Your name is Dave Strider, you are twenty-six years old, and not much has changed.
It's July, and you've since returned to the way you've always been. Working, meetings, good friends – nights spent alone with pen, paper, and headphones. And maybe living this life is okay, or at least you're trying to make it that way. You're no longer constantly hiding shit from John – okay, that's a lie, you totally still do. You keep back how much you miss him, and how you wonder what holding his hand would be like. You hold back your invasive questions, how you wonder how happy him and Molly are, and what planning a family is like. You hold back how, even though impossible, you wish that kid on the way were yours. You've never voiced it, but you always kind of wanted to be a father; not that you'd exactly make a very good one, but that's not the point, it never seems to be with these things. "The heart wants what the heart wants" echoes through your mind, and you think you proofread one too many of Rose's papers in college, all resulting in the use of a cliché for actual analytical purposes.
So yes, you're keeping a few things from John, but these days, you feel less like you're hiding your whole world – like behind your shades and beneath your skin is a whole universe of orchestral imaginations and perseverance of the most bittersweet quality. Now it's more like a house, one under lock and key for safety and comfort of the neighbors, who only get to see you watering your lawn and giving them a brief nod and thumbs up. Sometimes there are parties, but only on the porch or backyard, none of that indoor horseshit, too much to ruin, too much shit that could ruin something else.
You're also noticing as the months pass that his whole 26-year-old virgin thing isn't exactly cutting it. Yeah, you're loyal to the love of your life and all that pansy-ass fuckery, but you'd be a shit-eating liar if you said you haven't tried it with others in the past. You've gotten so far as a perfumey hotel room, shirts tossed on the itchy carpet, and mouths grazing against golden, pale, olive, ebony, skin. You've been told before that for as far as you go, you're damn good at what you do, but that's just it. As far as you go. The farthest it's ever led is somewhere under the moniker of second base, at which point you see the gasping face of the man you picked up at the bar sometime earlier, but it's never actually his face you see. You see scrunched black eyelashes, and teeth overlapping slightly-pink lips. You see sweat-tousled, so soft hair as the head is thrown back – until the voice isn't his.
You've tried so hard to simply shallowly enjoy the act. After all, looking at the way you were raised, it's nowhere near ludicrous for your morals to exclude aversions from most explicit acts. And maybe if you weren't in love, you could have, maybe it would have been a world of ease, but each time it simply stung, and ached, and ended only with a displeased half-night-stand partner, and an awkwardly emotional jerk off session later to remove the evidence.
But regardless, your right hand isn't working as much these days, and it's getting pretty fucking annoying. No, you aren't some King of Sex (though Bro would like you to be, from the way he always asks about what dudefriends you've brought home since you last saw him. It should be noted that thus far, Bro and Rose are the only ones who've picked up on your orientation), and no, you don't find it to be some necessity of life. Your sex drive is just your sex drive – but for how simple it is, you sure fucking wish it had as simple of a solution, which is nowhere in sight, at least not for you.
Because even with all these thoughts of fucking and getting down to the nasty (you really should be working, not thinking about this), it's never hot, because it always comes down to some teenage angsty contemplation of how John Egbert got down to it before you, and not with you. It's always the same horrific visualizations, and a stomach filled with envy and disgust. And even with your right hand, you feel filthy for picturing him, someone who in that state wants nothing to do with you, and never has. Yet, what else can you do?
But that's that, and despite your issues with it and despite your body's frustration from it, there isn't much you can do, so you let those stubborn thoughts fade out yet again, and actually manage to get some work done. For a few minutes, but then your phone is ringing, and your tired bones force together and apart in a stubborn movement to retrieve it.
"Yo."
"Dave, d-dave!" you hear come from the other line. It's Egbert, and he sounds... like he's crying, but not like when he's called you before crying because of nightmares and you've been the one he turned to (you wonder if he still has them, you wonder if he cries to Molly now, a person who has no idea what it was all like), he sounds different.
"Huh?" is all you eloquently breathe out, thinking you know what's going on. Things have been alright between the two of you, increasingly so, and it may have even got a little less painful, despite your frustration and your crushed dreams. But you can't help but sit up a bit stiffly in anticipation.
"I-I'm a father!" and it's so beautiful. It hurts that you aren't along with him, that this is another stage of his life that he entered without, leaving you behind watching, but you can't help but maybe smile a little bit, because no matter what your heart has to say on it, John's gonna make the greatest fucking dad like you've always known he would.
You take a deep breath. "Wow," and now you're at a loss for words because well, you've never dealt with kids or babies or anything, but the idea of that is just... amazing, and there being a little John junior means they're gonna grow up to be the most wonderful, kind person, and even you're a little stupefied.
"I-I know!" and now he's laughing and he's just so damn happy, you think that might be part of your mindset right now, that you can't help be upset when he's feeling so wonderful. "Her name's Casey and just, fuck Dave! I don't know man, I just... wish you were here for this."
"Wow, what a shocker," you chuckle, because you called it from day one, and John's predictability is almost his most endearing factor. You say almost because you still haven't decided what the most is. "But yeah, wish I was too bro. Save some afterbirth for me, 'kay?"
"Ugh, shut up Dave!" but he's laughing, before you hear some more chatter in the background, and he laughs. "'Kay, I gotta get goin' for now though. I'll call you later alright? Maybe on Skype to show you! Shit, she's so beautiful."
"Sounds chill," and your mask is wavering - it always did have a brilliant timer to it, "Get off on your pappy-mobile, see ya."
And the line goes dead, along with your motivation to keep up your work - replaced by wary hands at the alcohol cabinet.