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He is yours.
He is completely utterly unashamedly yours.
You gaze idly at the blond hair swirling at the back of his nape during class and think that he is yours.
You watch him laugh with his other friends when he's walking over at lunch and think that he is yours.
You let him rest his head on your shoulder when he's tired in free periods and know that he is yours.
Everyone knows you are the ultimate team, a duo, inseparable. John and Dave. JohnandDave.
On those painfully cold mornings, where the temperature drops and winter puts her cruel icy barbs in the wind, he waits at the station for you on your train. He's always there, ironic knitted hat over ironic shades - your shades, your hat, yours - idly playing with his phone as a ploy, to convince people he isn't waiting for you, isn't bound there by his own loyalty. He's there of his own free volition, he likes the way his breath fogs up, he's too early for school and has nothing better to do - a million and two excuses ready and waiting when you know he is yours.
And always, a tiny, unobtrusive smile made sweeter by its rarity. He clamps it down as soon as he remembers he mustn't show weakness in front of you. He's always trying to impress you with his stoical poker face. Just stood for 3 minutes in minus 6 degrees celsius but it don't mean a thing, babe, he would drawl and you would giggle and roll your eyes and secretly gloat because to him, it doesn't mean a thing. He would wait for three years, not just three minutes. You're absolutely certain.
Familiar sight, pulling into the station - frosted trees now burdened with the cold of winter, your own blue scarf wrapped tightly like it can lock in the warmth and keep it yours - Dave, of course, leaning against the railings.
Except not.
He brought his camera (maybe I should bring my camera and do some unironic winter shots in this half light, would that be weird John, would that be ok) and as well as capturing the strange pale sky, he's captured the attention of a passer by.
They're talking.
She's pretty, wears red glasses, is making you uncomfortable. She looks blindly at you as you walk up to Dave, and grins like a shark with teeth like knives.
It was nice talking coolkid, she laughs, before getting on the train through the space you left.
Dave doesn't talk about her, which you think is strange, because he tells you everything. He tells you everything if you ask him to and suddenly he won't.
Who was she, Dave. Was she interesting. Do you like her.
He just smirks slightly and you're relieved, because whoever they are, they still haven't captured his real smile. It's still yours.
She keeps appearing, keeps intruding, always at his side before you can get out the train, always melting into the crowd when you approach. She leaves Dave defensive and pushy and buzzed and no, no you're not envious of how easily she wormed herself under Dave's skin.
She just should have asked permission.
And then you catch the train and he isn't waiting at all. He isn't there and you wait for three, four minutes, before he texts you
getting coffee with tz meet you at school
and you just look around you helplessly because he should be here. She stole him.
Bros, he says, we are the best of bros, we are the dynamic duo, we are Starsky and Hutch and Morecambe and Wise and Luke and Han Solo, and I'm the eye candy and you're the comic relief. We're destined to be the broiest of bros. Abroham Lincoln and Broseph Stalin.
I'm pretty sure Abraham Lincoln and Joseph Stalin weren't even anywhere near the same timezone.
Shut up John, I'm making a point.
He looks up from his position, his head on your lap, and you poke his shades childishly.
We're star crossed bros. We're the Blues Brothers. Jade's our get away driver, Rose is our corrupt authority official and Terezi is the femme fatale.
You nearly push him off your lap, bitterness tainting the soft tickle of his hair beneath your fingers.
I don't like Terezi.
C'mon dude why?
You spend all your time with her.
Yeah but that's different. She's cool but she isn't my best bro. My best friend.
Your girlfriend?
No man, but he smiles and looks away and avoids your gaze. Nah. Nothing like that.
Something in your throat squirms.
Nah. Nothing like that.
You don't believe him.
You walk in on them kissing. You turn a corner and there they are.
Everything about you rises up and chants mine, mine, mine and something dark and horrible is stirring inside you, awakening, and you just want to slap her and own him and teach him he is yours and you want him, you want him and that heartless bitch can't even compete.
You smile, and it's a little sickly but no one notices.
Haha oh my god guys get a room.
And then you run before you do something stupid.
You want him.
You're in the bathroom stall sat on the closed toilet lid staring at your own hands because you want him and all of him and forever.
You're aware you're probably a bag of hormones and anger but there's something else, isn't there, once you look past the growing and the changing.
There's something constant that is suddenly missing.
You hear the bathroom door open and someone walks in.
John? Y'all up and ran away.
I'm fine.
Yeah? Wanna come get a sandwich with us?
No.
What?
I mean, haha no it's fine. I've got to. Do some work in the library so you go ahead.
Sure, whatever. Mr Huge-Fucking-Nerd.
Just go.
He leaves, interpreting the last statement as playful ribbing. You sit for a while longer.
Dave is no longer yours. He walks into school hand in hand with Terezi. He waits for your train only when he can be bothered, only when he isn't offered something better. He no longer sits so easily in your lap, or lets you mess with his hair, and you think it's because now he's got someone who's actually supposed to do that he feels uncomfortable when you do it. He still talks at you for hours, and he still calls you his ultimate bro.
But there are parts of him now that are closed off to you.
You no longer have his smile. She has that now.
You don't have the stupid doodles and the in-jokes. You're left to decipher what they create between them.
You sit with Rose and Jade and you all notice how little he comes to join you now.
He sits in the corner with her and her friends and you sit in a corner with you and your friends and it's a boxing match, but not between you and him, it's you and the monster inside you.
The monster roars. It hungers and strains, trying to break through your husk and into the world, where it can have and hold, and tear and destroy, and own.
You raise your own fists. It's over. I lost him.
She has him now.
The monster keens, she has him, she stole him, she keeps him in a glass fortress and traps him with shards and swords -
except she doesn't, and you know it.
She could trap him with knives and edges but doesn't.
He's free to leave but he doesn't.
He left me.
Dave never waits anymore.
He rarely texts you.
It's not really all on his part though, since you basically cut off all communication with him.
It was a selfish thing to do. You figured if you didn't contact him at all the monster inside you would eventually fade, like a burn mark or a bruise.
Or maybe a cut.
You stumble across an old conversation in your text logs, and start smiling stupidly.
You fondly look through a few photographs he'd given you and laugh at the candid snapshots of you making faces.
There's one he took from an angle, meant to be an ironic selfie of the both of you. Something inside you clicks and settles when you see that instead of making duck faces, you'd ended up just smiling at each other, and the look in your eyes is heartbreaking now.
Heartbreaking, you think. Funny word, isn't it, for two bros.
Maybe he was never yours.
Maybe you were his.
You find out where his bus drops him off and come in early to wait for him, giving him an easy smile when he sees you.
He asks if you wanna come meet Terezi with him since he was already headed that way, and you say sure.
He looks surprised and a little suspicious, and it's not his fault since you started ignoring him first.
You say, you know we haven't hung out in a while, and I still haven't really met Terezi.
He nods, but still looks at you as though trying to figure out what the trick is.
You just give him another smile. Apologetic this time.
It still hurts when she runs up and grabs his hand, but he looks so happy you can't really dwell on it.
You say hi, awkwardly, nervously. She stares at you, and then compliments your scarf.
You ask her how she can see it if she's blind.
She pretends to be offended, Dave's sniggering the only clue she's teasing you.
You pretend to be offended by her taking offense.
Dave interrupts with a meaningful look at his watch, and you walk to school in an unholy gaggle of cackling and snickering, and you realise Terezi is just a girl, not a monster, who's pretty funny and infinitely disconcerting.
This is the happiest you've felt in weeks, even though it's a skewed and imperfect happiness, bittersweet as the relieved smile Dave shoots you every now and again. The dark thing inside you has changed into something more passive, something easier and sadder. You aren't going to try and take him back, and you won't try to own him.
You're happy he's happy.
You're heartbroken he's happy.
Then one day, they do what all teenage couples do and split.
He comes to you, in the library, and doesn't say a word - just picks up a book and sits beside you.
His poker face is painfully blank.
You give him a comforting, tentative shoulder hug before sitting back in silence and continuing with your books together.
It feels like years pass like this, in silence. In reality, it's months. You talk and you talk to each other but neither of you really say anything, and it's fine.
You can hear dim echoes of the monster you left behind screaming for blood and revenge and Dave, but it's so much easier to ignore it now you're back to being friends.
You are his.
You are completely utterly unashamedly his.
You gaze idly at the blond hair swirling at the back of his nape during class and think that you are his.
You watch him laugh at something you say at lunch and think that you are his.
You long to let him rest his head on your shoulder when he's tired in free periods and he doesn't know that you are his.
It's a hot, languid summer day and everything seems stretched out and melting, and you tell him
that you are his.
He doesn't respond at first and you say you're fine with being as you are, friends, bros, bffs.
Say you're fine with not forcing the issue. He can ditch you if he likes.
He still doesn't respond and you smile sadly and promise to leave him alone.
It's one of those beautifully warm mornings, where the sun has risen just far enough to take the chill of the night away, but it isn't yet uncomfortably hot and sultry, and he's waiting for you on the platform as your train pulls in. He idly plays with his phone.
He's there of his own volition, he doesn't bother to make an excuse.
He says he likes you. He says he's nervous.
You grin and say you are too, carefully holding your hand out for him to take.
If he wants to.
He grabs it and says it reminds him of old times, and you both laugh and you both grimace and you're just too happy, because you don't even know who is who's or what you are and it doesn't matter because you like each other and you're John and Dave and this is how things are supposed to be.
You walk to school holding hands.