Chapter Text
It was a scheduled part of her day to flirt with the boy at this point, running like clockwork and unavoidable on both parties. Stopping by his locker before the left together, to lean against it after the final bell to leave had rung. Giving him a heavily lidded look, one she’s practiced in the mirror to perfect, she leans over in an attempt to look alluring and exceptionally feminine. Flirting is an art, she’ll have you know. It’s something Roxy works hard to perfect. And while she knows her advances are pointless, they’re really all in good fun at this point. She feels the teen could use the attention ever since his crush wound up accepting Jane’s advances first. After all, it was kind of her fault Dirk never got to confess to Jake.
They were cute together; both Roxy and Dirk had to admit. They discussed the two being together often; it was a common topic for them. Honestly, the boy never seemed too bothered by it, and most of the time he was accusing Roxy of being the jealous one on losing Jane. It’s to be insisted though, that her feelings for both, Jane and Jake, is totes platonic. She never has the guts to say she’s sorry for how things turned out, for how Jane beat Dirk to the punch. If she hadn’t given her friend the heads up, the two would’ve probably never gotten together. It was her obligatory duty as the heiress’ ‘bffsie 4 lyfe.’ Sometimes Roxy wondered if Dirk was mad at her for giving Jane that extra push… but if he was, he never said it. He was good about that, sometimes her flirting was real in the sense that yes, she could love him very easily. For now, it would just be under the guise of friendly banter, as long, manicured fingers ran through his gelled hair. “Hey sexy.”
“You’re drunk at school, what a pleasant and admittedly unsurprising development. What is it you need?” There’s always a cool and calculating tone to his voice, always annunciating as if concentrating heavily on what is said. His words are always controlled, he is always in control. She likes it.
He stands tall as he finishes gathering his books, poor dear having a bottom locker. Sometimes when he stands tall next to her, she curses her height as he stands a good few inches shorter. She stopped wearing heels just for that reason. He’ll hit his growth spurt one day though, she’s sure. Roxy has seen Strider’s brother, and if that’s anything to go by, Dirk will definitely turn out to be a ‘hottie.’ Not that he wasn’t one already, oh no. Strider was quite the attractive young man as was, his features just hadn’t hardened out quite as expected yet. A late bloomer, not quite reaching full potential yet (even though he sometimes lamented this fact seeing as how he had just hit seventeen), but that was always a good thing, right? Weren’t they meant to be the most attractive? “Oh, I don’t need nothing too much… just you.” A wink, long lashes (fake. They bring out her eyes more and make them appear bigger. She likes them). There’s a fairly good chance he’s rolling his eyes behind those shades, but he doesn’t tell her to go away. He never does.
They linger there a few moments longer to talk as the hallways clear out, “oh really now? Is that all you’re looking for? A slice of this hunk cake that is myself? I don’t know if you’re ready for that amount of physical attractiveness to be in your wake, Lalonde. Who knows what kind of consequences may come from it.”
“Oooh, sounds dangerous. I like dangerous.”
The two of them start moving now, walking alongside each other, as they would continue to do until they reached their separating pathways to go home. “I bet you do, what with that cushy life you lead, I bet a bit of danger is just the kind of spice you need in your life.” It’s obvious he’s trying to be taller than she is as they go, standing straight with his head held high and chin out. A smile graces dark colored lips as she catches on, though admittedly there’s not much to catch onto. They always play this game, and she brings her head down demurely and sashays a bit into her walk to give her a little less height. It’s not her fault she was graced with model heights, just good genes. Usually she holds this fact over guys, standing tall in a cocky manner. Amazonian woman, maybe. Sexy, definitely. Dirk is different though. She lets him lead. “Oh, but I do. Just oh so much.” Accentuating this point by bumping her hip against his, he still stands tall and doesn’t stumble. In fact, he bumps back lightly, anticipating the move from how often these types of conversations are held. He has too pretty of hips for a guy. A great ass to boot.
Roxy sometimes complains with jealousy. She is tall and lanky and a stick. Women would kill for an ass like his. He seemed to know this too, and flaunt it around almost with those tight pants of his. The tease.
“Sometimes I do wonder how you manage to complete a school day without being found out for being a complete drunken fool… It truly is a mystery to me, as much as I hate to admit.” He really does hate to admit it, where knowing things is his specialty. For Dirk Strider to be in the dark on something? Blasphemy on his lips, blasphemy to his name, blasphemy to the world.
“Magics.”
“Dumb luck.”
This is one of those days where they can walk in a comfortable silence, no words needing to be said. They’re practically having a conversation with their breathing and in their heads. At least, on Roxy’s part she is. Creating little thoughts and ideas on how their conversation would go. ‘How was your day?’ ‘Tiring.’ ‘How so?’ ‘Normal reasons.’ ‘I hope it gets better.’ ‘I hope you get sober.’ Roxy laughs with her mental conversation, and Dirk doesn’t question why the laughter. He seems to know why, and he lets out a low breathy laugh as well. Which is nice seeing as how he rarely laughs, and when he does it’s very controlled. Roxy wished he would let loose sometimes, that’d be nice to see. Her laughs are more light and airy, as she has practiced with her vocal coach often. Sometimes they turn into deep guffaws when something is just that funny. No one questions it though, they only laugh harder at her odd noises. Everyone has their little quirks after all. Like Jane’s snorts, and when sometimes that’s all her laughter is, her snorting and trying to breathe. Jake’s is very melodic, and something to be envious of. He’s very unabashed with it, very easy to laugh with, and Roxy could see how he was easy to be smitten with the boy. She wished she was as easy to fall in love with.
She tried to garner the attention of one particular person, but of course give her the luck of falling for a gay man. It was okay though, they still enjoyed their friendship. It was nice spending time with him in this way… Their walks home lead them both down the same way for most of the way. Just them.
Jane’s father was nice enough to come pick her up from school (to which Roxy would sometimes insist they pause on their treks home so she could stare in admiration of the man. Such man grit! So handsome), and Jake went in the opposite direction of them, biking to and from school.
Dirk lived in the heart of the city, in a high rise apartment that was filled to the brim with useless junk that his brother collected. It wasn’t too far of a walk to get to it from the school, and that’s where Roxy joined him. Walking alongside him to talk and discuss their days before splitting off to take the subway out and a taxi the rest of the way home to her doorstep. Her mother was a private woman, and Roxy refused private schooling in favor of the further out (but far more worth it) public school.
It was their journey home, her scheduled flirt time, and he never really seemed to mind. “You look very nice today, Dirk.” Drawing out the word, ‘very,’ she made sure to do the eyelash flutter, another thing practiced with precision in the mirror. He made sure to make an annoyed sound. “Thank you, Lalonde. I work very hard to appear as presentably of a person to my drunken friend. It’s practically my life’s goal to be told I look nice by a drunkard, how did you know? Holy fucking shit is my life now complete.”
Huffing slightly, she pulled back, going to the side and walking at a further distance from the teen. Rolling her eyes, “no need to be a dick, Dirk! God!”
She’s walking beside him and close by once more in only a matter of seconds.
Their split off comes up soon after, and another thin smile as she waves in a way she hopes shows grace and starts to walk towards the subway entrance. “I’ll see you tomorrow, stay handsome!” Light laugh, wink, swish of the hips… This is something they practically practiced every day. It goes flawlessly each time and it’s almost down to an art… hell it was practically a science; their split off. But today was different. It goes differently from all the others before it.
He grabs her wrist, and tells her to wait.
Roxy was frozen, with a thousand things going through her head as her breath catches in her throat. There was a mix of anxiety, and fear mostly. Dirk has never really touched her before. Not outside of light shoves and touches. Even when Jake and Jane started dating and Dirk came to her, she couldn’t bring herself to let him feel her awkward form and to hold him. Her eyes are wide, and locked on his hand around her wrist. He knows that she doesn’t like physical contact nearly as much as one would think, which is well enough for him, since insufferable prick extraordinaire dislikes touching as well. So this is odd. Not something she knew how to react to. He knows that touching is something usually reserved for between her and Jane… and that’s because there are no secrets between best friends.
After a long pause (or perhaps it was quite short, she didn’t know. It felt like hours to her), she notices that her mouth is hanging open a slight bit in a completely unfeminine way. She closes it with a gulp, and brings her scared eyes to his hidden ones. Cursing his unfair advantage over the situation, she finally manages out a questioning, “what?” It’s short in its breath, and doesn’t even seem to be a full syllable, something she once more curses, but he understands what exactly she said, and starts talking.
“I kind of like you, in a more than friends sort of way.”
If anyone were to ever ask, she would swear up and down that her heart stopped then and there. “…what?” This one was even more pathetic than the last one, barely a word as it strangled its way out of her lips. It was a husky breath more than anything, and it worried her.
He kept a cool face though, insufferably calm and collected like he always was. Her heart started up again. “Yeah, I mean, it’s sort of to be expected. You’re kind of just always there for me; I guess the thought of my liking you should have been pretty obvious. You’ve helped me with a lot.”
“But..” She’s gained more control over her breathing, this was a full word. “What about, Jake?” There was still a slight tremor to her words, and it was mostly due to her shifting her position. Roxy brought herself to full height, almost forcing herself to be as towering over him as she was. The girl was needing that control over the situation, it was needed to help keep herself together. Her hand, still with his rather slender (but strong) fingers around her wrist, began to shake. Feelings conflicting themselves, not sure to be flattered, happy, scared, terrified… what did this mean? What did his apparent feelings for her mean about her looks? Her personality? He liked men! And…she.. she wasn’t a man..!
Dirk let out a heavy sigh and tensed his face; trying to keep his own control over the situation, with the both of them battling to be in charge. “Rox,” demanding and short tone, he was being serious. It was always serious with him when he spoke to her in such a personal manner, that’s something Strider rarely did after all. Be personal. “That was over a year ago… Give me more credit than that.”
Pursing her lips and furrowing her brows, “it may have happened over a year ago, but I know you Dirk. You’ve come to me about this all, and I know you weren’t over it a year ago.” Shaking her head as she said that, trying to accentuate her point. It’s hard to accept that this was sincere when she had been the one to metaphorically hold him through his depression. Was she some sort of really late rebound? Did he truly like her? Was it all just his own loneliness? Was it real? But… how could he like her?
Dirk was getting frustrated with her reaction, she could see the thick, signature Strider brows furrowing, “sometimes people have to learn to move on, and realize that someone’s not going to like them
back.” Releasing his grip on her wrist, she pulled it to her chest as if the touch had been burning her the whole time. “Don’t tell me you’re going to do this to me too? I’m laying myself out here, Rox, I really do like you. You’re attractive, you’re nice, you’re a bit of a handful and annoying as fuck, but I still like hanging out with you. I think that says something.”
“But…” It didn’t add up. He seemed genuinely distressed by her reaction, but it just didn’t make sense!
Starting to act fairly scared now, afraid of rejection and heart break once more. “But, what?” His voice was a bit higher than usual in his distress, losing some of his control now. They were both losing their control, though. As Roxy pulled into herself, lanky limbs close to her and hunching slightly, no longer trying to tower over his figure. Dirk’s body had deflated and his facial features had softened in an almost baby-faced way.
“But you’re gay!”
The words shocked them both, and quickly, Roxy made her way down and into the subway out of fear of retaliation or Dirk’s reaction. The teen was lingering behind in a sort of state of shock and she didn’t know if she should care or not as her eyes started tearing up. It was too late though, time to be boarding the train to her stop, and she was thankful for it as she slipped on, and slid down into a seat.
That was stupid, she was stupid… fuck, that wasn’t what she should’ve said or how she should’ve went about that, but.. she panicked! The girl didn’t bother worrying about her mascara as she started to cry though, pulling off the fake lashes and tossing them haphazardly in her bag, Roxy buried her face into her palms as the train pulled away.
While above ground, taking in slow deep breaths, Dirk clenched his fists in despair over another rejection.