Super Special Training (Asher)

Isaac's brow furrowed. Now that the animosity between the two had hit open air, it seemed Asher was more comfortable than ever. In the past, whenever things got to this point, Isaac tried to dial it back. However, now Asher had that same insufferably smarmy tone he wore in the woods. The very same tone that made Isaac not even give a crap what Asher thought. The same tone that made him remember this was his house, and he could easily just tell Asher to get the hell out.

But he couldn't, could he? Elliot would be crushed, for starters. And it also wouldn't be a satisfying end. It'd just be more tension at work. More tension at school. Hell, even more tension in the Digital World. Isaac knew without closure, his life was going to be far more stressful thanks to Asher's mere presence in it. It didn't help that unlike Asher, he was far less adept at wearing masks. He could bury with the best of them, but when he had a problem with somebody it was very hard to not have it all come flooding out. The fact that he was keeping his discipline this strongly with Asher was huge.

"Well, if you're not going to treat him with a shred of respect, I'd rather you not treat him with anything at all," Isaac responded, knuckles turning white as they clutched to the edge of his bed. "But I couldn't break his heart like that. I don't know what kind of stuff you tell him, but he thinks too much of you for that.

So what am I gonna do with my problem? I'm just gonna have to put up with it, aren't I? It's at school. It's at work. It's in my own house." There was a bitter resignation in Isaac's voice, the boy laying back against the bed. Asher was way too hard to get rid of as a minor problem. As a major one? This was going to be impossible.

"I guess I just have to be like you, and keep ignoring it all in public."

Isaac could hear the hesitation in Asher's voice. Had that been the first thing he said to leave any impact so far? Maybe the older teen did have a legitimate soft spot for Elliot, after all. Having finally seen a weakness, or at least the foundations of one, Isaac wanted so badly to keep pushing. He wanted to finally leave some mark on Asher that would stick, instead of more comments that would be way too easy to brush off. But he couldn't have the heart to use Elliot as a bludgeon like that. The thought, while briefly satisfying, was also hypocritical. Elliot was a person. And he could be friends with whoever he wanted. Even someone like Asher? Isaac wasn't quite sure.

"In private? Depends." Isaac's words could've honestly meant anything. "But I highly doubt either of us will be stuck in this sort of situation again. Until then, we may as well enjoy our time together while it lasts," he continued. The tone of his voice was overly sweet and overly fake. The gluten-free of vocal tones.

Of course, that changed the fact that Isaac wasn't even sure what he wanted to do with Asher. Did he want to kick him out of the house? Deck him? Try and build bridges again, only for them to decay faster than he could snap his fingers? Right now, decking him seemed like it was winning his mental checklist by a country mile, but he knew the house was no place for that kind of thing. Unless Asher wanted to start something first, for now his words were just circling around like buzzards flying overhead.

"Oh, I wouldn't have to worry, though," Isaac added. "There's nobody I want to be like less than you."

Damnit! There it is again! How can Isaac hate a person that's too busy hating themselves? He wanted to reach out and sympathize again, but he also wanted to drive the wedge deeper into the wound and let Asher know just how loathsome he could be sometimes. The two thoughts swirled together and ended up neutralizing in an overall half-hearted fashion, with Isaac unable to be satiated by revenge or by helping. He wrapped his arms around a pillow, clutching it so tight it almost looked like it would burst.

"Seriously. Quit doing that," he warned, worried he'd find himself once more unable to hate Asher. "We get the point. There's nothing to enjoy about either goddamn one of us. You don't need to go rubbing it in." It sounded like Isaac wasn't exactly a paragon of self-love right now, either. Nevertheless, unlike Asher, he was keeping his cards held a little closer to his chest on that regard.

He looked to the door, as if hoping Elliot would come in soon and save them from this awkwardness. He wasn't. Sighing, Isaac leaned back once again, the back of his head lightly bumping into the wall as he did so.

"Y'know, it's been open all this time," Isaac pointed out. "You could've walked whenever you wanted." Then again, this was still a game, wasn't it? Even as the players had become their roles, they never said the jig was up. For all Isaac knew, the first one to leave that door basically admitted defeat. Asher didn't even have to be that prideful. He'd just have to want to leave Isaac deprived of the satisfaction.

Wait. Was Asher just about to step back and start . . . comforting him? After all this time spent not even wanting to look him in the eye, and freaking now he starts saying something? He retracted it back, of course, but the thought still lingered. Briefly, Isaac wondered how the two even ended up in this situation. Did they even want to hate each other? It seemed all too likely that they both had the same idea, each trying to push the other out of the way so they wouldn't have to keep getting hung up on all of their annoyances. Not even the annoyances from what they didn't like about each other, but from the annoyances about what they did. For whatever reason, they had both decided friendship just couldn't be on the table.

Yet hate couldn't be either, could it?

Isaac sat up a little, sighing. "Your heart's not in this anymore either, is it?" he asked, wondering if his train of thought was accurate. After all, as much as he hated to admit it, he and Asher seemed similar in all sorts of ways. Perhaps this was just another one of the many, albeit an especially infuriating variety. How could you hate someone who you really didn't want to hate in the first place?

Once more, Isaac cast a look to the door. Seriously? Elliot still wasn't here? T"I swear to god, did he fall in or something," he muttered under his breath. He checked his phone. No texts, either. And it wasn't like mom had gotten home or anything. What in the world could possibly be keeping this boy for so long?

"Ugh, forget it." Getting Asher to acknowledge his slip-up would be like pulling teeth, and frankly Isaac was not in a mood to push the subject right now. Maybe when Asher was in a more pliable mood, he'd see if he could finally leverage some information on that front. Until then, it was back to sulking and pouting.

Or, rather, back to correcting misinformation. "Elliot? Sleep? Oh, heck no," Isaac said in response. "Its usually hours more of him ghosting around, complaining he's tired but never actually falling asleep. Besides, he left his good pillow behind. I don't think its physically possible for him to sleep without that thing." By now the Good Pillow was almost more a comfort object than it was an actual pillow, but either way it was absolutely essential for Elliot to doze off. "And I'm sure if something bad happened he'd call. After all, he never goes without his phone for too long."

Maybe either of the two brothers would notice that the door was almost conspicuously ajar, though. At no time in their conversation did it ever seem to drift closed, or be blown out by the open window currently behind them. It was almost as if something, or someone, was statically holding it in place.

Could it be? Nah, there's no way that was possible.

"So. What'd he call you over for, anyway?" Isaac asked, trying to find something to talk about now that he was too drained on the hate topic. Maybe Asher would have some luck prodding him back onto it.

"Well, that's difficult to believe. But no accounting for my bro's bad tastes," Isaac remarked. Yeeowtch, that was a comeback! "Still, I know he gets iffy about bringing people home. And especially about showing people his room. You guys had to have some sort of plan, right?" That didn't seem to gel well with how trusting Elliot was, but at least the boy had a healthy sense of boundaries. It probably helped that he was a total neat freak, though, so he didn't like showing those places off until he knew they were up to his perfectionist standards.

Wait, teacups? "Ah, jeez. Elliot worked his butt off dog-walking to get those for me," Isaac said, voice less annoyed and more worried. "He's gonna be real bummed about that one." Unlike Isaac, Elliot couldn't exactly just get a job and get set buying gifts. He was dependent on increasingly rare allowance and whatever off jobs he could help out with. Digital World presents? Oh, they could buy a ton of those. But real world dollars? Nope, Elliot was basically flying blind with those. "How'd you pull that one off, anyway?" he asked, remembering that Asher worked at a butler cafe. Hell, he managed one! How could he be that careless?

The door remained all too static, even as the wind picked up a bit. This was starting to get kinda odd.