Your name is Dave Strider, you are thirty-one years old, and your head is swimming.

You've always thought that term was stupid. Because, frankly, it is. Half the terms you use and half the terms you could never bring yourself to use are all idiotic, filled to the brim with pointless open-ended metaphors that don't make any fucking sense. You hide yourself behind a facade of quick-witted words, both typed and spoken, humor lacing itself throughout your presented being. The only ones who seemed to have ever been able to decode it have been Rose, John, and Bro. Rose because she damn well tries, Bro because he's seen you at your worst (and it makes you shake with humiliation to even think of those nights at your weakest points when you've called him, and he's since stopped answering in the middle of the night as an attempt to rescue your self-esteem), and John because well… when he tries, he just seems to get it. Most of the time he doesn't seem to though, at least not the things that you keep locked away most intently, and maybe that's for the better.

Scratch that, it is most definitely for the better. You've been a wreck lately - you've been more than a wreck, you've been a flaming disaster with stormclouds brewing over you as you desperately huff your air in and out of your chest, eyes looking for sunlight somewhere in the distance. Waiting is making your breathing harder, is making your words fall quicker and with much less sense to them. You feel the joy of a thousand angelic choruses at your own feelings returned, while at once as if your final match has been bathed in those very stormclouds' rain at that still not being enough. You say ridiculous things, you thinkthings that are a tremendous amount more ridiculous than those even; the sorts of things that break your heart and the sorts of things that make your face burn. You're not used to this by any means.

But all these sorts of worries seem like playtime, really; like you're some high school dope that's gone all twitterpated in Spring's arrival. If it were just lovestruck eyes and the shy passing of notes, it'd be one thing, but there are lives on the line, both literally and figuratively. You have to zip your lips tight, just barely remembering where you put the key for the iron lock on them. You want to finally break loose all that's built within you for years, but not yet, not yet.

You are eager for this 'yet', and yet (ha) you hope it never comes. You think you're justified in either hope. But, whether this is a relief or otherwise, you can't remain in one place forever. It's time for another step to be made.

— tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 17:09 —

TT: Are you sure the both of you want to do this?

TT: My advice still stands, of course, but it is a heavy decision.

TG: what

TT: Oh. Was it not something the both of you concluded?

TG: no what the fuck are you even going on about

TT: Oh dear. Perhaps I've said too much.

TT: John will tell you when the time is right.

— tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 17:13 —

TG: well thanks for putting me in suspense i guess

There's never a right time for something like this.

EB: hey dave, i was wondering if you could help me with something!

TG: yeah sure what is it

EB: i'm moving out again, hehe. probably for good this time.

EB: and i could use some help with it, if that's ok.

TG: when

And you can't help but think maybe John's a little fucking nuts.

Not as nuts as you are, you reckon, as you scan your credit card and throw a couple hundred dollars away, stepping on the plane thoughtlessly to go help your bro (the man you love) out. But at the same time you aren't sure you sit well with the way things are heading. It's fast and it's none-too-precise, and you can't help but be afraid he's throwing everything away. On account of you. Is it even on account of you? He didn't seem to want to talk about it when you pestered and pestered him, until eventually you just gave in (as you always ultimately do, no matter how much you hate admitting it), figuring he'll tell you when you see him.

It'll be the first time you've seen him since… since he told you he felt the same, since your lips met and your dreams crashed like waves on frozen sand. Since right before you tried with all your might to break the ties between the two of you, but in the end it seems you're only crashing back together again, this time at full force. You just hope that nobody breaks in the process (and that if someone does, that it be you and not John or anyone else, you can take the fall, nobody else has to).

But still you are filing through the motions you did all that time ago (your perception of time is getting hazier with each day, and the confusion is beginning to mess with you - it's weird because once upon a time, nothing made sense but time, and now here you are without even that, maybe that's what aging is), arriving, and moving each bit of furniture into a new apartment. This one is smaller than his last place, and a lot of his things are in storage. You hope he's just here until he's back on his feet again, and maybe he can get a house like that cozy one you were almost ready to call home with him (even if he never invited you to).

Time is still muddled while his hands shake, sifting through boxes for which need be indoors and which need be in storage for now. He looks tired, so tired, and you wish your own exhaustion could be halted so you could be at your full potential to assist him, to help him rise back to his feet. But you're tired too, and you hate that his eyes are beginning to look like yours - wrinkled too young with too many stress lines and not enough smile lines (you can see the small creases of smile lines beginning though, and it makes you smile too that he was happy enough that long, but it makes you want to scream that he's losing that, because he deserves better than even happiness and this world is so fucking wrong sometimes).

You file away the items he's chosen for his home (you notice they're far less personal than last time, as if he's not sure what he wants to be reminded of anymore), hoping if you're messy then he'll scold you and you'll do it anyway, and maybe you can playfight for a little bit (too old to do that anymore but too childish to give a damn), but he just shakes his head with a little breathy, hollow laugh and he puts them away himself. He avoids your touch and you can tell a million thoughts are running through his mind, a good thousand too many for him to handle right now. You want to hold him and smooth out his hair as you press your chapped lips to his forehead, tell him it's alright and maybe even unironically hum him a lullaby, but that would be too much for him too, so you just give his back a hearty pat every so often, hoping maybe he'll let down his walls for you soon enough. You of all people know how shitty it is when other people force them down first.

He's holding up better than you expected you guess - you still don't really understand any of it though. John left Molly (permanent or not, you don't know), he's living here, and he invited you to stay with him for some time, and that's all you know. A part of your head told relentlessly that this was your fault, that he called you up here for some cheesy romance novel ending except without the all-around eventual happiness and instead with a stressed-out daughter and a lonely mother. And maybe that's still it. But if it is, he sure isn't showing it, as he doesn't give you the cold shoulder per se, but definitely is anything but overtly affectionate towards you. He seems like he's wearing a mask now though, like he has that numbness that you had and still sort of have, and despite your acceptance of your own, he doesn't deserve that. He deserves genuineness and excitement, and you just wish you knew how to give him that.

It isn't until the second morning you're there that he finally lets himself cry, hand clenching tightly around the frying pan while he tries to make the both of you bacon (you wonder if he's remembering some breakfast he normally makes Casey and Molly - probably something corny like a bacon and eggs smiley face, and your heart aches and swells from his sadness and from how adorable a gesture that is, how it's just like him). It's silent and it is not pining for attention - it is the saddest of crying because he's just barely shaking while he digs the metal pan into his palms, and you know without looking that tear after salty tear is sliding down his face.

If it were Bro, or if it were someone with you, you think it'd be best to turn a blind eye - but this is John, and though he deserves as much preservation of dignity as anyone, that's not what he needs right now as you stand from the kitchen table (still not feeling quite homey in the tiny space), and move next to him, rubbing his back gently and slowly.

It's then that he finally looks at you, and sure enough, those tears are each on his face, stains down his cheeks as he tries to maybe pop a tiny smile. You just want to grab the side of hid face and slowly bring his lips to yours (probably tasting his tears simultaneously) and just hold him until his frame stops shaking and he finally feels at peace. But now's not the time for that, no matter how he feels for you, no matter how either of you feel. Because he is scared and he is fragile and maybe, maybe you're too scared for that too.

You think for a second that maybe he's thinking the same thing as you, that maybe he's wondering if your lips meeting would be good too (and you have to remind yourself that maybe that's not the biggest fantasy in the world, and maybe that makes it hurt a little more). But he just looks forward again, leaning against you and letting you wrap your arms around him.

You slip up and press your lips to the top of his head, but with nothing in the room but the crackling of bacon and slow breathing, you don't think either of you can bring yourselves to care.