Work Text:
You could probably write a thesis on Diamonds Droog. You’re half tempted to, actually, except for the part where it would never be nearly as organized as a thesis paper should be because you just have a hard time not going off on weird directions when you’re thinking. The problem here is that he probably could write one on you, too.
You hate to admit it, but a lot of your relationship involves just watching each other’s behavior and over-analyzing it. It’s stressful. One thing you’ve always had to tell yourself in order to function semi-normally around people is that nobody’s paying very close attention to you, that nobody really bothers to remember any embarrassing things you do. That isn’t true with Droog. He’s always paying attention, and whenever you slip up and do something dumb he gets this look on his face. He is storing that information away. He will never forget it, ever.
He might even use it against you.
He doesn’t normally bring these things things up, so you just put it out of your mind. Sometimes, though, when you’ve managed to knock him off balance and he needs to gain a foothold against you—not that you really understand how he ever thinks you could gain the upper hand against him—he’ll make mention of something you never meant to say out loud or some inappropriate gesture you made when you thought no one was looking. You freeze. He wins the exchange. You hope he’s not keeping score, but you suspect he is.
Sometimes he miscalculates how you’ll respond to his little reminders. One time it happens in bed—he’s on top of you, and for once he’s being tender and not as domineering as usual. He starts whispering little things you do all the time that he thinks are cute, and it’s very flattering, until he mentions something that… well, you’re too embarrassed to think about it. You didn’t think he knew you did that. Then you can’t stop wondering how he noticed, when he noticed, has anyone else noticed?
He meant it as a compliment. He ended up spending the rest of the night comforting you while you had a nervous breakdown.
You can’t even hold it against him because you do the same thing. You keep mentioning things he doesn’t realize you knew, things that he tried to keep private. It doesn’t help that you were effectively stalking him for weeks before you started seeing each other. F-for research. For work. Of course. So you know a lot of his more private habits. You know he doesn’t like it and you don’t mean to mention such things, but you just let things slip out sometimes. He doesn’t react as badly as you do, but he does react.
You wonder if that’s what it’s like for Sleuth and Slick. They’re always beating each other up. Your Vim is far too low for a relationship like that, but maybe this intellectually adversarial thing is similar. You realize that this probably isn’t healthy. For all the comfortable moments you spend curled up in his arms, for all the fun you have sharing tea, you spend so much energy on this psychological warfare that it shouldn’t be worth it. This is the sort of thing that could ruin you. Your anxieties threaten daily to consume you, and Droog could give them the hand they need. You need to put an end to this.
You don’t want to.
You like this relationship. You actually like all the things wrong with it. You want to cling to it until it leaves nothing left of you.
There is probably something wrong with you. It is only one thing of many, though, and you’re used to being a defective person. So you just hold him closer, and try to enjoy your failings.