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Stupid shades, blonde hair, about as pale as physically possible and tall. God, why did you have to be so attracted to the guy in front of you? You watched the way his lips moved as he spoke, but you couldn't actually hear his voice. Being deaf sure sucked majorly, and you found yourself wondering how it sounded. Oh God, you had no idea how odd you probably sounded when you tried to speak to him.
You blinked, realizing that he was waving a hand in front of your face. When he stopped, you watched the way his lips moved, figuring out the words. "Hey, coffee makin' babe, you paying attention? I just gave you my order. Do I need to repeat myself or somethin'?"
Gritting your teeth, you forced words that you couldn't actually hear out of your mouth. "No, just give me a second." He didn't actually know you were deaf and you didn't plan on letting this regular customer know. His name was Dave Strider, if you could understand what he had told you a while back. "Asshole," you attempted to mutter under your breath as you made his stupid coffee. He probably heard you though, and would attempt some kind of witty retort about how you shouldn't talk like that to a customer. Your ability to care was less than nothing, and it wasn't like you could hear him anyway. Nor were you facing him, so you couldn't read those perfect lips of his. Oh, God, did you really just think that?
You refused to look up at him as you offered him his shitty overpriced coffee, forcing out a, "Have a nice day," between gritted teeth. Of course, your ability to be completely annoyed with him disappeared the moment your hands brushed up against each other as he took said shitty coffee from you. Feeling your face heat up, you looked down and hoped that he hadn't noticed.
When you finally looked back up, you saw him leaving the coffee shop, quite obviously laughing as he went. What a douchebag.
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"Kar, c'mon, you gotta ask him out! He's all you ever goddamn talk about anyway an' I can see the way the two a you are always flirtin'. I'm startin' to get embarassed for you at this rate."
Leave it to Eridan Ampora to be as blunt as possible about all of it. You just rolled your grey eyes in response as you held back a particularly acidic comment about all the failed attempts that he made to flirt with his other best friend, Feferi. Of course, if you got him started on that, you would be stuck playing romance expert for him and you just weren't in the mood.
"You know, if you keep this up, maybe I'll just ask 'im for you. Set somethin' up since you'll never get around to it."
"Ampora, I swear to all that is shitty in this world - and you know there are a lot of things that fit under that category - I will cut your dick off if you even try it! You're worse than Kanaya, and she's always trying to set me up on double dates with her and that Lalonde girl for the entire year that they've been together. Ugh."
You could see the mock offense in his angular features and he let out what appeared to be an overly dramatic sigh. Eridan did that a lot, it should be noted. When he started to pout, you decided to start ignoring him. No grown man should be caught fucking pouting; it was just embarassing.
When he began to poke you about a billion times, you sent him a glare, "Oh my fucking- Fine! I'll ask Dave "Asshole" Strider out, just leave me alone! Jesus shitting Christ, do you ever-"
And then you noticed the horrified look on the blonde's face and that he was pointing at something behind you. It took all of two seconds for you to turn around and come face to face with, oh God, Dave.
'Alright, God, I know we've never been on the best of terms, but if you have any amount of mercy to give, let me be struck by lightning right now. No. Really. I'm sorry for being such a pathetic loser, just kill me now.' When nothing came of your ridiculous train of thought, you decided that the universe absolutely hated you and would continue to make a mockery of your nonexistant life until it finally came to a much needed end.
When you finally returned your attention to the tall Strider, he was hunched over the table you and Eridan had been sitting at, writing something down on a piece of paper. When he finished, he shoved it into your hands and gave you a shit eating grin, "Call me, okay? Maybe we could set something up; I mean, I'd offer to figure that shit out now, but if I'm late, my sister will kill me. Geez, you're fuckin' adorable when you're nervous."
He was gone as quickly as he had come, and you were left with a laughing best friend and a phone number. Well. That went a lot better than you had expected.
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You had to call off your first date. Only Ampora would be enough of a giant tool to literally beg you to cover his shift just so that he could help Feferi with some random bull shit that wasn't even important. Both of you knew by now that the two of them weren't going to hook up, but he still insisted on how you were bros and you had to help him in his time of need because he's done so much for you. After throwing a giant tantrum about everything conceivably possible (how hard it had been for him to learn sign language, how he got you a job, how he put up with your older brother and how awful you could be on a regular basis- it was easier to just give in, at this rate. he owed you so much, though.)
Breaking off a date via text message is typically seen, from a societal point of view, as one of the worst things possible. You were expected to call and explain. Yeah, well, calling wasn't an option because you couldn't hear a goddamn thing. After resigning yourself to hating your own guts and being lonely for the rest of your pathetic existence, Dave attempted to call you. Probably to chew you out for being a giant asshole that breaks off first dates via shitty text messages.
You ignored his calls and eventually sent him an apology message when you finally got onto your break.
'okay, shit. first of all, i'm sorry that i'm such a blatant asshole for even breaking off our date in the first place. i had to take on another painful shift at work for a friend last minute. i'm going to kill him later. i would've called, but i'm pretty sure that doesn't even count as communication for me.'
After a few moments, your phone began to vibrate and you sighed, waiting for what would most likely be rejection. 'nbd i figured you were busy bein an adorbs barista. want me to stop by and grace you with my presence babe?'
You couldn't hold back a laugh at that, and you found yourself messaging him back 'i'd be too busy swooning to actually do my job properly, you insufferable asshole. i have a few classes after this stupidity, but maybe we could reschedule for... i don't know, saturday? that's one of my days off.'
'psych right? rose told me youve got some classes together'
'and you're now stalking me. lovely. i thought hot assholes had better things to do with their lives than bother with deaf losers'
'... youre actually deaf? i mean i had heard about it but i figured it was some kind of fucked up lie since you seem to understand me just fine.'
'it's called lip reading. i wasn't born deaf, dumbfuck.'
'hey youre the one who stood me up. youve got no right to call me names'
This method of idiotic banter continued for the entirety of your break, and you found yourself liking Dave even more afterwards. He wasn't quite so bad as you originally thought and he was kind of funny, too, even if he was sort of douchey about everything.
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"Hmm, you've been nervous all week and edgy whenever I attempt to talk to you. Karkat, are you hiding something?" the tanned woman in front of you inquired, an eyebrow delicately raised in questioning.
Your lips curled down into a frown, which wasn't unusual for you to say the least. "It's nothing. Really." You definitely weren't avoiding mention of how you had a date. Of course not. How stupid would that be? It wasn't like you were worried that Kanaya would start snooping around and get over protective like she always did. Nope. How silly would that be?
The tall red head placed her hands on her hips, looking rather unconvinced "Karkat Vantas, you are a terrible liar. Now spill. Not even Eridan will tell me what's going on with you, and usually he can't keep his mouth shut."
You let out a groan that you couldn't actually hear before speaking again, "You won't take 'leave me the everloving fuck alone' as an answer, will you?"
"Do I ever?"
"Okay, fine. I'm nervous because I have a shitty date with some guy I met at the coffee shop and I don't want to fuck it up; but let's face it, I ruin everything because I'm horrific at literally everything. At this point I'm just waiting for the guy to realize that I'm not worth his time at all and eventually dump my sorry, pathetic ass. And before you even ask, his name is Dave Strider."
"Excuse me whilst I ignore your typical self-loathing attitude. I would attempt to give you some semblance of comfort, but let's face it, would you really listen to me? Hmm, that's Rose's older brother, though. What a coincidence. Rose told me he's been gushing to her about some cute boy, but she failed to mention that it was you. How sweet," her lips were curled upwards into a smirk and she gave you a wink before continuing, "I'm quite certain things will be fine. Just relax and be yourself, alright? He seems to like you well enough from what I've heard."
You blinked up at her, "Wait. He's related to your girlfriend? You're screwing with me. Once again, the universe is full of utter shit. Do you really think it'll go well?"
"I'm positive. Now come along, I'm going to help you pick out something that isn't completely awful. You have a terrible sense of fashion."
This is what you were worried about. Great. Life hated you.
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"So, apparently the Maryam-Lalondes are the local gossip factory, because Kanaya told you that I was 'gushing' and my sister told me that you were flipping every shit imaginable over this. I say we pretend that none of it was said at all so as to avoid embarassment on both sides and then enjoy ourselves. Because, let's face it, we're both exceptionally attractive and particularly douchey. Sound good, crabcakes?"
"I'd agree with everything you just said, but you just called me crabcakes. Which means that everything you just spewed out is probably bull shit too."
"Do you even know how logic works?"
"Maybe I'd understand you better if you took off those shades. They make you look like a tool."
"Nope, sorry; these are a permanent fixture on my face. They ain't comin' off."
A huff of annoyance came out of you at that, and you shot him a glare. "Keep it up and I'll stop talking and just use sign language. You probably don't even know the American alphabet."
"Oh, contraire, Rose has been teaching me since I told her that we were a thing. Now, I might not know a lot, but at the very least, I've got finger spelling down."
You just stared at the blonde in front of you for a few moments, opening and closing your mouth, which was probably very unattractive. First of all, he considered the two of you to be a thing. All of the yes. He had even bothered to start learning sign language, that was just... wow. It had taken you months to get Eridan to start learning sign, and the two of you had been best friends for years.
That was probably the moment you realized you were in love with Dave Strider. You couldn't say it though, not when you had only just started dating. How pathetic would that be?
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Sprawled out across his lap in his apartment, you felt pretty content. The two of you had been watching some movie about who knows what, with subtitles shown on the screen in case you ever decided to actually pay some shred of attention. The feeling of Dave's hands rubbing along your back as if you were some form of cat weren't helping you to actually give an airborne fuck, though.
You had been dating for a little over three months by now and you had definitely fallen hard for the taller male. He had finally gotten comfortable enough with you to take off those idiotic shades of his and once he did, you could understand why he refused to take them off. His irises were a bright red, which is something a lot of assholes would find fault with. You didn't really care; you loved them. His eyes would get all intense whenever he was about to kiss you and it made you absolutely melt.
The both of you would swap off with how you communicated, sometimes he would attempt sign (he still sucked shit at it, but he was learning, so you tried not to laugh at him too much), but you usually just spoke outloud while you read his lips. It could get frustrating when you weren't looking at him, but you managed.
After a little while of enjoying the soothing circles he was rubbing into your back, you flipped over so that you could look up at him. With a sly grin, he kissed you, "Enjoying the view, Karks?"
A quick eye roll from you, before you let out what was meant to be a sigh, "You're so full of it."
"With good reason. You know you want this," and then he was wiggling his eyebrows up and down at you. What a dork.
You forced yourself to sit up and before you could get up, he was pulling you into his lap. "Wait, wait, wait. Gotta tell you something in your crabby language, babe."
That definitely got your attention, and you gave him an inquisitive look before signing at him 'What?'
'I love you, that's what.'