au ;; dear travis valkrum
i havent written anything for my own damn au yet so here it is
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This room.. sucks.
I'm not really surprised, I think anyone who's got about as much knowledge on Gene as me could guess that his room looks like a tornado came through.
Apparently, it's pretty bad to more than just me, because the look of disgust on his brother's face right now is pretty clear-cut.
Maybe it isn't only towards the room.
"..You know, he never cleaned up in here." Dante is talking now, which is perfect, because that means I have to make up more stuff and then watch him be happy about it when it's not true at all.
He points to a sock just barely hanging on against a bedpost. "This probably hasn't been washed in years."
That is the nastiest thing I've heard in my entire life. I feel like I have to go take a shower, just from being in here.
"Your-.. um, your mom, she doesn't.. make him clean his room?" That definitely wasn't the right thing to say, because now he won't look at me.
"..No. She never made him do anything." He rolls his eyes, "..ever."
"Oh."
It goes silent after that, and the atmosphere is way too heavy. Dante's just looking around his brother's room, a constant reminder that I shouldn't be here, that I've never seen the inside of this house before recent events.
That I'm a stranger.
But I don't have to be.
"..Hey, um.. Dante," His head whips up immediately, which definitely helps me to not feel sick, his eyes are on me and I can't form words right.
"He talked, um, about you." That is the worst thing I could've possibly said to him, but something in his expression softens for a second before he turns back around.
"Probably about how annoying I am." He's digging through drawers, and I want to tell him that no, he couldn't ever be annoying in a million years, and every word that comes out of his mouth is just as important as the others.
Instead, I tell him: "No, um.. he thought you were cool."
That gets his attention again, and now I have to grasp at straws to find something else to say, something to make him happy, or even just enough to make him smile.
"Yeah..! When-.. when we would hang out here, Gene, um.. Sometimes he talked about you, and.." Dante seems to buy it, because now he's listening intently.
"He just thought.. that you were a really cool brother, and.. um.. wanted to spend more time with you."
It works. It actually fucking works, he's looking at me with a completely indescribable emotion beyond intrigued, or curious, or maybe desperate, I don't know.
"That.. doesn't sound like him at all."
"Well, he, um.. he didn't know if it was.. weird to tell you stuff like that." The words fall out of my mouth before I think of them, and I mentally pat myself on the back. Just work with what you love about him.
"I guess." Dante sighs, though it's obvious he's trying to stay quiet and not show me. He's gently flipping through pages of one of those DIY books everybody was obsessed with when we were all in elementary.
"Gene hated me." he finally says, slamming the book shut and tossing it back into its drawer. "I don't even know why I'm in here."
"Well he, um.. he didn't hate you." Immediately after I say it, I regret it, because how am I supposed to prove something wrong that I didn't even know?
