Luck wasn't really in the cards when it came to a ghoul like Dewdrop. He was, by definition, damaged goods. The appeal of a partner who could just relax and live their life to its fullest was the temptation for anyone in their right mind. Who wanted a partner who constantly tried to find ways to push them away?

He didn't, with that mindset, allow himself to linger long on the idea of anything like crushes. People just didn't catch his eye. If he did, he preferred to keep them as friends, firmly at arms length, with minimal touching and sappy stuff. He was the guy the other ghouls went to if they needed something to burn or to cause some more destructive mischief. He didn't do cuddles and fluff. Well, not often, at least.

You had fucked up that whole mentality by coming along. You'd helped him out with some chores Dewdrop had been struggling with - fuck Phil for ditching the shortest fire ghoul with lamp lighting duty when he couldn't even reach half of them - and he'd been stuck in his head ever since.

That didn't mean that his behaviour switched up though. No, if anything, it caused the opposite. He was short tempered, even more so than usual, frequently snapping at you or wearing that perpetual scowl that made his crows feet darken beside his eyes.

He pushed you away, and like with everyone, it worked. Why would you keep hanging around with a guy that made it seem like he disliked you all the time? It was common sense not to. There was no way in hell what he made you feel any type of appreciated. Dewdrop agonised over the fact that he knew that fact in himself, and still didn't do anything to fix it. If he even threw in the occasional 'thank you', maybe you wouldn't have felt the need to go and hang out with others.

And get closer with others.

Dewdrop had been sat on the kitchen worktop, watching Mountain cook breakfast, a silent observer. The others were chattering away, and while he listened, he wasn't enough of a morning person to have anything to concentrate. Especially when he caught on to that morning's topic. You. And the guy you were seeing. Like, actually seeing. Not just fucking around with.

He couldn't tell if the shiver that ran through him was the morning breeze from the open kitchen window or a sickly mixture of disgust and despair, but his sudden lack of appetite solved the question for him pretty quickly.