Chapter Text
Of course, the one time it was Dave’s turn to check the traps, it was also the one time they actually caught something. It wasn’t even something normal, like one of the giant wolves or deer or bears that wander the wacky forest that the Striders call home. It was a fucking dragon.
Bright red was the first thing Dave noticed. Bright red scales, bright red blood. Dave had seen a fair amount of dragons, but he’d never seen one so fucking red. There were burgundy dragons (he’s seen a few) but they were, as the name suggested, burgundy, not this red, not fresh blood red, candy red, bright, bright red. He’d never seen one so small either, or one so close up.
The thing was lying down on the forest floor, curled protectively around the paw caught in the oversized bear trap. One of its wings was torn as well, and several scars marred its back and long tail. The thing was beyond fucked up.
“Oh boy.” Dave said out loud, and the dragon jolted, as if it hadn’t noticed his presence before.
It growled something in a foreign tongue, and while Dave couldn’t understand dragon, he got the distinct feeling he was being cussed out.
“So, I think I’m supposed to kill you? Dragons are dangerous, and all that, so...” He shrugged, an attempt at nonchalance.
The dragon continued to speak in an angry tone, growling and struggling and trying to break free. Eventually, it’s efforts stopped and it lay their, panting like a dog, until it looked up at Dave.
The expression in its eyes was way too human for Dave to be comfortable with. It looked so scared and lost and hopeless, like someone who had their whole life ripped away in one moment.
“Please...” it whimpered, and Dave almost flinched. It was speaking English, for sure, and that scared the shit out of Dave. It had a weird accent, clicks and growls almost burying the word. “Fast.” It continued, lifting its neck and revealing a chink in its scales, the perfect size for Dave to plunge his sword into.
“Shit dude, you can’t just lay the whole ‘speaking English’ thing on me on top of your weird human expressions and expect me to shove my sword in your throat!” Dave said, exasperated. He was slipping up. Where was his careful monotone when he needed it?
“Won’t?” The dragon tilted its head like a confused dog.
“Yeah, I mean, I should, but,” Dave made a noncommittal noise of distress.
“Won’t.” The dragon confirmed, not looking as scared but looking twice as confused.
“Yeah, uh, no, I guess.”
He stepped towards the dragon before hesitating.
“You won’t like, kill me, when I free you, right. You’ll just skedaddle, leave me with nothing but memories or perhaps a draconic blessing for my help? Oh, and dragon blood on my hands, I guess, considering how much-“
The dragon snorted, clearly fed up with the rambling. “You.” It said. “Safe. Won’t hurt.”
“Cool, cool, so I guess I’ll just, uh.” He kneeled down, put his fingers in the blunt area between the teeth and pulled in either direction. After a mild struggle, he pulled it off and the dragon stumbled back a few steps. It opened its wings, gave them a mighty flap, and- nothing really happened. Dave barely felt a stiff breeze coming off the dang things. The wings were torn, and the dragon was weak, there was no way it could take off.
The dragon growled in its weird language, clearly upset and angry and helpless.
“Look dude, I can’t really help you, ain’t got no magic dragon wing repairing tonics, and I can’t bring you home, strollin’ in like ‘sup motherfuckers my dragon bro is injured I know I ain’t supposed to let any trapped animals go, especially not dangerous ones, but cha’boy started talkin and lookin all pitiful and shit and I couldn’t just leave him there or kill him oh hey Bro what’s up looks like I’m the one who’ll die today since I’m such a fuckin coward that I can’t even kill a creature on its last legs of-‘ hey shit dude, you good?” The dragon had started pacing and growling and whispering since Dave had started talking, and now it had collapsed dramatically to the ground.
“Hurts.” The dragon explained, flicking its injured paw/foot/whatever. It then moved its paw to point at Dave. “Talk a lot. Annoying.”
Dave was lost for a second, before he huffed in laughter, his mouth not quite smiling but his eyes crinkling up in amusement. “Shit dude, that’s cold. I save your life and this is how you repay me?” He leaned back a bit and placed the back of his hand to his forehead. “Oh, woe is me, no affection granted even from the one-“ The dragon beat its tail against the ground in agitation, cutting Dave off.
”Heals quick.” The dragon explained, moving its wing to show that that was what it was talking about. “Hide until then?” It cocked its head again, either asking for Dave’s permission or assistance.
“Uh, good luck with that dude, you’re kinda a big bright red dragon. Reptilian Clifford the big red dog up in this bitch. You don’t really blend in.”
The dragon’s face scrunched up as it thought about its options. Then he started to shrink, legs thinning and elongating, becoming more humanoid. Quite frankly, it was grotesque to look at, so Dave didn’t.
“Ok, cool, don’t dig the whole naked thing but ok.” Dave said, opening his eyes after a few moments as he took off his coat and threw it around the boy. Luckily, the dragon kid was small enough to get all his nonsense hidden by Dave’s hoodie.
Dragon kid sniffed the coat, putting his arms through the sleeves and zipping it up. He seemed to find it satisfactory as he buried his nose in the fabric of the hood. He still had all the injuries from his dragon form, and was currently soaking the thing in bright red blood. Oh well. He’d just steal one of Dirk’s.
Now that Dave didn’t have to look at the kid’s junk all the time, he got a good look at him. He was shorter than Dave, short and chubby to Dave’s tall and skinny. His skin was a dark brown, the color of coffee beans and his hair pitch black, unruly and curly and surprisingly soft looking. Once again, Dave couldn’t help but notice how different they were- dark skin as opposed to Dave’s albino white, his hair unkempt while Dave’s was perfectly styled. Their only similarity seemed to be in age, but Dave assumed that as a dragon, the mystery kid was much older than him.
“You got a name?” Dave asked.
The dragon released a short series of growls and clicks, which Dave assumed was just how the draconic language sounded. The closest Dave could get to pronouncing it was Karkat.
“Alright, Karkat,” He crinkled his nose in distaste at the blatant butchering of his name, but didn’t comment. “I’m Dave. I’ll take you to my place. Bro ‘n’ Dirk will be suspicious but I won’t let Bro hurt you or Dirk, I don’t know, do whatever he does. Dirk’s usually adventuring with his boyfriend anyway so it’s not really a problem.” Dave explained as he started to lead Karkat to his place of residence. “Just keep to yourself, stay in human mode and don’t talk and it’ll be chill.”
“No talk? Why?” Karkat asked.
“Yeah, because normal people don’t sound like a motherfuckin’ angry cicada-dog whenever they talk, might as well just makes big sign over your head that says ‘hey look, I’m a fuckin weirdo and I probably don’t come from here or anywhere on this Earth maybe!’” Dave rolled his eyes, and Karkat did the same thing, complete with a tongue sticking out.
—
It took about a half hour to return to the Strider household. Dave knocked twice, before opening the door. Dirk was nowhere to be found, but Bro was leaning cooly against a wall of the entryway. Even without any change in facial expression, Dave could tell Bro was giving him a look of cold skepticism.
“So, I found a kid in the forest.” Dave said cooly, pointing back at Karkat, who kept his eyes locked on Bro.
Bro hummed in acknowledgement, and stepped away before either of them could register any sort of movement. Karkat growled at where Bro had once stood, and Dave pat his head, evoking a flinch from the dragon kid.
“It’s chill, he doesn’t talk much and he’s really fast. He’s ok with you stayin’, for now.” Karkat wasn’t reassured. He followed Dave quietly even so.
The house’s somewhat modern interior didn’t match the cabin-y aesthetic from the outside. In fact, it felt like the inside of the house wasn’t laid out in a way that would match with the outside.
On couches and tables and light hardwood floors, there were all sorts of ridiculous items, from weird vaguely humanoid puppets, to swords and other blades, to pieces of cleanly cut metal and circuiting. Karkat stuck close to Dave and closely watched his step as they went up the stairs and in through a door on the right side of the hallway.
“Hi MTV welcome to my crib.” Dave said, fully aware of, but still disappointed in, the fact that the reference would soar right over the dragon’s head. Said dragon had a look around.
The room was dimly lit by red lights that sent shivers down Karkat’s spine. Against one wall of the room was some sort of elevated platform covered in knobs and buttons and disks. Wires ran across the stained carpet floor, from the Disk Platform to a weird sort of piece of semi-familiar-but-not-quite technology to many other mysterious objects. The wall across from the door had another elevated platform, a dark piece of cloth and a shelf full of parts of small and strange beasts. In one of the corners, there was a different sort of platform, covered by a thick patterned fabric.
“Sleep wherever, just not the bed. You can take the covers. Imma see if Dirk has any food, go ahead and settle in.”
Karkat chirped in acceptance, and moved under the desk. He didn’t know what Dave meant by ‘covers’ so he simply took off the jacket and curled up on top of it. It wasn’t comfortable, but Karkat was tired and in pain, and found himself drifting off anyways.
~~~
For a second when Dave entered his room, he was convinced he was the victim of the worlds weirdest crime. He could see the headline now, ‘Cool Forest Kid Takes in Dragon, Dragon Steals Jacket In The Crime Of The Century’. What an asshole.
Then he noticed a slight movement from beneath the desk, which upon closer examination was, in fact, the dragon boy. Karkat was sleeping on top of Dave’s jacket and beneath one of his many desk, and the boy looked... significantly scalier than before. Those weird candy-corn horns that all dragons had were sticking out of his mess of black hair. His face and shoulders were freckled with bright red scales, and while Dave was avoiding looking at his butt, it looked like Karkat was growing a tail. Seemed like he got more draconic the more relaxed and/or tired he was. Hopefully Bro and Dirk wouldn’t notice that.
Dave didn’t exactly feel comfortable going to sleep in the same room as a dragon, so he rolled into his side and stared sightlessly at his turntables across the room. The perfect opportunity to psychoanalyze himself.
Now, Dave never was a fan of killing stuff. He was a protector at heart, Dirk had told him once, probably as a joke, but it was kinda true. Bro was fine with killing, maybe even relished it, and while Dirk was by no means a fan, he’d do what he had to to keep Bro sated and Dave fed. Their main source of revenue was Dirk selling either meat, pelts, or his inventions, after all. Whatever Bro did kept their house, but didn’t feed them. Dave wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t have enough money or didn’t care. He hoped it was the former, but he was growing increasingly unsure...
But even if Dave didn’t like to kill, he still would for the most part. He’d let out babies or parents (the child was rarely far behind), but a dragon? A dragon was dangerous, and Dave not only released it, but also invited it into his house.
Dave liked to think he was a man of his word, but there was no way he could just... adopt a dragon as his roommate, right? He couldn’t go through with letting Karkat stay here until he healed. He’d take him into town tomorrow and figure out what to do from there.