better option to sit and cry by yourself than talk to me is making me feel like shit right now."
You can already see him about to argue with that last point. "Dirk, you are well past the point of stoicism and into sulking, you absolute shithead."
He's starting to smile now, in that way he does when he's trying to keep a straight face. "Does this mean that I haven't totally fucked things up with you?"
His hand has loosened from your wrist and is moving tentatively toward your hand in such a way that he probably intends to pretend that it wasn't if you reject him.
You meet him half way and lace your fingers together.
"That depends on how quickly you get into the cuddle pile."
You're both definitely overdue for a feelings jam.