> Sollux: Realize™
There’s a lump in your throat that you haven’t been able to swallow down for hours, no matter how hard you try, and as frustrated as you are by this fact, you’re much more frustrated by the ache in your chest.
You can only remember two other times in your life where you felt like this. The first, when you were six, a few days after you found a crater where Karkat’s hive used to be, when you realized your friends were gone, and they weren’t coming back. The second, when John coped with your death by leaving without a word, and you thought that was going to be the end of your relationship with him.
You’re sat on the roof of John’s apartment building, back resting against an air conditioning unit. You came straight up here as soon as you got back from your date with Nepeta… if you can even really call it a date; that whole thing definitely seemed more like a hook-up situation, not that the semantics are really important right now. That’s not really what’s on your mind right now.
Right now, you’re thinking about Aradia, and how she kept saying that she wanted to help you, and how she kept also saying things that you were struggling to believe she didn’t know would hurt you, and how she blocked you when you got pissed off about it. You’re thinking about all of that, and you’re also thinking about how cold your face is. It’s not particularly windy, but the air is crisp, and the light breeze that is there bites at your cheeks.
As your jaw clenches tightly to distract you from the cold, you hear the door to the roof open. Your hand flies to where your pendant rests on your chest, quickly checking to make sure you’re wearing it. You’re usually good about remembering to put it on when you’re not inside John’s unit, but you can’t help the reflexive checking.
A second wave of relieve washes over you as you notice that the guy now approaching you is John himself. He silently approaches you and sits himself down beside you. Without a word, you lean up against him. A small grunt escapes you as you try not to move some of your more tender muscles. John doesn’t seem to think twice about it, which you’re glad about. You don’t really want to explain the events of last night to him. You’re not even sure how well you’d do at talking in general right about now.
Knowing when you need to talk and when you need silence has become second nature to John. If this was earlier on in your relationship, he’d probably be asking you why you were upset right now. Instead, he wraps his arm around you and you lean further into him until your face is pressed up against his chest.
You stay like that for a long time, listening to his heart beating, trying to focus all of your mental energy on the soft thumps so you don’t have to think about the heaviness in your own ribcage.
Eventually, you force out the words “She blocked me.” And you can’t see it, but you’re sure John is doing that small concerned frown he does when he can tell that you’re hurting and just don’t know how to talk about it.
“Aradia did?” he asks, and you don’t have to answer because before you even open your mouth he asks “Which one?”
“You know which one,” you mutter as you pull your phone up closer to your face.
“Ah.” His chest rumbles as he hums in understanding. “Are you going to tell me why?”
You clench your jaw until your teeth hurt, absently tapping at your screen until you find yourself looking at your last message to her. “Because I got pissed at her for being an asshole,” you tell him.
“Is that why?” His hand moves to play with your hair. “Or were you doing that self-sabotaging thing you do where you try to make everything as bad as you can until you get called on your bluff and end up more hurt than you already were?”
You don’t answer. You want to deny it, but you’re not sure you can. You’ve done that before. You’ve done it to John more than once.
After a moment, John seems to realize what you’re thinking. “Maybe it’ll just be a few days,” he says, but you can hear the uncertainty in his voice. You know he has no idea what’ll happen. And something about the uncertainty makes your heart twinge.
Later, John brings you back inside so you’ll eat something. You spend a long time staring at the food he puts in front of you, intermittently scrolling through your messages. When you do get around to eating the food, it’s already cold.
When you finish, John takes your necklace off and hangs it on the hook by the door before pulling you to his room to cuddle on his bed.
Eventually, John falls asleep, his slow breathing now the soundtrack to your thoughts.
You get stuck on the last thing she said to you.
AA: well i tried AA: do whatever pleases you i dont care anymore
You can practically hear her saying the words on a loop as you scroll farther back into the conversation. You read her words of support, followed by your harsh responses. Every “You’ll get through this” met with a disdainful “Why do you care?”
As you read the messages chronologically, you watch her patience wear thin. It’s so fucking obvious, but you were too busy thinking about yourself to see it.
Again, you reach the end.
TA: ok well iif you want me two feel better you’re doiing a pretty 2hiit job lol.
AA: well i tried AA: do whatever pleases you i dont care anymore
TA: yeah you made that pretty fuckiing clear.
But this time, you don’t feel the same rage as the last few times you read through the same conversation. The ache in your chest is soon replaced with a hollowness, making the fact that your heart is suddenly racing feel twice as intense as you think it probably should.
“She blocked me,” you say to nobody, as if it’s news. Except it’s not, because you already knew she blocked you.
AA: well i tried
You read it again.
AA: i dont care anymore
And each time you read it, it hits you harder. She didn’t do this lightly. She’s not like you, she’s not the person who blocks people she cares about when things get heated.
“She blocked me,” you repeat, and as the realization that she really doesn’t want anything to do with you hits, your heart breaks all over again. And soon follows the realization that as much as you’re hurting right now because of her, there’s no comparison to how badly you would hurt if the last thing she ever said to you was that she didn’t care anymore.
You don’t know how you’re going to fix this, and you don’t know how long it’s going to take, but you do know what the first step is.
You sit up, moving to gently shake John’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, before his eyes are even fully opened.
“I need your help to be better.”
