Battles and Boobs #2
“Dex Triever, you will shut your mouth right now, and listen to me,” they shouted, and Dex shut his mouth. “What are you doing?”
When they didn’t continue, he asked, “Am I supposed to answer? You just said—”
“What are you doing, Dex?” They pointed emphatically in the direction of campus. “I was just horrible to you. I humiliated you in front of numerous people. I said terrible things that I had no business ever saying to another living person.”
At the reminder, he crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. “I don’t think you need to—”
“Stop talking!” Their tail slapped against the bleachers, like a child stamping their feet.
“I have treated you with nothing but contempt and cruelty, when you never did anything to deserve it. And that, back there? That wasn’t even about you.
I was upset about something that had nothing to do with you at all, but I took it out on you anyway, because I knew you’d let me. Because I am a selfish piece of shit!”
Balling their hands into fists, they pressed them to their head as an unhinged laugh escaped them.
“Yet, here you are, apologizing to me? Are you serious? If anything, I should be the one apologizing. I should be the one begging for your forgiveness. And gods help you, if you actually give it to me.”
They advanced on him, and this time, when he retreated, it really was because he was a little afraid of them.
His back met the railing as Cya came to a stop with barely a foot of space between them.
Gripping the railing with both hands to steady his balance, he leaned back precariously as they pointed a finger in his face.
“You should be furious with me. You should be shouting and berating me for all the bullshit I just put you through. Not apologizing when you did nothing wrong.” Their tail wrapped around his leg to anchor him as they poked him in the chest, just like they had outside the STEM building.
“Stand up for yourself, Dex! Stop letting me walk all over you. Stop letting me yell at you.”
At the next jab of their finger, Dex growled and captured their hand, squeezing their wrist. “Stop poking me.”
“And what if I don’t?” they challenged, so close now he felt their breath fan over his mouth.
Heat washed over him, and he couldn’t tell if it was anger or annoyance or... something else entirely. “If you don’t, I’ll… Well, I’ll...”
“You’ll what,” they prompted.
“I’ll get mad?” he said, or maybe he asked. He was confused and, for some reason, kind of turned on.
“Yes!” They grabbed him by the shirt and shook him slightly. “You should be mad.”
Batting their hands away, he side-stepped to escape them. “Would you stop manhandling me? It’s not nice.”
“You’re right. It’s not nice. I’m not nice.” They made a circling motion with their hands. “Keep going.”
“You… uh, you’re mean,” he said, and they nodded in encouragement. “And you make everything really difficult, even when it doesn’t have to be.”
“I do make things difficult,” they agreed.
“And you treat me really bad sometimes, which isn’t fair because I’m always nice to you.”
“Yes, I do that too.”
“And…” He wracked his brain for a moment. “You’re inconsistent. One second, you’re kinda cool, and the next, you’re cold and angry. And you make it out like it’s my fault, like I did something wrong when I didn’t, and it’s really frustrating!”
“I imagine it is,” they commiserated, but he was getting himself too worked up now to appreciate the consolation.
“You’re stuck-up, and you’re snobby, and I don’t mean to be sexist, but sometimes, you can be a real bitch.”
They nodded emphatically. “The biggest bitch.”
“And you confuse me with all your mixed signals.” He walked them backward until they were the one pressed to the railing.
“You tell me that we aren’t friends, but then you hang out with me and spend time with my sister and let her teach you HSL and fix the lift in my building. Like, seriously, Cya, who does that?”
“Me. I do that. I’m very contrary.”
“Yeah, ’cause, like, you come to the movies with me, and you eat my doka puffs, and you drink half my slushie, even after I offered to buy you one, but you refused!”
“Well, I didn’t want one until you made me try yours, then I changed my mind, so that wasn’t really my fault,” they mumbled.
“It was your fault,” he bellowed. “You could have gone back to get your own, but you didn’t.”
Cya scowled. “I would have missed some of the movie. How’s that fair?”
“No!” He pointed a finger in their face, this time. “What’s not fair is that you tell me to stand up for myself and get mad at you, but when I do, you still try to turn it back on me. Because you’re a spoiled little rich kid who can’t ever take accountability for anything.”
“I know,” they said quietly.
“And I get your life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but we all have hard lives.
But, newsflash, most of us don’t have the privilege of wealth and status on our side like you do.
Yet, you still find the audacity to make everyone around you miserable, because if you have to be miserable, gods forbid any of us actually be allowed to be happy. ”
Their breath hitched. “I know.”
“And you wanna know the real kicker? You could be fun. You could be cool and awesome and have lots of friends because, in the rare moments you stop thinking about yourself, you’re actually a decent person.
” Dex closed his fingers around the railing on either side of them, boxing them in, and they sank lower on their tail, head bowed.
“But that requires vulnerability, and that’s just too big an ask for a coward like you, isn’t it?
So yeah, Cya, maybe that does make you a selfish piece of shit. ”
“I know,” Cya whispered, and something wet dripped onto Dex’s foot where it flanked their tail.
“And—wait, what?”
Chest heaving with emotion, Dex blinked away the anger he’d never known was bottled inside him and scrutinized the cowering Sypent.
Head down, shoulders hunched, they hugged themself loosely, body lost to Dex’s hoodie.
They were sniffling again, and something was dripping off their chin and pinging against the metal floor like raindrops.
He inhaled, and he smelled salt and sour sadness and…
“Cy?” he asked, remorse crashing over him as they choked on a sob. “No, no, no, that wasn’t—this isn’t what I wanted. Please, don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” they lied, voice breaking.
“Yes, you are, and it’s my fault. I thought you wanted me to—I mean, you told me to yell at you, but I didn’t—I never…” Carefully, so carefully, he cradled their face between his palms. “I take back everything I said, okay? I’m sorry.”
They tried to hide their face, but he added gentle pressure until they were looking at him, cheeks streaked with tears. Even crying, they were beautiful. How was that even possible?
“I didn’t mean it,” he said, and they offered him a sad, resigned smile.
“But you did, because it’s true. I am all those things.”
And oh, how those words twined around his heart and squeezed. “But it’s not all you are. You contain multiples, remember?”
An indistinguishable sound scraped their throat. “Multitudes.”
“That too,” he agreed, and they choked on a laugh. Then they burst into tears, and he didn’t know what to do.
After several long seconds of indecision, Dex did the only thing he could think of. He drew Cya in until their head nestled under his chin. He cupped the back of their neck, fingers tangling in their soft hair. Slowly, he wrapped his other arm around their shoulders and held them.
They didn’t hug him back. Cya’s arms remained curled between their torsos, but he felt the soft tug of their fingers knotting in his t-shirt. They trembled, but he didn’t think it was from the cold.
“What are you doing, Dex?” they asked between stuttered inhales.
“I’m hugging you.”
“Why?”
“Because—” His own breach caught, and he swallowed thickly as he nuzzled the side of their head and breathed in their herby shampoo and incense. “Because I don’t know how else to fix this. Is that okay?”
It took Cya almost thirty seconds to respond, and, worried he’d once again ignored a boundary, he loosened his grip on the back of their head. Before he could release them entirely, they pressed into his body the barest millimeter, a near indiscernible shift of pressure, but he felt it.
“Okay,” they whispered so quietly he almost missed it.
“Okay,” he echoed, slipping his fingers through their hair again.
He lost track of how long they stood like that. Cya cried themself empty, though he wouldn’t have known it, if not for the growing moisture in his fur. They were so quiet. Even their jagged breaths were muffled against their fists.
He’d witnessed many tears in his life, but never like this. Cya’s sorrow was silent, like even this vulnerability had to be tightly contained. Or maybe they were just accustomed to suffering alone.
Well, they weren’t alone right now, so Dex tightened his hold on the Sypent as they soaked the fur of his neck with a sorrow he didn’t fully understand. He didn’t speak, and neither did they. But he didn’t leave, and he didn’t let them go.
For now, maybe that was enough.