#then i thing of thrust buster exploded on me so now my hands AND nails are stained purple

[khemi]

Here’s The Catch

@ghostecutioner asked:  you know what i want khemi. you know what to give me

As my Yours Sincerely update is still in developmental hell, I will appease you with some other Dirkjohn content and hope it pleases you. John’s POV, no actual Dirk but a lot of talking about him, and a lot of Crockerbert bonding!

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Here’s how this goes.

It’s 4:13am.

Dirk Strider just proposed to you over snap chat and didn’t even give you the full ten seconds to process it.

Jane is beating down your door because you told her you were up for early morning hijinks to welcome in your joint birthday but then got derailed by some asshole proposing to you.

It’s dawning on you that you got distracted half way through dressing so are wearing a backwards shirt and half a pair of pants in this moment of deep internal crisis.

Here’s the catch.

Jane’s phone is the phone in your hand, because your hijinks were going to involve fucking with her contact list and sending Roxy some snap chats of dogs with tag lines about them being the superior pet.

You just got to see Dirk warming up to propose to you.

Dirk’s going to propose to you.

What the ever loving actual fuck do you do with this information???

You start by chucking the phone the other side of the room, then sitting down and staring at the forlorn empty half of your pants, a perfect reflection of the current do you ever feel like a plastic bag aesthetic of your soul. Jane’s knocking has ceased, which is a bad sign given it probably heralds an escalation in hostilities, so for the moment you’re alone with your pals Sir Emotional Repression and Mister Denial.

Dirk still has plenty of time to change his mind. He’s all about ridiculous, over the top shit sure! But this is too much. Right? Probably. Possibly. Fuck it’s not, is it, he could really do this, and then you’d have to think about a real answer, and think about how you feel about him, and the only thing feelings have ever brought you is a headache, misery, and a weird breakdown involving a lot of impassioned ironing and also Nic Cage was there?

This is not how your birthday was meant to go.

“John!” Jane hisses it through the door, and you can tell from her tone that she is now wearing her Serious Business Moustache, which means your shit is fucked worse than your love life. “I have a blowtorch, and you have three seconds to open this door. Do you hear me, John? It’s happening, the time is now, I am coming in one way or another, buster! Three. Two!”

You lurch off the bed and scramble the lock open just as you hear the puff and hiss of the blow torch coming to life, and Jane smiles at you in satisfaction before her gaze drops and her mouth pulls into an off-balance slant.

“John,” she whispers, “that isn’t how you pants.”

Right. Step one is to absolutely make sure she doesn’t find out you looked at her phone and saw Dirk’s snap chat.

“Dirk’s going to propose to me?”

You have failed step one.

Her face rapidly cycles through confusion, surprise, realisation, murder, weighing up the efforts of hiding your body, attempted murder instead, and then eventually just the kind of narrow eyed silent anger that would have you shitting your pants if you’d managed to get enough of them on to shit in.

“Did you look through my messages?” She jabs the blow torch at you, and you dodge the flame with a stifled yelp, swatting at it to try and signal maybe she could turn it the fuck off. “You did! You swine. How many did you look at? Did you say anything? John Egbert, I swear to high heavens-”

“I didn’t say anything! It was one snap chat.”

“Snapchat,” she repeats, flatly.

“Yeah, a snap chat.”

“Snapchat.”

“Snap chat.”

“John I can hear that space, it’s like nails on a chalkboard.”

“Chalk board.”

The blow torch is thrust towards your face and you stagger hastily out of range.

“Alright! Alright. Jeez. But- it really was just that message, okay? And I figured he’d send you something embarrassing, and I was right! It was just also the worst.”

“The worst.” Jane repeats it with the exact same whine, frowning at you. “John, how long has Dirk been your boyfriend?”

“...A few years? Uh.” You count in your head, eyes scanning upwards with each number. “Six years.”

“And how long have you lived together?”

“...Four years.” You frown. “That doesn’t mean we’re instantly marriage central, Jane! Marriage is this whole big... thing. It’s a thing! And maybe I like our relationship without any things thinging it up.”

“So what are you going to do? Dirk fully intends to ask and if you’re going to say no I want you to think carefully about how you do it so you don’t hurt him any more than you have to.”

Ugh.

“I didn’t say I’m going to say no.”

“It certainly sounded like that’s what you said.”

“No, I just... I just don’t know how I feel, okay? And I was really hoping to not have to think about it, like, ever.”

“Ah yes.” Jane rolls her eyes so hard it’s audible. “The patented John Egbert method of shoving everything in a bottle until it’s time to make it a Molotov cocktail.”

“Cock-”

“Don’t test me.”

You do not test her, mounting a full retreat to the bed instead so you can finally get your damn pants on right. This is a serious situation! It calls for at least two legs panted. Maybe more! “Jane what if Dirk’s like... say yes or we’re through! I can’t deal with that stuff.”

“Are you kidding? He already has thirty backup plans involving how to make you think it was a joke if you say no. I managed to make him scale back the plan with the horse, but I’m still pretty sure that’s what he’s going for.” She starts scouring your person for her phone, and you gesture across the room, gaining a harumph one she realises you threw it. “If you see Dave around, my only suggestion is to start running, they have a whole script planned and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who wasn’t studying the mating rituals of the orange-plumed tragic rapper.”

“So if I say no he’ll just back out and we can totally forget about it?”

“John,” she turns on you, gesturing accusingly with the thankfully extinguished blow torch. “Don’t you dare.”

“But things are fine the way they are! If saying no keeps it all the same, then-”

“Is that really going to be your only reason? John if you say no now he’ll never ask again, so make sure you mean it.”

Well that’s an easy answer! You want things to stay how they are, and they’ll stay that way if you turn him down, and then you never have to be married ever and that’ll be fine because it’s not like you even want to marry Dirk or anything and it’s not like your gut is twisting in a really weird way when you think about him never asking again and about never having a wedding or anything and about...

Oh no.

“Oh no.”

Jane is smiling at you. “There it is.”

“Oh no.”

“Hm?” She slides her phone into her pocket. “Whatever is the matter, John?”

“Ooooh noooo...” You cover your face and slouch backwards across the bed, groaning as you let your body go limp there in protest. “Jane what if I do want to marry Dirk?”

“Then... you say yes.”

“Ooooooooooh noooooooooooo!”

“John.” The bed dips as she sits beside you, and you’re expecting comfort right until she smothers you with a pillow and leaves you flailing to get free. You use the same offending cushion to bap her shoulder, and she snorts, flicking your head. “John! Calm down.”

“Jane what if I want to marry Dirk? What if I want some stupid wedding where Dave raps a best man speech and we cut a cake that probably explodes because you baked it to fuck with me? What do I do?”

“That sounds ghastly. How terrible. I can’t imagine your suffering at the thought of a life of matrimony with the person you’re in love with.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Don’t say what?”

“The L-thing.”

“God I’d make a lesbian joke but it’d be a bit on the nose.” She folds her arms under her chest, puffing her cheeks up just the same. “Why can’t I say it?”

“Remember the bit where I put my emotions in a bottle and let them age until they disappear? I’m still doing that.”

“John.”

“Jane it has never failed me yet and if I don’t pop those bottles it never will. I am a rock solid well adjusted individual. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

“I don’t have to be a detective to see it’s a load of baloney. You’re acting like a child about this, you know that, right? You don’t have to say yes! You don’t. But your only reason being bluh bluh actual feelings is shit.”

“But- But. Bluh bluh actual feelings!”

“John even you aren’t this bad! Come on. I know you’re nervous! I know. But... you need to be an adult about this, alright? This is important.” Jane gets a hand on your shoulder and suddenly it’s serious, and your attempts to crawl under a rock have been thwarted by the iron grip of the house hold law. “It’s alright to not know what you’re going to say, or exactly how you feel, but one way or another Dirk is going to ask you and that’s not something you can make disappear without consequences, one way or another.”

You sit and stare into nothing, brain ticking over slowly. There’s a life where every thing stays the same, except for Dirk being crushed for a while. That’s fine! That’s good. That option is there.

The other option is... change, sure, and one that feels big even though it might not be? Which is yikes for a lot of reasons, but it’s not a totally bad yikes, it’s shivers down your back and tingles in the tips of your fingers, and a feeling like if you miss this chance it won’t fit into a bottle as well as you want it to.

It’s just a party and some words. It’s nothing you didn’t want anyway, is it?

Or is it?

“Ugh.” You press your face into Jane’s shoulder. “What do I do?”

“I can’t tell you that, John.”

“What would you do?”

“Ask what I was doing dating Dirk and climb out a window to find my girlfriend, probably?” She gently pats the back of your head. “John, this is on you, chum. You have to figure it out.”

“But it’s hard.”

“So is rigging an entire house to flood with shaving foam, but you managed that just fine.”

You laugh, small and muffled, and settle back into examining your mental scales. Okay. Pros and cons just get muddled with anxieties and stupid shit, and trying to imagine both paths results in exaggerating the possible outcomes until your choice some how destroys the whole universe. The only solid lesson you learn is that your brain sucks, so you push it aside and look down to more solid organs instead.

You regret that thought as soon as it turns up, wrinkling your face and backtracking north until you hit your chest, jeez.

And that’s it. You know. You know what you want, but you’re scared of it going wrong like so many other things have, scared of losing one of the things that makes each day worth facing.

“I want to marry Dirk.” It’s not a question, but it is groaned. “How do I do this?”

“Well, you could try waiting until he asks, then looking surprised and saying yes, Dirk! That might work.”

You shove her. “You’re an ass.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“You’re a bigger jerk!”

“Come over here and say that!”

Her arm’s around you and her knuckles are scrubbing at your hair before you can dodge, you hands patting and pushing at her arms and face. She’s like, twelve! She’s a brat and she sucks!

You’re laughing, and you hate it.

Jane turns the headlock into a hug with surprising each, pulling you close and rubbing your back fondly.

“I’m happy for you, or I will be once you actually go through with it.” Jane’s smile is audible in her voice. “You be good to him, John. You don’t want to know what Roxy and I will do to you if you screw up.”

“Think you could beat Dave to it? You didn’t see him the time I made Dirk think I’d thrown his tiny pony out by accident.”

“You’re a monster.” Jane pulls back, shaking her head at you. “I don’t know what he sees in you.”

“Me either! But... I guess it must be something pretty okay if he wants to officially get stuck with me forever.”

She pulls out her phone, and you glance over at it, pursing your lips in contemplation.

“You know, what if I proposed to him first?”

“John.”

“I could do it out of the blue! Really catch him off guard.”

“John...”

“I could use a snap chat and-”

“I heard that space!”

Jane grabs the pillow as you launch yourself for the other one, ready to strike up a defence. She’s laughing, you’re laughing, and any chance of stealth pranking has gone right out the window, but it’s fine.

It’s okay.

You have something big to look forward to later, and it’s going to be worth the wait.