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You're sat bolt upright against one of the pillars of the tower. The light from the lanterns above you plays blue, pink, and orange speckles on the floor.
Dirk is across the room from you, sound asleep. You don't need to see past his shades to know this; he's breathing so slowly and evenly.
Lil Sebastian is still for once, curled into your side. You're grateful for this, mainly because keeping an eye on him right now is not something you could do or focus on.
Why? Because you just made a rather surprising realization about a certain hat-loving, sword-wielding, robot-building friend of yours. And quite frankly, it came as a bit of a shock.
In a way, it sort of makes sense, given how he's treated you in the past. For all his strange metaphors and ironic jokes, he's always been an absolute gentleman to you. He even made a robotic personal bodyguard for you as a birthday present, even though you've always had the best security BCCorp can offer.
Speaking of the robot bodyguard, Lil Seb has started poking you in the side.
"What?" You turn your head to give the bunny your full attention.
He hands you your Crosbytop. How he got it out of your sylladex, you don't know, and you seriously doubt you'll ever find out.
You take and open the Crosbytop, and find that your chat client is already open, with a message waiting for you.
TT: Dirk might not be awake, but I can see you plain as day, Crocker.
TT: Is something wrong?
Seriously? The AR can have really bad timing, sometimes.
Oh, whatever. You might as well talk to someone. It's too quiet, right now, and talking with Dirk himself is just out of the question, given the circumstances.
GG: I'm really not sure.
TT: Do you want to talk about it?
GG: Honestly, no. Not really.
GG: But I might as well get it off my chest and say it to somebody.
TT: I'm probably not the best “somebody” for a feelings jam.
TT: I am glasses, after all.
GG: I know. But I don't really know if I should talk to Dirk about it.
TT: Fair enough.
TT: What's on your mind?
GG: He likes me, doesn't he?
TT: ...
GG: As in LIKES ME, likes me.
TT: That does appear to be the case.
GG: I just...
GG: I don't know.
GG: After everything everyone said, I thought that, well.
GG: I really thought that he liked Jake.
TT: I'm pretty sure we all thought that, Jane.
TT: Bro's a master of playing it close to the vest.
TT: He threw us all for a loop.
TT: He threw us like a first inning pitcher throws strike-outs.
GG: Hoo, I'm going to stop that metaphor before it goes any further.
GG: Can we please not make any jokes or references of any kind right now?
TT: Alright. All further joke-slash-reference making will be considered a critical error in programming.
TT: Proceed.
GG: Proceed where?
TT: Wherever you were hoping this discussion would go.
GG: Sigh.
GG: I just don't know how to feel about him LIKING me.
GG: Especially after what I said to Jake.
TT: You never really told me what happened with that whole issue.
GG: Basically, I panicked and lied about my feelings for Mr. English.
TT: Ooh. Harsh.
GG: And then he told me about how he figured everything that Dirk had said and done up to that point might be Dirk's way of flirting with him.
TT: Well, now we know otherwise.
GG: That's not even the part that really gets me.
TT: What happened?
GG: I told him to go ahead and see where it goes.
TT: Oh.
GG: I told him it was okay to just flirt back at Dirk, and that I was okay with it!
GG: I have never felt so stupid!
TT: OH.
GG: And now, knowing what Dirk really thinks, or at least what he seems to think, I...
GG: Ugh, I basically told Jake that the two of them should just get married and have babies, when one of them doesn't even feel that way!
TT: Jane, calm down.
TT: You had no way of knowing definitively who felt how about whom.
GG: I know, but what am I supposed to do, now?!
TT: ...
TT: I really don't know.
GG: I still have hopes about Jake, but I don't want to Dirk to get hurt, either!
TT: Like I just said, Jane.
TT: I. Don't. Know.
GG: ...
TT: My best guess would be to just stop actively thinking about it.
TT: Just go with the flow, and see what happens.
TT: From the info at hand, it doesn't appear that any decisions need to be made, immediately.
TT: And if it ever does, well...
GG: Well what?
TT: I recall reading an interesting quote somewhere about flipping coins to make decisions.
TT: The exact wording is unavailable to me at the moment, but it went something like:
TT: Regardless of the actual outcome, you'll know what you want the second the coin is in the air.
GG: Erm, sorry, but coin-flipping analogies aren't exactly the most helpful thing, right now.
TT: I figured as much.
GG: Still. Thanks for trying to help.
GG: Can you just promise me that Dirk doesn't see this conversation?
GG: I'm still not sure how to go about talking with him about this.
TT: Sure thing, Jane.
TT: Sure thing.