Work Text:
“What was John like. When you met him in person.”
Dave’s question breaks the silence in the room, catching Rose slightly off-guard.
“What do you mean?” she asks back, looking up from the large tome she’s writing in.
“Just like, was The John Egbert Experience™ everything you’d always dreamed it would be,” Dave shrugs.
“Is there a reason you’re asking me this now?”
“You know what today is, right?”
“Sometime in late 2010…?” Rose estimates. She had stopped keeping track of the date after their first year. Dave, however, didn’t have that luxury.
“October 13th. John’s half birthday.” He tells her, resting his head in his hand. “We haven’t spoken to him in eighteen months.”
There’s an unhappy silence as Rose absorbs this information. Finally, she answers Dave’s question.
“He was… I don’t know how I would describe it.” she said, her face twisted up in thought, and Dave raised an eyebrow. It was a rare occurrence indeed to witness Rose Lalonde at a loss for words. Rather than point this out, however, he got up and rounded the end of the table to sit by her side.
“Let me put it this way. I had just descended to the battlefield out of dark clouds raining black water, full of unholy fury and dark magicks, with the singular goal of finding Noir and ending his reign of terror and/or die trying. But when I found John in the heart of the castle… well, I won’t say it all melted away, but some of it did. I was still burning with rage, and I couldn’t stop speaking in tongues, but it didn’t faze him in the slightest. He even made me laugh.” This last thought she said more softly, with a small smile. Had she looked to Dave she would have seen a wistful and faintly jealous expression replacing his usual poker face, but she didn’t. “So I guess, to put it in your terms, the ‘John Egbert Experience™’ was everything I thought it would be and more. Ten out of ten, would absolutely recommend.”
In the pause that followed Rose realized that her book was still open on her lap and closed it, then lifted it onto the table and rested her head in her folded arms on top of it.
“Well, what about you, then? What was our dear Ms. Harley like when you finally met on her winter wonderland?” Rose inquired, her smile half-hidden in the crook of her arm, and Dave smiled too at the mention of Jade, in spite of himself, which made Rose smile more.
“Jade was… wild. Untamed. A goddamned force of nature. She marched me through snow while wearing a strapless dress, with mud on her knees and twigs in her hair, and wouldn’t stop for anything, except to pluck flowers from the trees and put them behind her ears, and behind mine. We talked a lot, about every topic under Skaia, and sometimes I’d rap about frogs and other dumb shit we saw along the way while she beatboxed so poorly it was adorable, and it was probably the only time in that game I actually truly enjoyed, in spite of knowing my own death was waiting for me at the end of it all, so that’s really fuckin’ sayin’ something I think,” Dave stopped to grab a breath, and took off his shades with shaking hands. “Meeting Jade Harley in the flesh is, and I swear I'm only exaggerating a little bit here, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Rose slowly, lazily, reached one arm out to grab Dave’s neck to pull herself upright and rest her head on his shoulder. Dave answered by burying his face in her neck and wrapping his arms around her waist.
“We’re getting better at this sibling stuff, huh,” Dave quipped, and Rose’s laugh was muffled by the fabric of his cape.
“John and Jade got the hang of it much quicker, I’ll bet you anything,” She replied.
“Yeah,” he agreed with a small chuckle. “Rose… I really miss them.”
“I miss them too.”
They remain in this embrace for a long while (a record for them, in fact, Dave notes). They don’t even move at the sound of knuckles rapping on the doorframe, though Dave does shift his gaze upward to see who it is.
“What’s going on in here?” Karkat asks, fidgeting a bit. “Is this a human family thing? Should I leave? I can leave,”
“Nah, we’re just throwing a pity party for ourselves,” Dave tells him.
“About…?”
“We miss John and Jade,” Rose elaborates. Karkat considers this a moment.
“Can I join?”
Dave shrugs, Rose’s head still on his shoulder.
“The more the merrier.”