Work Text:
hey there!
This was how his first email started.
It seemed polite enough, so you tried to read it with an open mind, ignoring the sneaking suspicion that this was another irritating bit of hatemail.
i bet you get emails like this all the time,
Not really.
so i’m not really expecting you to respond…
Yeah no shit, you’re kind of a busy guy, of course you’re not going to respond. Not unless it’s actually important. And this email is not looking to be terribly important.
but i just wanted to say i’m a huge fan!
… Well that’s new.
i’ve always loved racing and i’ve been keeping track of the standings and everything, but i just started watching the races on the tv, and you are super hilarious! you and your partner both are, but you’re the funniest.
You kept reading. This kid—it must have been a kid, no adult would talk to you this way—thought you were funny, you were soooo smart, you were so cool for donating to that charity and trying to get the word out about that, he looked you up, you know, he hopes you don’t think that’s too weird!
You didn't even know what to think of this.
You were stunned enough that you didn’t consider it might be a bad idea when you started to reply.
You kept your language simple, because you remembered what he said:
i’ve been speaking english for years but it’s still not my first language, and you use such huge words that sometimes it’s hard to keep up!
Disregarding that sometimes i have to watch the races with a dictionary open, haha! my vocabulary is much more impressive now
And you wrote.
Do you go around writing to every commentator that strikes your fancy about their elaborate word choice? I don’t know how you got the opinion that I’m any kind of decent sentient being, I don’t exactly come across as “nice.”
Jesus, are you even old enough to be emailing people without your guardian’s permission? You probably shouldn’t be watching those races, you’ll get fucking traumatized or something
You paused for a moment and deleted a word.
you’ll get traumatized or something. And you definitely shouldn’t be emailing me, because I’m a grade A jackass and your guardian or parents or whatever will get on my case about being a bad influence on you or lowering your self esteem with my acid tongue.
Do yourself a favor and don’t respond. Glad you think I’m great and everything, but I’m not.
And you’d sent the email without thinking, feeling some emotion you couldn’t quite name—disappointment? Something like being let down? Something like missing out?—and went on to do other things.
You had pushed the thought out of your mind but he emailed you again the next day.
hahaha oh man! i’m so glad i emailed you, that was like getting my own personal sick burn delivered straight to my house. like it was a pizza. with pepperoni and OH NO YOU DIDN’T and crunchy crust and everything.
that was a stupid metaphor.
oh well!
also dude i’m almost sixteen! i can totally make my own decisions on the internet. i am not a wise old sage or anything, but i’m also not a complete idiot. give me a little slack.
Oh god.
Without thinking, you started writing him back.
It’s “cut me a little slack,” you idiot, and what did I tell you about emailing me back?
Short. Concise. He certainly wouldn’t—
you told me not to! doesn’t mean i’m going to listen to you. well okay i’m going to listen to you, because you are pretty hilarious, but i am not necessarily going to do what you say!
Shit.
It had continued on like this all day, and you’d found yourself refreshing your inbox just to see if he’d replied. Little snot wouldn’t leave you alone.
And he still wouldn’t.
Four months later.
You’ve given up, at this point, being surprised that he emails you back. You don’t get it, because you are still a grade A jackass, but you can’t help but think it’s… nice.
He doesn’t tell you much about himself. You know he’s sixteen, now, male, most likely human, knows quite a bit about bikes and racing and possibly rides himself, but is dodgy about the topic, and really doesn’t enjoy sweets all that much.
He calls himself your “secret admirer (hehehe)” and somehow although you’re consistently rude to him he hasn’t stopped talking to you.
Every once in a while he tells you he’s having kind of a rough time, and he won’t ever really tell you what’s going on but he’s told you that talking to you makes him feel better.
So. You guess it can’t be all that bad.
He hasn’t told you his name. This wouldn’t be an issue except that you frequently need to complain about how much of an idiot he is, and Gamzee always laughs when you call him “the email guy.”
You told him this, once, and requested his name so you could properly complain about him.
He just laughed and said it was a secret.
Fine then.
He wants to have a secret name?
You’ll give him a secret name.
In your next email you scathingly tell him his new name is John Doe, and he can’t do a damn thing about it.
His reply leaves you too livid to respond to so you leave the computer for an hour.
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
i like you