Baxter x Derek
Derek being like “It’d be cool to have someone who was on my side and who liked me just because I’m me, not because they’re my family and they’re supposed to love me” and “maybe part of me is sort of hoping [...] somebody would try to do things for me, too” then Baxter being like “I can’t say what it means to be significant as a person, to be irreplaceable [...] I certainly wasn’t going to assume I’d do it by accident” and “He couldn’t fully believe those who cared about him did so without terms or conditions” SOBS
Baxter: There are terms and conditions to being loved, and I will never fulfil them
Derek: I cannot be loved if I cannot be selfless, therefore, any love I receive is conditional
Baxter relating to Derek because Baxter tries so hard to iron out his “flaws”, to be the most presentable version of himself, and yet in order to do that, he has to let people down and push them away before they get too close, only deepening his reputation of being unattached and uncaring...and he can’t refute the claims. All he wants is for someone to care about him and really see him, but he doesn’t think he’s worth it, doesn’t know HOW to be worth it. He KNOWS he’s going to disappoint people; in his eyes, it’s inevitable. This is the very thing that Derek is trying to avoid, thinking he can afford to be selfless forever. Derek doesn’t think he’s worth it either, always putting the needs and wants of others before his own at the expense of his mental health. In a way, they are both dooming themselves for the sake of other people–for what they think is best for the people around them, regardless of their own feelings. This manifests through Baxter’s self-isolation and Derek’s people pleasing. They both feel inferior but try to compensate for it in different ways. I'm in deep y'all
Yk Derek's one line: “I don’t want to let them down. I really don’t. But it’s hard. Every day it’s like I’m gonna mess up and disappoint somebody” and Baxter's just like: Hooo boy do I know a thing or two about disappointing people
Both of them being like “I like you because of YOU” and the other being like “But why?” because they can't understand why other people would want to be around them if they're not getting anything out of it












