Things were about the same the next day.
Dirk managed to avoid his phone and anyone who came to the door for the entire day. Thankfully, no strangers came calling at his door despite Cronus giving out his address, but the texts from his friends and random numbers continued well into the evening.
Roxy did knock a few times, and Jane did once as well, but thankfully, Dirk had a solution for that. Since Hal was being weirdly nice and understanding, Dirk was welcome to hide in his closet and munch on his stash of Doritos® until Roxy finally gave up and went home. Dirk did feel bad for ignoring her, but shoving his face into stale snacks from three years ago helped him to ignore it, and Hal artfully feigned ignorance every time D asked where Dirk had disappeared to. He was a scary good liar when he tried to be. Dirk made a mental note of that.
After the second or third time Roxy came to their door, it was obvious that D was getting frustrated. In all innocence, Dirk just wanted the day to himself to calm down before he went to talk to his dad. He knew that he was going to have to open up about all of the drama in his life eventually, but at least for the day, he wasted time destroying Hal at Mario Kart and tried not to think about it. And even though he was certain that his brother had let him win more than his fair share of rounds, it still helped to make him feel better. Regardless, by the end of the day, he had beaten Hal at Rainbow Road in every mode multiple times, but he couldn't stop the anxiety in his chest and the growing pressure to just talk to somebody.
He had never experienced nervousness over such a long period of time, and it was making him feel ill. His heart pounded like he had finished running a marathon and it was hard to breathe.
Somehow, Dirk managed to sleep.
Hal thought that he should tell D the truth as soon as possible, but he had begrudgingly respected Dirk's decision to wait for the morning. It was nice of him to be thoughtful and considerate but, nonetheless, Dirk found himself wishing that he had already told D and gotten the pressure off of his chest.
He stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom, thinking for so long that it was giving him a headache. What would D say about this? Would he even care? He knew that D was born and raised in Texas, so he had been brought up on traditional values, but it was hard to pin down where D stood. He made fun of anyone and anything, but overall, it didn't seem like he cared one way or the other about much of anything. Would he not care when Dirk came out to him? That would be anticlimactic. He doubted that D would be over the moon about it, but would he be glad that Dirk trusted him enough to come out? Maybe he would think that it was disgusting and kick Dirk out of the house, or refuse to acknowledge him, or maybe he would pull out Dirk's college fund and future financial backing and never speak to him again.
Each possibility was only more and more nerve-wracking, and Dirk finally fell asleep only because he had thought himself into exhaustion and passed out.
And yet, despite that, the morning was still worse somehow.
It was Christmas day, but when Dirk finally opened his eyes after a long, restless night of tossing and turning, the clock on his bedside table read that it was 10 in the afternoon. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked again, squinting. That couldn't be right. Since Hal was old enough to toddle, Dirk hadn't woken up on Christmas morning on his own even once.
He reached for his phone, checking over the texts he had. There were the ones he had been expecting from his friends, but there were significantly fewer messages from unknown numbers. Sitting up in bed, Dirk went through deleting them. Even the positive messages, he read through before moving to the trash bin. He didn't need a bunch of pity from strangers any more than he needed death threats from strangers. While he was going through, he spotted a message that wasn't praising or berating him. Dirk clicked on it, scanning it over.
?: Dirk, this is Meulin. I got your number off of Meenah.
?: Listen, because of the drama surrounding you right now, the directors and I have decided that it's best you be removed from the production. Your understudy is taking over for you immediately.
?: Personally, it doesn't matter to me what your sexuality is, but we don't need the negative attention focused on the play. I'm sorry. Maybe you'll have better luck next year.
And that was that. Dirk wasn't sure how to feel about it. He didn't know how to reply to Meulin, so he didn't. He just assumed that not showing up to the next rehearsal would be answer enough. He hadn't wanted to be in the play to begin with, but now that he had been removed, it just felt like another stunning turnabout to the whole "gay" thing. It really was ruining his life.
Yet, Dirk was about to go ruin it some more.
He forced himself out of bed, slipping his shades on smoothly and heading to the stairs. He could hear D and Hal talking and hesitated before shaking it off and continuing down to the living room. Their Christmas tree was plugged in and twinkling in the corner, not that it looked like a Christmas tree so much as it looked like a pile of brightly lit trash. D had gotten one of the silver and frosted ones, with multi-colored lights. Every year, they decorated it with things they found around the house. D had the opinion that ornaments only resulted in a lack of "imagination" and encouraged people not to think outside of the box. Dirk didn't see his point, but at least the tree looked completely different every year.
When Hal and D spotted him coming down the stairs, their conversation stopped. Now that their eyes were on him, Dirk suddenly wanted to turn and run.
Before he could, however, Hal suddenly stood up from where he was sitting next to the pile under the tree and cleared his throat. "I have to go to the bathroom," he announced. "Dirk, you should get your presents ready into a pile. I already did mine." He gave Dirk a pointed look as he passed by the stairs and headed out of the room.
Being fixed with D's emotionless stare only made Dirk even more nervous than he already was.
It felt impossible, but he put one foot in front of the other and got to the bottom of the stairs. It helped marginally to not look at D, but it was impossible to ignore the way his gaze was burning into the back of Dirk's head. He knelt down next to the tree, going through the presents underneath and setting the ones with his name off to the side. There were the names he had expected, like Roxy and her mom, Rose, but there were also some from D's friends and old connections. Dirk could only remember meeting a few of them when he was little, but some of them sent presents for Hal and him every year. They were usually expensive and tech-related, most likely because D told them what his kids were in to, so Dirk didn't complain.
Since Hal had already finished with his, Dirk began setting D's down at his feet, since he was the only other person in the house and everything left was either for him or Dirk. He couldn't help but notice that D had a good handful from Rose, and he grimaced at the little hearts next to his father's name. Knowing Rose, those could easily be ironic or mocking, but Dirk and Roxy had a running bet about whether their parents were sleeping together or not. Dirk had the steadfast opinion that D wasn't with Rose, but that was mostly because he didn't like seeing or thinking about his father in any romantic or sexual situation at all.
He got through half of the presents before D finally cleared his throat.
"So," he clapped his hands together and sat up a little straighter, "I know enough about teenage boys to know that you're not about to start this conversation, so let's chat, kid. What's up? Roxy wouldn't tell me what it was, just that she needed to see you and kept texting you, only you weren't replying to her and you were mysteriously difficult to find every time she stopped by. Tell me what's up, Dirk. I know you want to. You can keep digging through those presents if it'll calm you down, but I need to—" Dirk sniffed then and D paused. "... are you crying?"
Dirk ran his arm over his face, turning to D with a scowl on his face. "What? Why would I be crying?"
His dad sighed and patted the spot next to him on the couch. "I don't know. Why don't you sit down and tell me?" Even though his words were slightly mocking, Dirk could tell that the tone of D's voice was sincere. He sighed, but left the rest of the presents under the tree and sat down next to his dad.
The silence stretched between them for so long that Dirk started getting nervous all over again. D wasn't going to speak up first. He was going to make Dirk either talk to him or die from the awkward atmosphere only getting heavier between them. Finally, after so long that Dirk was suspecting Hal had left the house entirely, he sighed and slumped in his seat.
"Yeah. It's— it's about the reason why Roxy kept visiting yesterday and why I was avoiding her… So, I have this… secret that some asshole at school found out about, and he was basically blackmailing me into helping him get with some girl by threatening to tell the whole school about it. And, about a month ago, this girl rejected him. And..." Dirk paused there. He glanced at D, but his expression was carefully blank as he watched his son, so Dirk continued. "And he posted my secret on the school's website yesterday morning and now everyone in school knows."
There was a pause before D sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair and sitting back. "Huh," he remarked. "Not, um, typical teen drama, that's for sure. What's the secret that this jackass told everyone?"
This was the part that Dirk was dreading. He felt his mouth go dry and he licked his lips nervously, though it didn't help. "It— I mean, it was—" He coughed into his hand. "Dad, I um… I'm gay." When he finally managed to spit it out, Dirk's face was burning red and he could feel his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest. He was light-headed, but he held his breath anyway. What if his dad hated him?
"Weird," was all D said after a few seconds of watching his son squirm. "I could've sworn that you were Dirk."
For a moment, Dirk didn't know what to say. His mouth opened but he just as quickly shut it, his eyes big with a mixture of confusion and surprise. Then he grabbed one of the throne pillows and slammed it into D's face, jumping to his feet. "I cannot believe you would pull a fucking dad joke right now!"
From beneath the pillow, D laughed, removing it from his face and adjusting his shades. "Really? What part of that was unbelievable for me?"
Dirk sputtered, so red that he was sure he was glowing as he wheeled around to face his dad. "I'm just so—! I've been tearing myself apart trying to figure out how to tell you that and you just go and fucking dad joke me as if I wasn't about to have a panic attack? Oh my God! You are such a jackass! I can't believe I was worried about this! You know what? Fuck it! Forget it! I don't even care if you're supportive or not! I'm moving out and finding some parents who will be fucking considerate of my fragile emotions!" He shouted.
The room was quiet, save Dirk's heavy breathing as he calmed down from his tirade. D raised an eyebrow over the top of his shades. "Are you good now?" He asked, amused.
That earned him a withering glare from Dirk, though D's didn't expression didn't change. He muttered another curse and kicked the leg of the couch before falling down into the seat with a huff. "I'm good," he grumbled, though his arms were crossed and there was a sour look on his face. He sighed, deflating suddenly and sinking down in his seat until he almost fell off. "So, you don't hate me for being a filthy homo?" Dirk asked, glancing up at D.
His dad rolled his eyes. "Nah. I mean, I thought about it. I woke up this morning and checked my list of priorities, and right there at the top was "be a huge dick to your son," in big, bold letters. Personally, I think that Rose snuck in and added it when I wasn't looking. But I decided against it since it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. Come tomorrow, though. Oh, you'd better watch your back, Dirk. I'm gonna tackle that list like a pro and your ass is the first thing I'm gonna kick."
Dirk scoffed, elbowing D as he fought to keep from smiling. "You're cool with me being gay, though? Like, joking aside?" He tried to keep the insecurity out of his voice, but he didn't do a very good job of it. D was the only parent he had, and he wanted to be accepted by one of the most important people in his life.
D nodded. "Yeah, of course. As long as you don't start bringing home guys and grinding against them on the couch. In this house, we do not explore voyeur or exhibitionism. Well, at least while Hal's under eighteen, we don't." He shrugged, grabbing one of the presents from Rose. He held it up to his ear, giving it a good shake. It sounded like glass, though D didn't seem bothered by that. "Hey, what do you bet she put shards of glass in with a pair of socks to throw me off like she did last year?"
In response to the question, Dirk only nodded, his brow creased in a frown. "Hey, D, I've actually been meaning to ask about that. How am I related to Hal, again?" Over the years, Dirk had tried asking, but every answer that D gave him was even more ridiculous than the last.
"Oh, y'know," D shrugged, "the old-fashioned way. Carried him for sixteen months myself. Speaking of your brother…" he cleared his throat, "Hal, you can come back in now!"
Rather than even trying to pretend that he hadn't been eavesdropping, Hal immediately stepped into the living room and sat down on the floor where he had been before leaving the room. "If it helps any, I did actually go to the bathroom. Not that it took long." He smirked.
Dirk just rolled his eyes. Well, at least he hadn't started bawling on D's shoulder or done something equally blackmail-worthy. He had had enough blackmail to last the rest of his life.
"So, you kids really to do presents?" D asked, rubbing his hands together. He moved off of the couch to sit cross-legged on the floor.
With his bunny slippers and childlike expression, Dirk had a hard time believing that this man had raised two kids. Nonetheless, he felt his heart squeeze with fondness. He really did love his dad, even if neither of them liked to act like it. Maybe that was something that they could work on. It would be nice to be more affectionate with D and Hal both.
"Yeah, hold on, dad," Dirk said, walking over to the foot of the stairs. "Hal, finish sorting the presents. I need to do something real quick. I'll be right back down." He headed up the stairs before Hal could protest, making a beeline to his room.
He just needed to send a quick text. It was Christmas and Dirk had been a dick the entire day before by ignoring everyone. It would be a copy-and-paste message that would explain things to everyone and hopefully make them less pissed with him. He sat down on the edge of his bed and grabbed his phone, unplugging it from the charger and unlocking it. He went to open his texts, only to pause.
His notifications were filled with familiar, green text, and Dirk felt his mouth go dry. Fuck. He took a deep breath. It would be alright. He could handle this, even if his hands were shaking and he was struggling to make his pounding heart calm down.
He tapped on the messages from Blue.
BLUE: Dirk
BLUE: Im afraid that we cant speak anymore
BLUE: My deepest sympathies for your situation but this has left me with a lot to think about
BLUE: I think its best that we dont have anymore contact
BLUE: It was nice being your friend
BLUE has deleted his/her account
Dirk let out the breath that he had been holding and set his phone down.
When he finally went back downstairs ten minutes later, Hal and D were polite enough to pretend that they hadn't noticed how long he had been gone, or the tear tracks on his face that he hadn't bothered to wipe away. He hadn't ended up texting his friends. It didn't feel worth it anymore.