Work Text:
Dave was just wrapping up his last shift- it was a Wednesday night. The screening had just ended, a bit later than usual. Wednesday was classic or cult or whatever ego-boosting bs night, so movies tended to take longer.
Today’s iconic movie was either Pretty Woman or Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Manhattan or any movie that brought in the late adults. On departure, Dave would always overhear the same “She looked so young!”, “Can you believe how charming he used to be?” and mainly “You won’t believe what happened to them!”.
People were really birds of a feather, he thought. Along with the universal cinematic constant that were those comments, he also found the same disgraced mess to clean up after. He went about his usual cleaning routine of sweeping, picking up the trash, wiping spilled soda (he thanked the Lord he wasn’t working during the 50 Shades of Gray fever) and repeat.
He was about three rows in, counting from the back, when he realized he was, in fact, not alone and most likely had been heard singing Taylor Swift under his breath. Oh, the damage it would inflict on his reputation, he could not begin to fathom.
He pulled his most professional posture and approached the person sitting on the very corner of the relatively small room. There wasn’t a single shift from the other part. Dave cleared his throat, and a head shot up, a little too quickly. Gosh golly, ‘twas a male youth. As opposed to the 40-year-old white woman demographic they had.
“Excuse me, sir?” Dave cringed a bit at the addressing, but it was just his standard required conduct. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, we are already closed.” Yup. That was good, really professional.
The young man sniffed. 19? 20 years old, maybe? “Sure, can I stay until you finish here?”
Dave’s training had taught him the costumer was always right. And also he didn’t want to forcefully remove this innocent soul who seemed to have been bawling his eyes out to the poorly projected image of Audrey Hepburn or whoever. This innocent, familiar-looking soul.
He chose to skip that row and go on with his cleaning. There weren’t that many attendees, so the job wasn’t that long. Also, his office had its advantages. Not only could he sneak in a particularly empty session occasionally, it wasn’t unusual for him to find perfectly intact food lying about.
Imagine. You are at the movies, you drop your skittles. You can A) disturb everyone around you until you find it and maybe touch someone’s ankle or B) tell yourself you’ll pick it up once the movie is over, and then forget about it.
And in this picking up a bag of skittles, in all its red glory, did Dave’s brain conspire to make him remember. Oh, of course, here comes the hyperbolic flashback his brain produced for this sole occasion.
It was fall, and Dave was in his junior year. He had come in late for his first period, so now he was just killing time in a park in front of his high school. He had experimental indie folk playing from his earbuds, as he was experimenting with his music preferences himself. The tree he sat against wasn’t an old oak, rising above all others. It was a slim tree, just strong enough to let him lean himself against and then a bit.
Looking at the world through his shades, he couldn’t help but see it as the raw material for a movie he was to one day produce. Holding his tinted glasses in front of an analogic camera and later on gluing the film together. No one would understand the final message and he’d laugh at the people trying to make up theories. There was never a message. You fools.
Someone approaches him, so he stops playing with his glasses all about and pulls out an earbud. The other teenager is most likely from his school, carrying a backpack and all. It seems like he’d been running. He motions to kneel to the ground.
“What time is it?” The stranger asks.
“Too late for you to go in. You should wait for your next period.”
“Oh. Sure.” He answers. He’s still awkwardly sitting in front of Dave, panting quite a bit.
“Do you need some water? I can even take a sip out of it to show you it’s not poisonous.” Dave rummages through his bag, and fetches a disposable bottle, still sealed.
The stranger takes it and downs about one third of its content before handing it back. “I’m Karkat.” He says. Dave nods and extends his hands. “Dave.” He announces. Karkat fished a package of skittles from his hoodie pocket and they shared it over casual talk until their classes should start.
And after that, as one could imagine, Dave found himself with a crush. They never really talked again, so he guesses it wasn’t really a crush? More like, he admired Karkat from afar, averted his gaze when they crossed paths, had a general idea of who his friends were… Maybe had an Occasional Boner with his name on it. Like he was casually pining. Yes, that sounded completely better.
He was fairly sure that was Karkat, but according to his calculations, he should have left for college what, two years ago? Maybe he went somewhere in the city, or didn’t go, like Dave. He turned back around and said, “Hey, Karkat.” In a soft voice. Not a shout, like he was talking to someone at his side and not a couple of rows behind him.
Karkat, he concluded, lifted his head again. “Do I know you?” To which Dave smirked and made his way to that row. He plopped on a vacant seat, leaving a chair between them and extended the skittles, now opened,
“We met once in your senior year. We were both late for class. I’m Dave.” He cleared up. Dave didn’t honestly expect him to remember, anyway. Actually, that’d be the normal thing to do.
“Sure. I remember that, I got fucked because I had a project to turn in. I hadn’t done it anyway though.”
“What brings you here then? After-hours on a Wednesday, you should have somewhere better to be.” Dave said, showing tact and empathy, because he was great at social interaction.
“I d…” He started. “My roommate locked me out and probably won’t remove his stupid headphones until 4 a.m. when he’s done sucking at LoL.” He sighed.
“So, can’t you spend the night with your family or whatever?”
“There’s my brother, but we’re not exactly on good terms.”
Dave looked at the screen a bit. Ate some Skittles. “I have a couch you can crash on. In exchange, you help me clean this shit up.”
“And how do I know you are not secretly a cannibal?” Karkat eyed him suspiciously and more skittles than what is considered polite.
“You are friends Kanaya, right? She’s my sister’s girlfriend.” He remembers them being pretty close during high school, maybe it still held true. “Besides, it’s not like I’m a total stranger.”
Karkat thinks for a while, pulls out his phone, fiddles with it a little. “Ok, you’re clean. I found you on her Facebook.”
Dave handed him a broom. “You sweep and I wipe.”
He liked that, really. He got half the workload and it passed by pretty quickly. His manager stopped by and shot a questioning look, but he supposed it was no big deal. Not too long after, they both were on the street, making the ten-minute walk to Dave’s apartment, which he still shared with his bro.
He let Karkat in, they ordered cheap Chinese and he let Karkat chose a chick flick they could watch.
“Hey, Dave?” Karkat said before deciding to go to bed/ the couch. “Do you think I could have your number? Who knows if my stupid roommate will lock me out again.”
“Sure.” Dave reached out for the other’s phone and typed in his contact. “Good night, bro.” When he closed the door to his bedroom, he threw his fist in the air like the guy had just done in the movie they were watching.
The next morning, he made an effort to wake up before Karkat left and they ate cereal together. Not three days later, he got a text from a certain someone, asking whether he liked coffee.