Streetlights

“John,” Jade says at breakfast the next morning. John looks up at his cousin, at her earnest face.

“Yeah?” he says, surprised.

“Are you happy now?” John frowns, opening his mouth to say when was I not happy, I’ve always been happy before snapping it shut again. Because he hasn’t always been happy, but since when has Jade picked up on that?

“What do you mean?” John asks carefully. Jade is clearly sharper than she looks.

“You’ve never been happy,” Jade says sadly, but almost casually. “You never used to smile. I never used to see you laugh. You’d lock yourself away from everyone, only come down for food, never speak to us.” John frowns again, trying to remember. Is that true? It sounds relatively plausible; that’s how he used to feel, anyway. Maybe he wasn’t as good at disguising it as he thought.

“And?” he says. It’s making him slightly uncomfortable that his cousin seems to know him better than he does.

“And now you smile. You laugh. You talk to us at dinner, watch movies with me, go out…you’re happier, John.”

“Yeah,” John says slowly, as his mind flits from image to image – his old school, his old bullies, his parents, to Tavros, Sollux, Rufioh, Equius, Rose, Dave. “Yeah, I guess I am.” And it’s a weird feeling, realising that he’s actually happy, actually content with life, that there’s something to live for now.

“I guess you found a reason to get up in the mornings,” Jade says nonchalantly, but her eyes are shrewd. She’s watching John’s every move, calculating, observing, working out what John’s thinking. She’d be a brilliant master criminal.

“Yeah,” John says. “I guess I did.”
-
He’s still thinking about that conversation on his way to school, causing him to forget that he has to jump over a fence and leading him to try and run straight into it. He’s got a huge bruise on his forehead that everyone’s going to make fun of, but he can’t even find it in him to be disgruntled about that. Because he’s fucking happy.

“Hey,” Sollux says when he walks over to them. “You look like a cat that got the tongue.”

“No,” Equius says patiently. “You mean cat that got the cream.” Sollux frowns.

“Do I?” he says. “Probably.” Tavros grins and whips his phone out, typing something out.

“Aw, fuck,” Sollux says, realising what Tavros; doing. “Don’t add that one.”

“What?” John asks, confused.

“Sollux messes up a lot of common phrases,” Tavros explains. “So we started a list called ‘Sollux can’t talk good’.” Sollux groans and buries his head in his hands.

“Come on, tell him some,” Rufioh says with a grin in Sollux’s direction.

“Let’s kill birds with stones,” Tavros says.

“My favourite,” Equius giggles.

“I’ll be there in two licks of a lamb’s tail?” Tavros says, turning to look at Sollux, and Sollux shakes his head, making a vague noise of discontent. Rufioh pulls a face.

“Gross,” he says. “Never looking at your internet history.” Sollux glowers at him.

“What’s up with that all about?” Tavros says with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s understandable, cut me some slack,” Sollux says.

“To some pregnant, girl, he said; ‘Who’s got the baby in the oven?’” Tavros continues, completely ignoring Sollux’s comment.

“Never let him become a father,” Equius says seriously to Tavros. “I will adopt any child he has, seriously.”

“Like you’d be any better,” Rufioh says. Equius pouts.

“I’d be a great father,” he says sulkily, and Rose laughs.

“I don’t think any of us would be good parents,” she points out. “We get ridiculously drunk every weekend.” Everyone has to grudgingly concede there, because it’s a fair point.

“I bet Dave would be a good father,” Tavros says with a smirk, shooting a look at John. John tries to hide his blush but to no avail; it’s harder when he has five pairs of eyes staring at him, twinkling with humour.

“Fuck you all,” John mumbles, bringing his legs up to his chest and burying his burning face in his knees.

“Aw, John’s got a crush!” Rufioh sing-songs.

“Dude, they’re practically an item,” John hears Equius say. “Are you dumb, or what? ‘Crush’ hardly covers it.”

“It’s better than singing ‘John’s got an almost-boyfriend-who-is-probably-a-psychopath-but-John-loves-him-anyway!”

“Yeah, that doesn’t quite have the same ring,” Tavros says thoughtfully. “Dave’s alright, though.” Sollux doesn’t say anything, and John peeks over his knees to see him staring awkwardly at the ground, quietly. He still hasn’t told Tavros.

“Sol, can we talk?” he says, and Sollux looks at him, a is this about Dave look. John nods imperceptibly, and Sollux sighs, nodding as he gets to his feet and following John, who’s already halfway to the building, heading towards the alleyway Sollux had taken him to last time.

“So?” Sollux asks, when they reach the alleyway and John spins around. “What about Dave?”

“Why haven’t you told Tavros yet?” John asks. It’s not really his place to ask - especially after how he reacted to Dave telling him about Sollux- but he still feels Tavros deserves to know. At any rate, Tavros deserves to know before they progress any further with their relationship; it’s hardly fair otherwise.

“Because I don’t really need to,” Sollux says, but he’s not looking John in the eye. Of course, Sollux doesn’t really need to – Dave was before Tavros, they started dating before Tavros even moved into Derse – but that doesn’t mean Tavros won’t need to know. It’s a big part of Sollux's past.

“He won’t be mad,” John says with a sigh. “It’s Tavros. He can’t be mad at you for anything. He loves you too much.” Sollux snorts a little, but says nothing, still not looking at John. “Look,” John says. “I only reacted the way I did because Dave had lied. You haven’t lied to Tavros about anything; this was before Tavros.”

“What was before Tavros?” a voice behind Sollux says, and both Sollux and John jump and curse.

“Shit, Tavros,” John breathes, trying to calm his racing heart down.

“Mierda, Tavros,” Sollux practically shrieks, stumbling backwards as he clutches his hand to his chest.

“What’s going on?” Tavros demands, choosing to ignore their reactions. “What was before my time, Sol? What’s Dave lied about?” Sollux throws John a pleading glance – this is your fucking fault, man, sort it out – but John shakes his head. Sollux has to tell Tavros sooner or later, anyway – better he find out now than find out later, meaning Sollux would have to lie right now too.

“Er,” Sollux says, and Tavros stands there waiting expectantly.

“What, Sollux?” he says patiently, in a half-cold way that makes Sollux shrink away a little. “Spit it out.”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Sollux sighs, resigning himself to telling Tavros. “And you’re going to hate me for it.”

“I won’t,” Tavros promises, but the icy tone is still there.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” John says, feeling like he’s intruding, but as he makes to walk away Sollux catches his wrist.

“No,” he says. “You’re as much a part of this as I am.” John opens his mouth to protest – well, he’s not really, is he? – but a look from Sollux makes him think twice, and he shuts it again.

“You know how I always used to go to the bridge?” Sollux starts, and Tavros nods slowly, suspiciously.

“What’s this got to do with Dave?” he says.

“Wait,” John tells him, and Tavros shuts up.

“I was…well. I was…dating Dave. For a year, give or take. I saved his life. He saved mine. We were…happy, I guess. But then things turned sour. He started going back into his shell, back into denial, saying he wasn’t gay – which we now know for sure he is; thanks John – and I started falling for you. We kept up the pretence for a while, but then it just got too much. We broke up. We didn’t talk for about a year and a half, not until this summer, when I found him by the bridge again. He apologised, in a roundabout way, and we made up. We’ve been secret friends ever since – he doesn’t want Cronus and Eridan to know we’re friends - or the rest of the school, since it would ruin his reputation – and I didn’t want you guys to know, because you’d have questioned me on everything and I thought it would ruin things. But there is literally nothing going on between us anymore – that was all finished two years ago – and he’s been helping me for the past few months, just like I’ve been helping him,” he finishes, biting his lip anxiously whilst scrutinising Tavros’s reaction.

“You dated Dave,” Tavros says slowly. “Dave Strider. David Elizabeth Strider. The Dave Strider who bullied us - bullied you – for years. The Dave Strider who is in love with John.”

“Yeah,” Sollux says in a small voice. “I-I’m sorry, I mean, I don’t-“

“No,” Tavros says. “You’re not.”

And he walks off without another word, leaving a lost Sollux staring after him and a surprised John in his wake.
-
“Hey,” Dave says, surprised, when John knocks on his door later that evening. Sollux hadn’t spoken to anyone for the rest of the day – he was pretty cut up about the whole Tavros thing. Seriously cut up.

“Hey,” John says tiredly. “Do you have a minute?” Dave casts a furtive glance back into his house and nods, stepping outside into the cool air.

“What’s up?” he says. “You okay?” John sighs, raking a hand through his hair.

“Sollux told Tavros today,” he says. “About you and him.” Dave draws in a sharp breath.

“I take it it didn’t go down well?” he says, and John shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He hasn’t…I don’t know. He acted the same for the rest of the day, but Sollux didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t look at anyone, just sat there in silence.” Dave sighs, putting a comforting hand on John’s forearm.

“Look,” he says. “I’ll talk to Sol. I’m sure he’ll be fine. You talk to Tavros.”

“Yeah, about that,” John says. “I don’t really think Tavros wants to talk to me either. I was there when Sollux told him, and it was kind of my fault it came out…” he trails off. Fuck. He should have let Sollux handle it himself.

“Hey, don’t blame yourself,” Dave says gently, pulling John into a hug. John drops his head on Dave’s shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut as he tries not to cry. Something about the protective way Dave’s arms are wrapped around him, the warmth of his chest and the rhythmic beating of his heart makes John want to sob into Dave’s shoulder, have Dave hold him forever, break and shatter and fall apart in Dave’s arms. “We should have been frank with you. I reckon Tavros' most mad about Sollux sneaking around being friends with me; after all, what guarantee does he have that I’m not trying to fuck him?”

“Am I not enough of a guarantee?” John jokes, and Dave huffs out a laugh.

“To me, yes. To him? No.” John sighs, hooking his arms around Dave’s neck and pulling himself as close to Dave as he can, craving the familiarity and warmth and comfort and fucking emotion that he’s feeling right now.

“He should trust Sollux,” John remarks. “What kind of a relationship is one that has no trust? A relationship needs trust, and two-way trust at that. Otherwise there’s no basis for a relationship at all.”

“Do you trust me?” Dave asks. John thinks about it for a moment – he shouldn’t trust Dave, has absolutely no fucking reason to trust Dave, but for some reason he does. For some reason, he finds himself able to put his life into Dave’s hands and know Dave would do the right thing, the good thing, the best thing for John.

“Yeah,” John says in wonder. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then we’re all good,” Dave murmurs. “Because I trust you too.”

Jade’s earlier words echo in his mind.

Are you happy now?

Yeah. Yeah, he is.