Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dave Strider's experience with women had pretty much been limited to the awkwardest girl in seventh grade who kept goddamn giving him Valentines every year ("I only accept these," he informed her breezily the last time, "If they're written in your own menstrual blood." That one earned him a hurt look and a huff and a: "David, that's why you don't have any friends.") and that time he tricked Egbert into watching 'Two Girls, One Cup' (twice. That had worked twice). The female body wasn't a mystery to kids from the 4chan generation and Dave had always figured that his lack of interest was due to that absence of mystique.

She swept into his life like a March storm, all angles and curves against the burnt amber sky of Heat and Clockwork, giant gun blazing as she lept from the metal lattice and took down the Gyclops in ten even shots, back straight and expression impassive. It was unreal- like the freaking tailor-made fantasy of every thirteen year old boy. Big guns, statuesque women. Statuesque women shooting big guns.

Dave Strider was not every thirteen year old boy and he did not fall prey to to every thirteen year old boy's wank fantasies.

Women did not exist before Ms. Lalonde. And well, since Earth was gone forever and the future looked kind of fucked from this point on, it was safe to say that women would not exist after her either.

No, it wasn't the gun or the curves or anything really. Not anything, just everything. The way she moved in the orange light, hips cocked to one side as she holstered her weapon and produced the flask from her captchalogue. Dave watched her knock back a swig and every organ that could do so skipped a beat. He lowered his sword and forgot all about the damned grist. All he could say was:

"Thank ya kindly, m'am."

- and then choke back on his own mortified reaction- he was usually better than that at training the Texan drawl out of his voice. Of all the times to sound like the Malboro Man pre-ball drop, this was the worst.

She smiled at him- a little condescendingly- before spinning sharply on her polished heel and making to leave. Suddenly this seemed like the worst thing that could ever happen. Dave swallowed down his embarrassment and hesitation and adjusted his sunglasses. This time when he spoke, it was all coolkid and no pimple-faced John Wayening.

"Wait. You looking for Rose or something?"

The woman paused, shoulders tensed. Dave leant back on his heels and didn't quite lie, "- I know where she is."

"By the way your mom is a total MILF."

"Excuse me?"

"MILF." Dave leant over the edge of the tower and watched the empty city of Derse turn below them. He and Rose had most of their meetings in dreams lately- the gates were all fucked up now since John and Jade died and Rose wanted...

Well.

Rose spent most of her time asleep anyway. "Mother. I'd. Like. To. Fuck. C'mon, Lalonde, don't tell me you haven't heard that one before."

"No, no, I'm familiar with the acronym. I was hoping that you'd clarify a direly misheard sentence. I thought that I heard you apply this particular colloquial qualifier to my mother." Rose was knitting, but it was weird dream knitting and the scarf was coming out all dappled in weird patterns that hurt to look at. Dave eased back, weight on his palms, and pointedly did not look at her. They were sitting close enough that their shoulders touched, but just barely.

"I did. I am. Applying it all over her expensive powersuit. Stone cold fox- why didn't you ever mention this? You've been holding out on me."

"Somehow," Rose's tone was clipped, "It did not seem relevant. Somehow. How grievous and relevant a topic to slip my mind. Then again, you know how I am."

"Damn, 'course I do. Brain like a fucking bedpan flipped upside down- that's my Rose Lalonde."

He caught her pale smile out of the corner of his eye just before before she asked- hesitantly, her knitting needles knocking together clumsily as she paused- "How... how was she?"

"Looking for you." Dave slouched and added, "I uh. Told her that I could help her."

"Dave! That's... you know very well that probably isn't true."

"Yeah I. Look." he took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. They'd been playing this fucking game so long he was even tired in his dreams, "I just didn't want her to leave. I don't know why." God. Why would he ever admit that?

"Hm."

"Oh no. That's your analytical tone."

"You grew up in a notably masculine environment. Absent parental figure and few feminine feminine influences. A world of homosocial one-upsmanship. It is not unusual that you would yearn for a mother figure. More unusual, perhaps, that you would develop an odd Oedipal attachment to my mother of all people."

"Wow. It's that hard for you to accept that your mom's hot? Really?"

"Shut up, Strider." There was a sincere edge to the barb, like she was only half joking. She began knitting again and Dave looked at her- really looked at her, his shades clutched loosely in one hand, halfway to his eyes. He saw in her an echo of Ms. Lalonde. Or maybe what he saw in Ms. Lalonde was an echo of the person Rose could grow up to be. He wondered if that's what people saw when they looked at him and Bro.

"Been real, Lalonde, but I gotta wake up. Hot MILF loving waiting for me on the other side and everything."

"Dave, wai-"

Probably not.

It was a stupid line of thought.

She didn't say much.

She tipped her head to one side, placed her hands on her hips artfully. Her lips quirked sometimes, but it was hard to tell if she was laughing honestly or if it was merely patronizing indulgence. She hummed to herself while fixing up the gun and drank an endless fount of wine without ever getting woozy on her feet. Her pink scarf ribboned behind her prettily, cutting a smart silhouette with her impeccable bouffant and her legs that went on forever. Her taciturn nature cloaked their journey in elegant silence- not like Dave spent his time talking to himself like a spaz anyway, just that... jokes dissolved in his throat around her. His palms got all sweaty like an awkward neckbeard at a Lolita convention and he felt more thirteen than Bro had ever allowed.

And sometimes he just-

"Class act, lady," he deadpanned fondly, quirking an eyebrow at Ms. Lalonde as she arched back from her weapon's recoil. The Lich Imp burst into grist and embers and glowing dust were falling all around them like snow. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and smiled back at him.

Oh shit Romeo. Where are you even going with this?

Seriously Strider- does this fine woman strike you as a pedophile?

He opened his mouth to say something less fucking awkward, but nothing came out. Ms. Lalonde chuckled lowly and ruffled his hair as she passed and the world tipped out from under him.

Real cool he cursed himself silently, This is why you don't have any friends.

Desperation was Rose's new theory. We're both starting to go a little crazy with isolation. Not even the trolls bug us anymore.

Yeah, that was a head-scratcher there. For a while there a few of them just wouldn't shut up. Their "leader" or whatever and the blind chick who got John killed... they'd been eerily silent for weeks now. The last message he'd received was an ominous one too. Just D4V3 1'M SORRY. which, okay. Was warranted all things considered but the least she could have done was leave an explanation. Maybe they were all dead too like John and Jade and Derse. Empty planets floating in paradox space.

"You're so desperate for a little company. A little human interaction."

No, not really Rose. I was always a loner. Always alone. Just me and the puppets and the internet. Seriously, you're not even trying here.

"You've imprinted on her like a hatchling chick. Hardly becoming of a cool guy like you, Dave."

"Rose stop making this so complicated Jesus. I think your mom's hot. That's it."

That was the last conversation they had in Derse. After that, Rose died for the first time.

"I got a confession Ms. L- I have no idea whether or not the gate to Rose's world's actually gonna work if we find it. See, the unfortunate thing here is that your daughter is Cuckoo for Coco Puffs and blew up a buncha shit in her world before we realized how fucked we were."

He was moving quickly, fingers twitching at the ready for his turntables as he leapt nimbly from gear to gear. Ms. Lalonde kept up easily in graceful, long-legged strides.

"And if we get there, I have no fucking idea how to activate our extra life." All Calsprite said was OOH HOO HAA BWEE HEE. Of course. "Figure I gotta what, alchemize a quarter and shove it between her teeth?"

This was the most he'd talked aloud in a long time. Ms. Lalonde said nothing- she let him ramble like a moron but he didn't care. I'm a little desperate this time, Rose. But just a little. He refused to be the last one alive in this hellish abortion of a session. He was the Knight of time, emphasis on that medieval ideal right there. What kind of Knight let all his friends die like this. Goddammit, he was doing everything wrong.

Ms. Lalonde stopped suddenly, poised like a cat as she turned her head to a sound Dave couldn't quite hear. Something strange flickered in her clear eyes and she slowly relaxed, the tension in her smooth limbs unraveling like thread.

"Dave." it was the first time she'd said his name. He stopped stark still, abruptly and horribly aware of the way his heart was beating a riot against his rib cage. Fuck fuck fuck. Ms. Lalonde's expression was as glass as she flipped out her makeup compact captchalogue. From its depths she produced two funneled wine glasses and a bottle of aged Sauvignon.

She handed a glass to Dave and said: "Jack is here." in her ever-calm, upper crust lilt. Red lightning cracked a gash across the sky, casting her angular face in shadows and strange light. She began to pour the wine, "I will take care of it. You should go."

"But-" there is no but. He didn't even have any reasonable protests, but she still cut him off with the kiss.

Dave Strider was a pretty cool kid so it wasn't a complete surprise. Hot mid-thirty something alcoholic bad ass motherfucking MILFs were always all up in his grill. This was the end game. Just as planned. Etcetera. This was-

He clenched his free hand into a fist as she pulled away, cupping his cheek in one of her cool, narrow palms, "When you find her, that's how you do it." And she raised a toast.

"Here's to you," she murmured, "The last and final moment is yours."

Rose awoke to Dave bathed in Light and Rain.

"How many timelines you figure we fucked up already, Lalonde?"

"I don't know," she touched her face gingerly, still dizzy with the sensation of death, "A whole lot."

"Something like that." Dave grinned bitterly and stood, summoning his turntables with a snap of his fingers, "I'm going back again. This time we'll do it right."

Rose hoisted herself up- braced on one elbow- and shielded her eyes against the light, "Well, that agony is your triumph Dave." and she gave him a weak thumbs up, "Here's to you."

The expression on his face just before he disappeared was delightfully baffled. Rose laid back in the white grass and waited for the reset, the last woman in the whole world.