back nextAt home, Dirt put all of his groceries away, and Salem dumped his bag out onto the kitchen table. He squatted on one of the chairs and went through his little collection, separating them into different piles. Dirt sat down with him. "What do the piles mean?" he asked, resting his head on his fists.
"When I eat it," Salem said, inspecting the packaging of a fruitcake.
"So.. how exactly did you get that money?" Dirt asked again, out of nowhere.
"I told you, it's tips from my fans!" Salem repeated cheerily.
"Fans of what?? What are they a fan of?"
"Me! My content!" Salem said with :3
"...What content, where are you posting content???" Dirt questioned, despite being pretty sure he knew the answer.
"Well pornhub mostly... I just opened an onlyfans, too! Oh em gee, you should like totally sub to my onlyfans and send in suggestions," Salem said. Dirt blushed like an embarrassed little kid.
"Why-why... why would I do that," he stuttered nervously, fighting the urge to cover his face with his hands.
"Eye dee kay, It'd be like, helpful... I always am looking for more suggestions, and money :3" Salem said.
Dirt laughed. "Ha.. Okay. Well considering I pay for most of your stuff anyway, I don't think it would make much of a difference in the amount of money I already spend on you."
"Hmmmm good point, good point... Well, do you have any suggestions?" Salem asked as he picked a snack from one of his piles and opened it up.
"What do you mean," Dirt sighed.
"You knoooow, suggestions for sexy little things you might wanna see me do!"
"Oh my god." Dirt finally did hide his face with his hands, then. "Salem," he said, muffled through his palms, "Why are you asking me? I don't even... I barely even interact with any of that stuff.."
"Ugh yeah I know... Your search history is legit soooo boring ell em ay oh.. 'two boys kissing in love' like we get it you're a repressed gay virgin..." Salem complained. "Oh, shit, I guess I can't say that anymore, huh?" Salem teased with a wink.
Before Dirt could think of a way to react to that, Sarah came into the room. "Dirt, did you get the chocolate chips?" she asked.
"Yupperoni, Sssssssaaaarah-loney," Dirt replied. Salem and Sarah both laughed at Dirt being unable to come up with good rhymes ever.
"Salem! Come here! Let's make these cookies together!" Sarah said in a very sweet voice, one she almost never used when talking to Dirt, but pretty much always used to talk to Salem. "Make sure your hands are washed!" she added.
"HELL YEAH!!!" Salem exclaimed, springing up from his seat and bounding over to the kitchen to wash his hands.
"Oh, shit you're makin' cookies?" Dirt asked, excitedly.
"We're making BABISH cookies!" Salem declared. Sarah giggled.
Dirt chuckled. "I see.." He sat at the table, aimlessly scrolling on his phone and idly thinking about what he was going to have for lunch in the back of his head. He guessed he'd have to wait until the kitchen was free, anyway, so he had plenty of time to agonize over his options.
"Okay... Salem, can you get out the butter from yesterday?" Sarah requested politely.
"Special..butter?" Dirt asked, delightfully intrigued.
"Mhmmmmm," Salem hummed, getting a little container out of the fridge, "See this? That's browned butter, kid. You're out of your fuckin' league..."
Dirt rolled his eyes, "I've seen that post before," he said.
"Aaaaand we need white sugar and brown sugar," Sarah read off of her phone, "a half cup and one and a half cups, respectively."
"Ummmm.. okay," Salem said, looking in the pantry. He stared into it, squinting at the different things, scanning up and down for what he was looking for. Sarah came over when he was taking too long.
"Here they are," she said, taking the sugars down from the shelf.
"Oh :3"
Dirt chuckled at how clueless Salem was in the kitchen. It was like he didn't know what anything was. When Sarah got out the measuring spoons that were held together by a ring, Salem's eyes got REALLY big and his ears flattened to his head. He batted at the spoons like a little toy and Sarah laughed. "Hehehe!!! Oh my god, you're too cute," she giggled, petting his head. Salem blushed and giggled as well.
And of course, when the flour came out, Salem predictably made a big flour mess everywhere. "Man this stuff is fucked up," he said, and then sneezed adorably like a kitten.
"Awwww!!!!" Dirt and Sarah both cooed. Salem huffed annoyedly and tried to brush the flour off of his (dark) shirt, and started whining when it would go away.
"It's okay, buddy, it'll come off when we wash it," Sarah assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He rubbed his cheek on her hand. "Hehe.. Come on, we gotta mix this!!"
The dough had to rest in the fridge for an hour, so Sarah went back to her room to work on her project, and Salem followed her, leaving Dirt alone. He went and lied on the couch, where he noticed his laptop open on the coffee table. Tumblr was open on the screen, but Dirt couldn't see what posts were on the dashboard from where he was laying. He sat up a little to grab the computer and rested it on his stomach as he layed back down.
It was Salem's dashboard and it was just art of like, mostly anime catboys, most of which had sexual undertones. Some of which had sexual overtones. Dirt quickly signed out of Salem's account and switched to his own, scrolling through his own dash for a while. But then.. he got curious.
He hadn't even seen what kinda shit Salem was posting on tumblr yet! He opened his direct messages and clicked on the blog Salem had messaged him through. Salem's blog theme was black and pastel pink and had a low-res image of catgirl hatsune miku for the banner, and his icon was a picture of his face in cat form where the tapetum in his eyes were glowing. The blog title was "that's pussy babe!" with the description" 21 he/him catboy. swerfs and terfs fuck off 18+" A lot of his blog was personal posts that had 0-6 notes on each of them, tokyo mew mew, and other random reblogs of posts he found funny.
What the fuck he said that online??? My personal business??? Wait, he thinks I'm ugly? :( What the fuck! Surely the crush part isn't literal. He just likes hanging out with me and sometimes pretends that he doesn't, so yeah. That's normal. But what if he does..... Omg no lol 😳 He thinks I'm UGLY??? D:
Dirt kept scrolling through Salem's blog, and the rest of it was a lot of tokyo mew mew fanart reblogs, personal posts, and some of those anime catboys that he saw on his dash, and him liveblogging his playthrough of Undertale and screaming about the cats in DeltaRune. Eventually he felt a little bit creepy for stalking Salem's blog like that, and went back to just scrolling down his dash. He did follow him, though.
Salem and Sarah came back out of the bedroom an hour later. Sarah took the bowl of cookie dough out of the fridge and set it on the counter, and Salem got out a cookie sheet, making just so much noise with all the metal cookware in the cupboard he dug in. "Okay, so now... 'Roll your cookie dough into balls and then break in half and set on the cookie sheet. This will help give the cookies a rustic look—'pfft what? Okay..." Sarah read from the recipe on her phone. "Let's make these cookies look nice and rustic, then, I guess," she said facetiously. "Don't forget to wash your hands again, Salem!" Sarah said in a way that made it sound like she was talking to a little kid who was only just learning about, like, food hygiene.
When the cookies were in the oven, Dirt sat up so Salem and Sarah could join him on the couch. "Hey," Dirt said to Salem, who sat in the middle of him and Sarah, and was crumpled over to lay on her leg, "You think I'm ugly, man?" he asked, accusatorily.
"What?!" Salem and Sarah both said, Sarah laughing a little.
"That post on your blog that you tagged like, 'omg literally me' totally implied that you think I'm ugly!" Dirt crossed his arms.
"Ummmm.... Obviously I was not even talking about you...." Salem said.
"WHAT? You specified that I quote, 'lied about being a psychopath to my date'! That's not me? You were talking about another guy that also did that?"
"Umm yeah. I have a life outside of you, you know..." Salem said, rolling his eyes. Sarah just sat there not understanding what was going on, but knowing she was amused by it.
"Why are you lying about this??" Dirt laughed.
"Ummm well I'm not... Soooo... why are you stalking me on tumblr anyways, you little creep?" Salem hissed. His face was like, super red, and it was so obvious that he was just absolutely fucking bullshitting.
"So you don't think I'm ugly, then?" Dirt asked, "You were just talking about this other guy you know that also lied about being psychotic to his date."
"Ummm... You're fine I guess? Do you want me to tell you you're pretty or something, what is this?" Salem sneered, still not really facing Dirt, just laying on Sarah, who said nothing and just tried her best to follow the conversation with wide eyes.
"So, so who is this other guy you know, huh? What's his name?"
"Ummmmm his name? His name is..... um..... Bert. Yeah. Eugh no that's such a gross name can I change it?"
"DUDE!" Dirt yelled.
"OKAY! What ever! I was talking about you!"
"So you do think I'm ugly!"
Salem groaned and rolled his eyes. "Oh my god will you like get over yourself..." he crossed his arms. "What even is beauty anyway?" Salem sat up and crossed his arms, facing Dirt. "It's like, who cares?"
"Well apparently you do, since you're calling me ugly!"
Salem sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "God, you are so annoying... You are like a little child, I swear..." he lamented. "Do you need me to stroke your fragile ego? Are you so insecure about your looks that you need my approval?" Salem said condescendingly.
"Oh my god! You're the one who started it when you implied that you see me as ugly! Now you're like turning it around as if I just made up this 'insecurity' or whatever out of no where!" Dirt yelled. Sarah, while not actually having any popcorn, gave off the intrinsic vibe of eating popcorn while watching this argument play out. "Y'know, if you think I'm so ugly, then why'd you have sex with me?"
"WHAT?" Sarah gasped. "STOP. You guys had SEX?"
"Oh. Uh.. Y-yeah..." Dirt said, completely de-escalated from just a few moments ago.
Sarah put her hand over her mouth to cover her snorting laughter. "Pfjgttft... I'm sorry... Oh my god... This situation is just literally so insane, what the fuck." She sighed. "I'm gonna check on the cookies." Sarah stood up and went into the kitchen.
"....I don't think you're ugly," Salem said quietly to Dirt once Sarah had left their vicinity. "But you are, like, really really fucking stupid..." he said, putting a hand on Dirt's knee.
Dirt rolled his eyes with an embarrassed smile. "Shut up..." he said quietly. Sarah returned from the kitchen, cookieless.
"Need a few more minutes," she said, sitting back down in her spot. "So...." Sarah scratched her head. "Um... What the fuck is up with you two?"
"What?" Salem and Dirt said simultaneously.
"Ohmygod.. Like... are you in a... relationship?? Haha oh my god..." Sarah said, laughing, "Sorry, I can't help it, I'm trying not to.."
"Nahnahanhanahnahanh," Dirt quickly said, "It was just. Well. You see. So Brian had just broken up with me, and we were both super high, and like it was just a rebound thing..." he explained. Sarah did the White Person Smile and nodded politely.
"Hm," she hummed, "I see."
"WHAT is so FUNNY, Sarah???" Salem demanded to know.
"Nothing! I just have a nervous laugh I'm so sorry oh my god.." she continued to laugh. "I just... Salem, you're like, SOOOOO My Catboy.. like... like you're my pet! I thought you felt the same about him, Dirt!"
Dirt shrugged. "I mean... he's a person, too," he said quietly.
"Yeah, no, I know! Of course!! I guess I mean... I have more.. maternal feelings towards him.. than I would for any other regular old friend. Like, I don't even feel like that about Mitt, because I didn't like, take care of her the way I did with you," Sarah explained.
"Awww :3 I am like your little catboy son?" Salem asked, nuzzling against Sarah's shoulder.
"Hehehe yeah! Something like that, I guess!" she said, scritchin' his little ears.
"I need weed," Dirt said suddenly, getting off of the couch and speedwalking to his room, shutting the door behind him, being careful that it didn't slam, and locked it. He went into his drawer and got out the lunchbox we all know and love, and opened it up, finding there were already 2 joints rolled up just chillin' in there.
The doorknob jiggled, and Dirt jumped a little. "Hey why's the door stuck??" Salem said from the other side.
Dirt sighed. "I wanna be by myself," he said.
"If you're having weed I want weed!" Salem whined. "I rolled us those joints!" he added, indignantly, immediately getting uppity from being locked out of Dirt's room for five (5) seconds. Dirt sighed. He did roll them those joints...
"Fine." Dirt stood from where he was crouched over his lower desk drawer, and unlocked the door to let Salem in. "The cookies are gonna be done soon," he reminded him. Salem ignored Dirt as he entered their room, making a beeline for the Weed Box. He got out both the joints and a lighter as Dirt went to open his window up.
"Are you mad at me?" Salem bluntly (lol) asked after finishing about half of his joint.
"What? No. Why would I be?" Dirt asked angrily, and it was reminiscent of Zuko Avatar: The Last Airbender.
"You literally just sounded so angry right now," Salem laughed.
"Why do you think I'm angry at you?" Dirt asked, trying to chill out a little with the tone.
"Ummm... like...." Salem sighed. "Ugggghhhh I HATE talking about my feelings with you..."
"What?? Why?? Dude! You can tell me anything!" Dirt said frantically.
"You are just such a scorpio..." Salem sneered.
"What's THAT supposed to mean?" Dirt shrieked.
"Oh my god..." Salem put his hands up to his temples, holding his joint between his fingers in his left hand. Dirt zeroed in on this motion, and watched the end of the joint come into SUCH close contact with Salem's hair. He didn't hear what Salem said, because he was just looking at the fire like he was a stupid bug. "Are you even listening to me?" Salem said, flicking Dirt's nose.
"WAH! Fuck! Sorry. I thought you were gonna set your hair alight," Dirt apologized.
"Alight?" Salem snorted.
"The fiery bit was all up in your hair space!"
"The cookies are ready to eat!" Sarah sang from the kitchen.
"SICK!" Salem yelled, putting out his joint and running into the kitchen. Dirt slowly got up and put his own joint out as well. He started to head out to the kitchen as well, thinking, Wait what the fuck wasn't he trying to tell me something? He doesn't like to tell me about his feelings because I'm a scorpio??? Hello????? He put his hands in his pockets like the weird awkward guy that he was and walked to the kitchen to stand over the cookies that had just been moved from the cooling rack to a plate.
Salem excitedly took a cookie and took a big bite out of it. "mmMMMMmMMmMMmMM!!!! Oh my GOODNESS GRACIOUS!!! This is sooooo yummy mmmyumyumyumyum!!!!" Salem chirped, eating up the rest of the cookie like that fucked up anime girl that can't eat a fucking chicken nugget. Oh my god.
"Do you have to do that every time you eat?" Dirt asked, monotone.
"Only when I eat something that is super duper yummylicious!" Salem replied in a weird little high-pitched voice. Sarah giggled, covering her mouth full of cookie with her hand. Dirt scoffed and rolled his eyes, grabbing a cookie from the plate and taking a bite.
"Woah, fuck...." he said, muffled from the food, "Okay... Yeah.. this fucks..." he admitted.
"THAT'S THE BABISH MAGIC, BABY!" Salem yelled, "UP TOP!" he help his hand up for a high five. Sarah enthusiastically SMACKED his hand. "FUCK yeah."
"C'mon, let's finish our weed," Dirt said, tugging lightly on Salem's sleeve as he turned to leave, cookie in hand.
"Kay!" Salem purred, following him back into his room.
"Hey what were you gonna say earlier?" Dirt asked, remembering just before the cookies, that Salem was about to like, talk about his feelings or something.
"What?"
"You implied you were going to talk about your feelings or something," Dirt clarified.
"Oh.. Ugghhmhmmgm..... I'm just.. worried... Ugh. Like... Do you regret it?" Salem said, rushing the last bit, pointedly facing away from Dirt.
"Regret what?" Dirt asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew.
"The sex!" Salem exclaimed in annoyance.
"No," Dirt answered easily, and took a bite of his cookie.
"Oh."
"Is that it?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Pfft. Well that was kind of anticlimactic," Dirt teased, "I was ready for like, a huge emotional spill, dude, I am disappointed," he joked. "Why were you worried about that?" Dirt asked as he picked up his little-more-than-half-smoked joint, having finished his cookie, and lighting it back up.
"Mmm.... I don't know, you kind of sounded like you did. When you told Sarah about it..." Salem said quietly, and then look a Large hit.
Dirt nervous-laughed. "What do you mean?"
Salem paused, and stared at his joint, then took a little hit before speaking. "You said it was just a rebound thing, or whatever, like.. Eye dee kay! What do I know about human relationships and emotions, right?" he laughed nervously.
"Salem.." Dirt put his hand on Salem's shoulder. "I do not regret having sex with you," he slurred, with a gay little smile.
Salem giggled, "Okay, gay ass..." he teased, pushing Dirt's hand off his shoulder. He scooched up against the wall and drew his knees in towards his chest as he smoked the rest of his joint. Dirt grabbed his laptop off his desk and brought it over to his bed. "What are you doing?" Salem asked curiously, craning his neck.
"I was just gonna look at tumblr..." Dirt shrugged.
"Lemme see!" Salem put his dead joint in the ashtray and sat next to Dirt, clung very close to him. "Ewwww oh em gee do you follow me?" Salem said in disgust upon seeing one of his posts on Dirt's screen.
"Yeah? Why, you don't want me to?"
"Whatever, it's fine, I guess..."
"You are so fucking weird," Dirt said, rolling his eyes.
"What? Fuck you!"
"Like, you say such... WILDLY conflicting stuff just CONSTANTLY, and I have no idea if any of it is serious or not," Dirt explained.
"What are you talking about?" Salem said snootily, as if he was being falsely accused.
"Like literally just now, you were like, all sad because you thought I didn't like having sex with you, and then you're like, 'ew you're following me on the platform i spammed your dm's on?'" Dirt's Salem impression was kind of embarrassing, to be honest.
"Ew. I don't sound like that, first of all... Second of all, irony is my coping mechanism," he said proudly.
"Thats annoying as fuck, dude," Dirt said. "How am I supposed to know if what you're saying is genuine or not? Because I've seen you be genuine, it's not all irony.."
"I don't know, figure it out? Sounds like a you problem..."
Dirt just scoffed, and kept scrolling through his dashboard with Salem close at his side, reading every post with him. Sometimes, he would be like "Wait!" when Dirt would start scrolling before Salem had finished looking at the post they were on.