He couldn't stop. He literally could not stop himself from crying. He didn't have the slightest on how to even do that in the first place. He had never had any practice. What was with him? He could swear he had cried more in the past forty-eight hours than he had in the last fifteen years. Surely the first two-and-a-half years of his life didn't count there, considering crying had been the only communication device he really had, though according to Bro, he hadn't been much of a crier anyway, figuring out early on that a mix of gurgling noises and body language was much more efficient.

The way Sollux Captor rolled, there was no way to tell if you had been hacked, so Dave had no clue whether or not the blonde had been joking about being able to see him, and took the safest course of action: duck down out of the camera's view and shut the computer down. His vision blurred with tears that fell down onto the inside of his sunglasses. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth to keep himself quiet. No one was going to know about this. Lalonde was a rare exception, and she needed psychobabble practice. Captor didn't need to know; Vantas needed to know even less; Bro would only be ashamed, he was sure.

He was sitting on his floor, back pressed against the cinder blocks holding his plywood desk up, head down, drowning out the world around him by burrowing deep into his own mind, when his phone buzzed. Reaching into his pocket, he had already determined that he wasn't going to answer. He was just going to BS an apology tomorrow. Say that he didn't check his phone today.

{1 New Message from John Egbert}

[hi! you aren't on pesterchum, i haven't sent you a regular text in forever!]

He gave the device a light toss in no particular direction and curled up again, this time allowing himself to fall over onto his side. He shut his eyes tightly, waiting for them to stop watering while taking breaths at the deepest his lung capacity would take. He found it more difficult to manage while his throat felt raw and constricted, but he was determined to be okay. He would be fine, and he could leave this room without anyone being the wiser. Not that he particularly wanted to leave the room at the moment. A headache was beginning to come with the tears, pounding in even the smallest corners of his mind.

His phone vibrated again from wherever he had thrown it, but he ignored it. It went off again. More ignoring. Again. Ignorance was bliss. Once more. No, not moving. And again. Never. Buzz. Nope. Buzzzzzzzz. Ain't gonna happen—

Jesus fuck, of all days to be popular, why today? Why now? He finally made the decision that sitting there listening to the vibrations was worse for his now splitting headache than simply reading the damned messages, and crawled blindly over to where the motion came from as it buzzed two more times. He plopped down in the middle of his room, wiping his eyes and cheeks without taking his glasses off.

{9 New Messages}

He checked through them. Two were John again, trying to see if he would answer. One was a reluctant, caps-locked apology from one Karkat Vantas. The remaining six were all from Sollux.

[ii really diidnt mean two me22 2tuff up liike that, iit wa2 a diick move and iim really 2orry.]

[are you okay? 2hiit, im 2orry. ii get iit iif youre pii22ed at me but ii ju2t wanna know that you arent dead or whatever.]

[ii dont know how 2eriious you were when you 2aiid you wouldnt do the project iif ii hacked you but iill do your entiire 2hare of iit anyway ju2t becau2e ii wa2 a complete priick.]

[al2o youre probably craziily 2tre22ed out, 2o iit couldnt hurt for me two take a liittle off your 2houlders, riight?]

[and iill teach you how two break down fiirewall2 iif you want, but youd probably want two learn from 2omeone better than me. but ii can 2how you any ba2iic2 to hackiing. or iif you need a tutor iin anythiing, iim here. not that ii expect you two need one.]

[look ii know ii 2ound liike a 2tupiid a22hole but... ii kiind of am. plea2e an2wer.]

Dave crossed his legs and leaned forward, rubbing desperately at his eyes. He wasn't sure how concerned the gemini really was; after all, he could just be trying to avoid a grudge being held against him. He decided to answer anyway.

[im fine man]

It was a lie if he'd ever told one. He stood with the resolution that his cheeks were dry enough so as to not arouse suspicion, though his eyes were still wet, and he didn't know how to fix that. With any luck, Bro would be asleep anyway. He slipped out of his bedroom door and went down the hall to the kitchen. Sure enough, Bro was knocked out on the futon, and Dave was home-free to sniffle a little and continue running his fingertips over his shut eyelids as he got himself some apple juice.

[can you tell me about iit?]

[not really]

He looked up, across the room at his brother's sleeping form, and felt that lump come back into his throat. He ducked back into the hallway to his room with his ironic sippy cup as tears made their way freely out of his eyes once more.

"Maybe," he muttered under his breath, "I can just drown myself in apple juice. Is that a thing I can do…"