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Your name is Karkat Vantas and you just punched Dave’s hot older brother in the dick.
You didn’t mean to but fuck the guy deserved it. He was being a fucking prick and you hate it when people acted like they knew shit about everything without having the accurate facts to back it the fuck up. You get too much of that crap from Kankri, and Kankri is the literal definition of the worst. If he wasn’t running his mouth, he was making other people run from him. You hate him.
(Well, that’s a lie. You don’t despise him hate him. You just wish that he’d shut up and talk a normal human amount of words rather than the sprinkler of phrases he likes to spray all over your overwatered brain. Your overwatered brain that was about to overflow with brain juice any moment now.)
Anyway, moving back onto the topic at hand ….
Dirk is still reeling on the ground from where you got him and Dave is giving you a shocked expression like he just witnessed the death of squirrel after getting into a fistfight with a chipmunk. Dave, the person who had brought you with the sole intention of introducing you to his family. Or, more specifically one half of his family (“The less cooler half,” he had told you). The half that so happens to be rolling in a surprised pile of pain as you had just punched said family member in the dick.
God you’re an idiot. You were supposed to make a good impression and charm Dirk with your twisted sense of humor and your exasperated blood shot eyes that conveyed the not-so-hidden message of “Kill me now.” Instead, you ended up hitting the person whose brother you’re about to come out of the unofficial “not dating” gray zone in painfully. Painfully and in the dick. The guy who you finally accepted as being tolerable enough to date is now going to be banned from ever seeing your face again and you’ll have to stand outside his house with a boombox over your head as if you’re the idiot slacker from a romcom. All because you couldn’t hold your temper and you took it out on a man’s swinging meat pendulum.
There goes your chances of getting in Dave.
Shit. You mean, getting with Dave. Nothing sexual like that here. No siree. Just dating. Which is only sexual if you want it to be. Not that you want it to be. Or not that you don’t don’t want it to be. Sure, Dave is hot but sexually wise…. Yeah, he’s still hot.
And yes, you wouldn’t mind maybe asking to kinda sorta romantically brush your hand down his abs. You wanted to touch ‘em okay?! Is it that much of a sin to watch a guy pull off his shirt for the first few months of practice and not want to touch him? But not in a creepy way. Totally not in a creepy way.
Meanwhile, the Dirk pile groans beneath you and the “What the fuck dude?” look that Dave is giving you is another reminder of how things went from “okay” to “Burn the bridge of social interaction and dance in it with your underwear on your head” bad. You grit your teeth, shake out your fist, make a hundred and eighty-degree turn, and (without looking at Dirk) say,
“Just talk to him you fuckhead. This whole fucking mess is inside your crushed-up smoothie like frontal cortex.”
The reason why you are here, walking away from a rolling-on-the-ground Dirk and a shocked Dave, is because Dave had kidnapped you from your last practice and insisted that you had to meet his brother.
With the season pretty much ended except for the “just for fun” race which in no way shape of form was fun at all, (rest in peace the sophomore who ate a mixture of dirt, pavement, blood, dog feces, and tears. He never returned to the cross-country team after that pitiful display of human bad luck) the extra time you now have you’ve spent going to the gym. Because guess what? Body insecurity doesn’t disappear because the sport season ends. It doesn’t even stop because you are in the swinging gray zone of “will they, won’t they” with Dave.
He caught you, with a gym bag over your shoulder, at the bus stop and began immediately pulling you back to the locker room. To which you respond with the words “kidnapping”, “asschute”, “glorified Christmas tree”, “Sunglasses going up said asschute,” and “FUCK” (not in that order). Dave had only grinned and told you,
“The less cooler half of my family wants to meet you. My own flesh and blood. My brother from the same mother. The ‘Polly’ to my ‘Anna’. My bro-seph whose name ain’t Joseph. The kicker to my punches. The eggs to my omelet.”
For someone who you might be emerging out of the gray zone with, he sure is an idiot. A glorified idiot who somehow helped you pass your science test. You hate his smart muscled ass.
“I thought I was the eggs to your overfolded, burned dead chicken baby,” you grumble as Dave broad arms kept you both a close enough yet far enough distance from him. You felt a mixture of uncomfortable emotions the second he pounced on you during your bus waiting because you (A.) didn’t want him to see you when you were covered in crusty, sweaty grossness (during practice was fine because he was equally gross during those “intimate moments.” After practice was a different story.) and (B.) You once again smell like the anus of mankind. There’s a preference in your limited brain space that prefers you smelling like clean-shit instead of dead-shit in front of Dave.
“Nah man, you’re the green spring of irony on top of my slightly buttered ass,” he says, almost proudly, “The highest place of worship. The beautiful final touch to a culinary masterpiece. The hit of freshness that tries to convince people that the meal they’re about to choke down is je ne sai quoi fancy.”
“Oh, I’m just fucking there to make you look better?” you ask, trying to both push Dave off and bite his hand at the same time.
“More like I’m there to make you look all the more luscious and beautiful,” he responds, a note of definite pride in his voice as he skillfully dodges your canines. As if you played into one of his verbal vomits he’s excited to upchuck. Turns out, you did. You walked straight into the goop that is Dave’s inner intestine tinted vocabulary and now you have to grit your teeth and wade through the rest of it.
“The parsley is nothing without its omelet supporting its ass. That’s me. I’m the meat that your majestic herb-i-ness is sitting on. All day long I twirl my thumbs in my eggy form, waiting for you to sit on me. Crush me with your peppery petals Senpai.”
If your face wasn’t red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment before, it is now. You yank yourself backwards and try to bite Dave again (this time with conviction and style.) You miss, no surprise there, and find yourself chomping on nothing but air and the smoke of car exhaust that had drifted from the bus’s fart cloud to down your throat. You choke on your own lack of success like that unlucky bastard from cross-country last year.
“As much as I would love introduce you to Dirk in all your natural state of Karkat-ness,” Dave says, not caring that spit is flying from your mouth, “I think it says in the handbook of brothers I can’t bring a smelly lover. Let me check…. Ah yes! Subsection four, article three, ‘Bring a date that is too smelly? Brother will release all sorts of helly.’ ‘Helly’ in this form is the present-future tense of the word ‘Hell’ by the way.”
(It totally is not. “Helly” isn’t even an actual word. And if it was, “helly” just sounded like a lame ass excuse word to rhyme with “jelly” during an off-off-off Broadway rap battle.)
“You’re an idiot,” you splutter, throat still surrounded by the farts of pollution and your own salvia (you always knew your body would kill you someday). “A complete and fucking idiot.”
The two of you had then reached the locker room door and Dave had shown off the shiny, dog-like teeth in his mouth. (Meaning he smiled.)
“Just get in the shower smelly Kat,” he says, “I’ll guard the door so no janitor glances upon your exposed beachballs of modesty. Think of me as a knight guarding a castle. Only the castle is this door and the princess is your ass. And maybe your dick.”
There is definitely a twinkle of something not-Kosher in his eyes as he says this.
He had then shoved you in and laughed over your cries of the words “KILL”, “FUCKING”, and “YOU.”
The ride over to the college that held your not-boyfriend’s brother was filled with so many disgusting innuendos from Dave (“I’m the bagel but you’re the cream cheese man. A bagel without the cream cheese is just a naked and confused donut who got booed off stage during the national bread awards.” “You’re the thousand-dollar white shirt that people pay money just to stare at and I’m the shitty bedsheet that someone cut a head hole out of. You’re a whole two sleeves more amazing than me.”) that you asked him eight times to pull you over so you could (A) vomit (B) scream at the sky and (C) hitchhike back to civilization. When you did finally convince Dave to let you out, you only got out the first half of “FUCK MY LIFE!” (the “FUCK MY-!” part) before Dave pulled you back in, echoing your screams with way-too-happy laughs of mirth.
Of. Fucking. Mirth.
You did not need happy laughs from a pretty soccer boy as you were being unwittingly dragged back into said soccer boy’s obnoxiously hot pink car.
“Hey lay off the paint job,” he had said when you told him that Pepto Bismol called and wanted their hooker van back, “This car is the pride and joy of Roxy and Roxy can kick your ass more times than you can say ‘kitty fuck head.’”
“Why would I or any other intelligent life form on this planet want to say ‘kitty fuck head’?! And who the fuck is Roxy?!” you had screamed as he wrestled you back into the passenger seat. You scrambled to get back out into visible outside (out of the pink stomach fluid car) and away from Dave’s bear hands when Dave had swooped in a planted a big smackaroo on your unsuspecting face.
He held it there, not trying to coax anything from you. Just a long contact between two pairs of lips. Nothing exciting or blush worthy. Nope. Not at all.
“Someone who you’ll meet if you past the Dirk test,” he had said to your silent, not-open-like-a-confused-oxygen-exposed-fish, mouth when he pulled back. “Now no more pitstops or else I’ll tie you to the roof of good ol’ ‘Kitty Love Bug’ and It’ll be just like that episode of Parks and Recreation when everyone got drunk off of Snake Juice. You don’t wanna be a Jerry, do you?”
You did not want to be a Jerry so you had stayed quiet for the rest of the trip and tried to not lick your lips. Dave particles were still on it and if you licked it that would be weird. Totally. Hella. Helly weird.
As much as you would love to fast forward to the exact, picture perfect moment, of when you nailed Dirk Strider’s dick (with your fist), you have to first explain what had prompted you to make you want to punch Dave’s brother in the dick.
In short, it was his negativity. His extreme negativity.
Holy fuck it was his negativity and whatever bullshit aura he had that was so very pitiful. It was like meeting a storm cloud that was too depressed to even shoot thunder and lightning out of its ass because of how depressed it was. Yes, it was that bad.
And what would have caused all this negativity pray tell? What could have spurred you, the innocent and docile Karkat Vantas, to ever sucker punch a dick?
Well it was a boy.
A boy who didn’t even know he was causing all the troubles to the poor man that was keeling on the ground. A boy whose first encounter with romance was with a girl who clearly wasn’t his match. A boy who definitely did not know what romance was even if it sashayed its sexy stripper thighs to him then pole danced in front of him. A boy you had never even met but already you wanted to also punch.
And Dirk was on the bad side of, “Yeah-he-probably-hates-me-LOL-not-that-I-care-wait-I-do-now-I’m-sad-what-do-I-do?-Nothing-I’ll-do-nothing.” He came to that conclusion after months of analyzing himself, the college environment, the atmosphere, the temperature, the amount of sweat perspired from the body, and the amount of times Jake looked at him. All this information was poured onto you like a hot molten lava of love barf when Dirk had taken one look at you and said-
“I heard you’re the person people go to for romantic dilemmas.”
Considering that your own romantic dilemma is that you and Dave sometimes make out, sometimes make naked jokes around each other (cough just Dave COUGH), and sometimes (if you’re lucky) hold hands but are STILL not “official” official, you wouldn’t say that you’re the romance expert,
But hell(y), you’re better than some people.
By the time you get back to the Pepto Bismol puke car you realize that (1) this isn’t your car, it’s Dave’s, (2), you left Dave, and (3) you don’t know how to drive so you’re stuck looking like an awkward, embarrassed high schooler standing next to an unbreakable pink car while waiting to leave a college that you never asked to be spirited away to in the first place.
Also, your hand hurts. Oh, the woes of being you.
You understand if Dave never comes back to his car and leaves you here looking like an idiot. If someone punched Kankri in the dick, you guess you’d be obligated to help him get some ice or something. You wouldn’t enjoy doing it, but family came before (not) boyfriend with angry fist. So, you’re stuck here. The perfect time to reflect on how you ruined it for yourself and Dave.
Which…. Actually, really sucks.
Really, really sucks.
If this was the beginning of the school year, it wouldn’t have sucked that bad. But after all that happened between you and him and him and you…. this really sucks.
It feels like you just failed the biggest test in the world. But in this test, there’s no retest. No redoing. No extra bonus points and teachers to cry in front of. You screwed up so badly that your entire life is “done.” Not “done” done, but pretty fucking close to that.
You screwed up your chances with Dave.
You…. Honestly like Dave. In the pathetic “like” like way. Or in the not pathetic way? You just know that you like him and if he hadn’t wormed into your pliable brain and body with his…. Everything, maybe you wouldn’t like him like this. But no, he just had to be all great and handsome and funny and have abs and now look where you are thanks to him- With a festering ego and a bruised soul.
You finally relax your muscles enough so that your hands go back to looking like hands instead of human flesh colored boxing gloves.
Fuck, this is why you don’t do lovey-dovey relationships. You always fuck something up somehow so of course your bad luck would extend to the people you got crushes on. Either with punches or with words, you were doomed to mess up. You should’ve learned this shit from middle school. There should’ve been a class called “How to Not Fuck Up Dating 101.” That would’ve helped you way more than a paper and wired lined volcano that vomited up a mixture of soda and mentos.
Then again, even if you took that 101 Dating class, you would’ve never believed you would have gotten asked out. Because…. who the hell would go out with an insecure, yelling, chubby kid with no other outfits besides shirts so baggy it looked like the plastic garbage bags that wild life marine animals got caught in and died in? Who?
As if to add to your misfortune, the heavens opens up and begins to pee on you. Stupid ass rain going to town on you like you’re the ass tip of the world. Great. Today is just wonderfully great.
You blink hard and try to shake some of the rain out. There’s more on your eyes than the rest of your body and it’s the kind of rain that is salty and makes everything burn. It’s the rain that only hits you on late nights and during the climactic scene of a movie.
You wipe the rain from your eyes and tilt your head down so that the rain doesn’t block up nose. Still, some must have gotten in there because in the next second you’re sneezing and sniffling out the rain, your passage of air blocked because of your inability to adapt to weather.
Well, nothing like an afternoon emotional cry- You mean rain to get over the fact that Dave will block you out of his life and you’ll go back to being a lonely, lonely loner. A loner with nothing to his name besides his idiot best friends and a chipped heart. You’ll make John eat ice cream with you as you try to get over the Dave that got away. You would make Sollux do it, but you’re 98% sure that Sollux will start hogging all the ice cream that’s meant for you and start sobbing about all the girls he’s ever loved. Then you’ll have to listen to “Kill the Director” with him till your ears bleed out (and listen to Sollux scream out the line “This is no Bridget Jones!” while you attempt to harmonize with his tone-deaf voice.) Nope, John will better understand your plight. John will understand your rain shedding Dave topic.
You think…. He probably will…. He definitely will.
Probably.
Wait…. Fuck.... Maybe not.
Has John ever dealt with a broken (you mean chipped. You were far from broken. Just a bit banged up) heart? Yes? No?
Double fuck, you’ve never asked him.
You don’t know John’s approach to the things concerning the “L” word. It’s been one of the “issues” about John that you never figured out. Not that John has many issues (being the poster boy for grins and laughs and cheerful everything) but thinking back on it now (and not on the buckets of salty rain falling from your face) John didn’t seem to ever want romance. One of the reasons why John is your best friend is because, when puberty hit and everyone’s balls dropped at the same time, he was the only one that remained…. Chivalrous. He didn’t become a disgusting man pig misogynistic asshat. And you liked that.
(Also, he didn’t attempt to grow a goatee like Sollux did. Fuck Sollux.)
As for romance…. Maybe he isn’t in to that? Maybe that wasn’t his orientation? Or maybe you’re worse at reading feelings than you think. Maybe he had his own whirlwind romance behind the scenes and he’s hiding it from you because he knows that you’ll start writing fiction about him and his unknown lover whoever she/him/they will be. Maybe he’s embarrassed.
Or maybe he’s embarrassed that he’s being stupid at romance.
Regardless, John’s romance is as elusive as his Dad is during 5k races (you never saw him yet there would always magically be a cake with everyone’s race times listed in caramel icing when the last runner came fainting into the finish line) and if he was ever ready to talk, you’ll be there for him with your dick punching fists, ready to drop a beat.
Speaking of dropping….
The NaCl tainted droplets are still falling from your face and you’ve given up trying to deny that they’re there. They have a more colloquially known name, but you’re not going to call them that. (Yes, you know it’s not rain. Shut up and so your pathetic self can have its pathetic moment.)
You want to disappear right now. Maybe get swallowed up by the earth. Or get blown to the stratosphere. Or get eaten by a shark the size of a building from a B-rated horror film.
You just wished you didn’t feel so… shitty right now.
It’s a disgusting feeling that curls around everything in you and screams what an idiot you are. It’s like megaphones, each filled with a voice recording of Dave’s pissed off voice layered with your pissed off voice, are echoing how you really, really fucked this up.
You wipe the substance that rhymes with “beers” from your eyes and try to not look pathetic as you fish your phone from your ass pocket. When in doubt, call an uber and use your word that rhymes with “beers” to try and get a free ride back home.
You don’t even get to the app before someone is calling your name and telling you to “Slowdown like a Miley Cyrus Hoedown.”
Fuck.
It’s Dave.
You’re in no way shape or form ready to face the guy whose brother’s dick you harassed with your fist. Still, according to the angle and the speed trajectory that Dave currently has, you can confirm that he’s (A.) running towards you (B.) Looks worried and (C.) has seen the rain that is painting your face a stuffy looking red.
When he gets within grabbing distance of you and his upset stomach relief car, you can’t help but notice is his eyebrows.
“Put those back down,” is the first thing you mumble as you use your sleeve to wipe off all the mess on your face. The cloth becomes splattered with face goop and glistens in a way that mocks your entire existence.
The second thing you say is sorry.
Wrong person to be saying it to, but you need to get that out and into this world before you launch into the next world out of shame. You say it again in case he didn’t hear you.
Then a third time in case he didn’t hear the second time.
Then a fourth time on the slim chance he hadn’t heard the third one.
Then a fifth time if by some possibility he didn’t hear the fourth one.
And a sixth time because what if he-?
Dave raises his hand and slaps it, very lightly, over your mouth.
“Dude it’s….” he begins then, pauses, “Well I mean…. It’s not fine fine but like…I get it if Dirk pissed you off and you had to resort to drastic measures. Usually we don’t do fists though, we’re more of the sword family. And a parkour family. Off topic but never challenge Dirk to a parkour battle. He will beat you and you will roll over in shame and failure. Trust me, not a great feeling.”
He looks you over and removes the hand from your mouth to wipe a raindrop from your face. You sniffle with the grace and poise of a bear in a tutu.
He traces your cheek and then holds your face in his hands, staring at you.
“Shit….” he whispers, “You really are a big softie aren’t you Kat?”
You tell him to go fuck himself with a spiked baseball bat. You also tell him that a thunderstorm had peed into your eyes and that’s why your face is leaking liquid now. No, these were not
“tears” causing you to look so sad and pathetic. It was the motherfucking rain. Because it was raining. Is raining. Totally raining. Helly raining. A lot.
You also say sorry again.
Dave nods his head in understanding (choosing to ignore your seventh apology. and he offers you a sideways, half smile.
“Happens to me too Kat,” he says, “Can’t control those unpredictable storms. Sometimes I’ll be stuck on the Hallmark channel, a shitty Christmas movie playing in the balls of August, and the next thing I know water of the salty kind will start ejaculating from eyes like a bad porno.”
That is a disgusting image. You tell him that is a disgusting image. You can taste salty water on your lips when you tell him you hate that disgusting image. You then promptly clamp your mouth shut.
Ignoring you (again), Dave slowly raises your face to his and presses his lips against yours. (Shit, he’s tasting your salty waters! Abort! Abort!) The gesture however is way too smooth and way too cool for you to abort and your precious baby romance heart gobbles his affection up like quicksand to sad, unsuspecting animals. Your phone drops from your hand in a shock that you hate to admit is straight out of a romcom.
(He still likes you.)
You wrap your arms around his neck. Dave pulls you in more with his lips.
(He still like likes you.)
A good kiss. A great kiss. In the parking lot of a college next to a car that isn’t yours. With Dave.
(Dave… Who still likes you.)
When the two of you separate, you apologize again.
“Sorry for punching your brother in the dick,” you mumble, pressing your face into his neck area. You are now getting face feces on to (and into) Dave’s clean shirt and you don’t even care. Well, technically you do care, but you just want to feel Dave. With your face. That’s normal right? Right?! Is it so wrong that you want to be caressed gently by the guy you want to make out with on a daily basis? Is it so wrong that you someday want a face full of his abs like some kind of loveable dork from a nondescript romantic comedy novel that was only purchased by five people? Huh?!
(You don’t want answers to these questions. You don’t want to come down from this cloud nine of Dave still liking you. Because he does. He still likes you.)
Dave responds to your face-leaning hug by ruffling your hair and planting another one (a smooch) on the top of your head, right near your forehead. (You can practically feel that area burn with the desire for more smooches.)
“It happens,” he says, “Dirk’s fine so don’t worry your cat brain too much Karkles. Gotta save space in that think pan of yours for the bacon of knowledge instead of the lukewarm sour springs of depression orange juice. Am I right? No room in there for the salty tears from the ocean of ‘Fuck My Life.’ My blood brother from the same mother still has a working, not permadeath-d, dick so no hard feelings.”
(You breathe a sigh of relief. At least Dirk can still…. Do shit. With his dick. His dick is fine. Good. You tell Dave that’s good.)
You can feel Dave’s throat rumble in an almost copy-and-paste version of a cat’s meow and something tells you that this door of truth revealing is far from closed. (Shit.)
“What I do want to know is why it happened,” Dave says, his curiosity flitting against your head, “If you could satiate my undying thirstiness for the truth Kat, that will be helly great.”
Your “sigh of relief” becomes a grumble of dissatisfaction and you wipe your face (cough Nuzzle COUGH) harder against Dave. (Double shit.)
You inhale deeply, trying to find your words (and not enjoying Dave’s smell cause gross that’s super creepy and you’re not into that nope you are NOT creepy at all) to explain just why Dirk made you snap. The answer is easy enough to find but explaining it is like gurgling out acid from an empty stomach.
Meaning that it’s oddly… hard to explain why to Dave.
It takes a couple (five) more sniffs (Dave smelling) to finally get your answer out there into the space between you two. (You are now sufficiently covered in Dave smells and Dave is now sufficiently covered in your smells. Again, not creepy at all.) It’s an awkwardly difficult explanation and you cringe at how bad it sounds when you put words to the emotions you’re having.
“It’s just… when he was being all stupid and ridiculous and tried to analyze other people’s feelings. It really fucking….” You take a deep breath (still not smelling Dave shut up inner brain-pan) and shudder out the words,
“Pissed me off.”
You can sense the eyebrows of Dave lift off planet Earth in intrigued confusion. You have no heart to tell them to come back down. You can also sense that Dave knows there’s more to your reasoning and that Detective Strider won’t let this case rest until he is satisfied. (Triple shit.)
“A lot of things piss you off Kat,” Dave says, “But usually you keep a leveled head about it. Well…” You can hear the not-really-there-but-there smile in his voice (Quadruple shit), “Almost leveled head. As long as you’re not wearing the suit of the birth in the hall of showers and toilets.”
(Seriously? Again with this quintuple shit?)
You growl and pinch the back of his neck, hard, and give him your best stressed out and angry “I’m a high school junior” face. (Not that he can see it in this position. Making that face just makes you feel better.)
“You are never going to stop it with those shitty kinds of fucking jokes, are you?” you say, squeezing Dave like you were trying to deskin a caterpillar. Dave just says nope with the emphasis on the “P” (probably with a smile on his face.)
He straight up ignores the pain you are inflicting in him (you mean, on him) in favor of kissing your little temple-forehead-head area again and asking why Dirk pissed you off so much. (Sextuple shit, he does not let this shit go does he?)
A compressed sigh escapes you and you let go of Dave’s skin.
Dirk. He really…. Really…. Really….
“He…. Pissed me off so much it transcended my bullshit handling capabilities line,” you say, accurately aware that you’re still not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth (you’re fucking sworn testimony is drowning inside of you, in your puddle of beers not tears.) “He fucking took over my tolerance ship and sunk it into the fucking typhoon mouth that is the anus of the world. My desire to punch him was a cry of help from the rest of society, asking for a savior to end their suffering.”
(Septuple shit, why can’t you just tell him?)
Dave hums, as if you said the wrong answer (which you kind of did. Kind of.) A solid quarter note of a hum that is pretty much a “I know you have something more to say darling so spit it out.” His breath, close and warm and only slightly moist, tickles against you. (Octuple shit that’s hot.)
“And why’s that?” Dave prods as he pulls you back from him (you do not whine and there is no evidence to prove that you did so shut up) so he can gently kiss you, full on the lips, again. He lingers longer against your lips this time and has the audacity to fucking lick you like a woof-barker-beast (nonuple shit that is really hot). “Why get so mad at him Karkles?”
You’re speechless as Dave then decides to fucking tease the side of your neck with his fucking tongue (shit shit shit shit times a million shit) causing little rivulets of excitement to course through you and pump blood to your junior areas. Junior areas that have to stay in their junior form. You grip Dave, balancing yourself against him (because if you don’t, you swear you will fall over. Or melt over. Or just fucking melt.) He’s being so much and you are dying with a capital “D” (not for the dick).
It is then (when you can almost see Nirvana) that you realize something.
Something that should’ve been prominent to you three swishes of Shakira’s “Hips don’t lie” hips ago.
You realize that Dave is using his skills to try and…. Get something out of you. Something that you have a hard time vomiting out.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” you mutter as Dave reluctantly separates himself from you like tree bark does to a tree. He grins.
“Ding ding,” Dave whispers, “Points to Hufflepuff! The Ace Detective Senpai Vantas found out my master plan! Bravo and brava! It’s called calming you down so I can get my alibi Elle Woods. It’s practically a hustle from Zootopia,” he says sassily.
Another long kiss follows and you are probably going to pass out due to lack of anything working in your body. This is nothing like the long make out you two shared in the not-really-hot tub in Sports Med.
No this is… Something else.
“Now,” Dave asks, “What’s this about being all rage filled about Dirk?”
You look down at Dave’s shitty red vans. They’re not “tattered and destroyed” shitty. They’re just shitty because their red vans. A startling reminder that social media is filled with idiots who can turn anything into a meme. From sneakers to anime girls, the internet is the literal definition of the worst. Generation whatever the hell you are truly is the Generations filled with empty headed flesh covered sacks of corn. Your butthole is clenched in fear of the day when John will yell, “Damn Dave! Back at it again with the red vans!”
You have duct tape ready in your backpack just in case that event ever happens. You’re ready to tape John’s mouth shut when the time is right.
Yet even the vans of the red kind can’t hold your attention forever and you have to go back to why you are staring at them. It’s more than an excuse to gripe about Strider’s poor choice in footwear. It’s a time to get your thoughts together while not looking at Dave directly (and to not get attacked by those lips of his that you like way too much.)
Dirk. Your not boyfriend’s brother. The guy who got the full force of your fist. What was he? What made you snap?
He was too…. Too…
Too…. what?
Too much? Too dimwitted? Too pathetic? Too doltish? What was Dirk “too” of? What made you hit him like a Bubblebeam attack to a fire type Pokémon? What?
You thought about the aloof but dejected way he spoke. You thought about how all his facts checked out yet held no conclusive evidence. You thought about how you couldn’t read him. You thought about how stiff with certainty he was when talking, yet how he relaxed he became when he spoke of Jake. Not the situation surrounding him, but Jake himself.
Was Dirk maybe too….
Relatable? To you?
Saying all those shitty things about himself. Not waiting to hear the other side of the story. So convinced that he was right to the point of vomiting before the race even began? In running, there’s always a nervous energy that filled you before a race. A terrifying feeling of knowing what’s to come. The pacing, the muscle tension building up in your legs, your breath turning cold and uncomfortable in your lungs. The buildup to the runner’s high that you knew could make or break a runner.
Some people couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle the clenching that the body did before the dive into the unknown.
Ironically, that’s how you feel right now.
“He’s too much like me,” you finally say. There’s a realization in your tone that you didn’t think would seep into your self-discovery process. You… understand. And that understanding is really…. Shocking. Like electricity. Shocking like metal attracting lightning in a storm. Shocking like how Dave sometimes kissed you and there would be a jump of static between the two of you. Shocking in how right it feels to you now.
You don’t want to explain yourself but you know you owe Dave an explanation. An explanation to all that is rushing through your head in brain waves. He needs to know and deserves to know. That’s how much he wormed into you. To the point where you care enough about him to explain yourself.
You growl and grab at his clothes in a kind of strangle, kind of hug.
“He’s the fucking definition of a head the somehow found its way back up its own asschute,” you say angrily, “And I would know because my head is also swinging around up in the shit smelling waste dispensing hole of the universe.”
You don’t give Dave the time to comment on that statement and plow on.
“He’s too much like me because… he thought he knew fucking everything… Like everything was fucking in stone like Mount Rushmore. And fuck I just….” You can hear yourself become angry and tired and mad and passive as you say,
“Hate that.”
Out there, your confession of what’s wrong with everything hangs like chandelier from a high ceiling. But inside, you feel ten (maybe twenty) times lighter. You breathe out a sigh. It’s not a sigh of relief, but a sigh that something like a storm had finally passed through you. (You feel much better.)
Dave’s silent for a moment, digesting the words you upchucked up and into his brain.
“You hate Mount Rushmore?” he finally asks softly. He says it jokingly but you know from the way he plays with your back and your hair, from the way he goes to lift your chin again and position your lips a perfect mere inches from his, that he “gets it.” You snort.
“Yes Dave. I hate that one of this country’s greatest accomplishments is the exploitation of a beautiful natural landscape,” you say. In all honesty, you really do hate Mount Rushmore. “I hate that old white guys are permanently etch and sketched into nature, like the world’s worst mascots.”
Dave whistles in agreement.
“Preach babe. Fuck those old white guys who are national monuments that we shell out the millions to stare at like underpaid hookers.” he says and leans down to give you another quick peck on the lips.
What he doesn’t expect is you forcing yourself back on him after he pulls back. You hold his head in place with your hands and go to town, the best that you can, on his lip-face area. Using your “skills” (and your pure bullheadedness) you try to make him as breathless as you can before pulling off with a pop and a saliva strand. (Gross. But not that gross. But still gross. You don’t not not not like it. Shut up.)
A runner’s high is a hit of euphoria to the brain. It comes after a roller-coaster of pain and anxiety. It hits you out of nowhere but makes you feel thousands of feet off the ground. It makes you do crazy, stupid things. Things that you wouldn’t have done if your overactive imagination was taking control of your thoughts.
You feel one rushing through you as you tell Dave that important thing that has been swirling around in you for months.
Your name is Karkat Vantas and, even though you punched his brother in the dick and cried in front of him in a parking lot,
You are currently the boyfriend of Dave Strider.
You are so fucking happy.