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“Ah, shit, I’m all turned around.” You hiss as you clench your hands on the steering wheel.
“Yeah, take a right.” Sollux says, his eyes on his phone.
“What right?” you ask, scanning the road ahead.
“That one you passed back there.” Sollux says flatly.
“You asshole! Why didn’t you say?!” you demand, glancing away from the road to shoot him a poisonous look.
“What? How many times have we been to this place? I didn’t think I needed to give you directions, do you need me to tell you how to drink when we get there too?” Sollux snaps back at you.
You are experienced in driving with one hand and slap fighting your brother with the other but neither of you carry it on too long because you don’t actually want to have an accident. It doesn’t matter anyway because Sollux is actually pulling up directions for you to reroute you from where you’re going.
“Stay on this one, you can pull a U-turn in a little bit. So…” he drags that last part out and you can feel your skin prickle with him looking at you, “your crush is going to be there tonight.”
“I-” you flounder.
“Wait, sorry, I should be more specific with you shouldn’t I? Who haven’t you had a crush on?” Sollux snickers at you.
“I hate you.” You declare.
“You’re the one that gives the rest of us bisexuals the reputation for being attracted to everyone, but it’s not true. Karkat Vantas-Captor is an outlier and should not have been- OW!” Sollux yelps as you catch him in the shoulder.
“It’s not a thing, ok? It’s just a stupid little crush and like you said that happens a lot, stop laughing. If I can get through my crushes I basically almost always have a great friend afterwards so it’ll be fine. It’s not like anything is going to happen.” You sigh.
“Ok, fair point. But… you’ve known him for ages and you STILL have a crush. Don’t you think it miiiiight be something?” Sollux reasons and then snaps his fingers at the turning you have to make.
You take the excuse of navigating the turning to not answer. The thing is you have had a crush on Dave for ages, it’s true. It’s not a terrible crush, you’re not insensible around him or anything. It’s just always there, a little flutter when you think about him, wishful thinking about what could be, admiring the way he looks when you see him. But it’s not going to happen.
You’re pretty sure the reason it’s not going to happen is entirely your own fault. You met Dave and his identical twin sister Rose- and yes they are IDENTICAL twins, and no you don’t know which one of them was born with a different name and as they haven’t told you it’s none of your goddamn business. It’s not like that shit is new to you either, Psii gave birth to you and they have solidly maintained they lost their gender in a tragic 404 error so they’re nonbinary and then you have your mom and your dad as well so you’re hardly one for traditional anything. Whatever, you had a point. Right, so when you met the two of them you were immediately floored by how they look. Which, basically, if you saw them in a fantasy movie you’d declare that they were obviously hot elven creatures designed to ensnare people with their good looks and you’d berate the protagonist for falling for it. They have fair and flawless skin, white blonde hair and unusual eyes that are this reddish purple that’s somehow natural. They were so hot it made you angry.
Then of course Dave made you angry because of his general personality and how he’s an infuriating guy. You may have been having a bad day at the time. It was made worse by Dave not believing that he’s not the only twin there because, actually, Sollux is yours.
Yes, ha, ha, you’re twins and you look nothing alike. You look like your dad, he looks like Psii. He has about a foot of height on you and sometimes he feels like he weighs half as much meanwhile you’re short and you’re going to say ‘sturdy’. If you look closely you can see ways where you’re the same. Sollux has heterochromia but his reddish brown eye is a complete duplicate for your left eye. His fingernails are just like yours, the shape of his top lip is yours, you both have the same bit of hair that won’t lay flat just at your temple that Psii has. But, yeah, for the rest of the time you look nothing alike. It’s grating being told it all the time. You’re AWARE that you don’t look the same, you certainly didn’t need Dave’s scepticism that your twin doesn’t even look the same ethnicity as you. And again, you know that. He looks as Korean as Psii is and you look as Maori as your dad is.
You may have said something regrettable about not needing to take that kind of comment from some dumb white boy like him. You were then immediately shouted at by Dave and Rose both in what you’ve since discovered was Navajo because anyone can be albino. Yeah, you were the asshole there. Well, Dave too but… yeah.
“Nothing’s going to happen.” You say finally.
You wish it would. It’s not like you two hate each other still, you both moved past that original fuck up. His twin is dating your best friend and his best friend is your friend so you weren’t getting away from him. Repeated proximity to him showed you both that actually you could get on pretty well. Really well.
“You could just ask him.” Sollux points out.
“Did Nep put you up to this?” you ask him suspiciously.
“No.” Sollux obviously lies. Goddamnit your sister isn’t even in the country and she’s still interfering in the wasteland that is your love life.
“Oh, forgive me if seeing you beat your head against this problem that isn’t a problem- park there- gets frustrating sometimes.” Sollux groans and points to a space you’d already seen and were already going to.
“Which one of us has the drivers licence here?” you argue.
“Next time I’m going to sit in the back and you can chauffer me properly, I’ll buy you a hat.” He retorts and hops out.
“I’ll kick you out while the car is moving.” You threaten.
“I’ll slash your tyres with my broken bones when I land.” Sollux escalates.
“I’ll… damnit.” You sigh, you had nothing to escalate to. You thoroughly ignore Sollux’s fist pump of victory and start walking towards your destination for the night. It’s not a bar, but it’s not a café, or karaoke place technically. It’s some mishmash of the three run by someone with no idea what it means to mark out a niche or specialise and instead it’s all of the above and your entire group of morons loves the place, including you.
You get a little jolt when you walk in and see a flash of white blonde hair but it’s just Rose cuddled up to Kanaya’s side, not Dave. You grab a coffee and take a seat with your sprawling group and listen in across the table as John talks about the biology final he had today and the apparent hell that was. He’s partway through his explanation, well his bitching really, when his back straightens and his eyes go wide.
“Dave! What happened- where are your shades?” John asks in surprise.
You turn. You shouldn’t have turned, but you did. Your treasonous brain provides you with a slow-mo view of Dave walking towards you. His unfairly long legs in distressingly tight jeans striding like it’s his name (and yeah, it is), his sleek hair flutters slightly as he moves and without his signature shades you can see his stark white lashes framing his eyes that are smouldering. It’s like he’s on a goddamn runway.
“Don’t even. Sollux, remember those screwdrivers you had for your glasses?” Dave says, coming to a stop at your side and you realise that the smoulder you’d attributed to him in your slightly fantasy dazed mind is really more of a squint.
“The ones you mocked me for because who’d need those?” Sollux asks with a smug smile.
“Yeah, yeah, all laugh at Dave time. Subway door chewed my glasses and very nearly my head because some tourist can’t resist talking with his hands and also arms and shoved me. Please tell me you have them so I can fix these and not get a brain melting migraine.” Dave pleads.
You watch at your brother flickers through an expression that you’ve seen far too many times and it always means he has an evil plan.
“It’d suck if you had to leave, it’s karaoke night. Here.” Sollux says innocently and hands them over, holding them in front of the empty chair next to you. Dave innocently takes the screwdrivers and sits down next to you.
“Thank you.” Dave sighs and fishes the admittedly bent shades out of his jacket.
“Can you fix that?” you ask.
“It’s just a little bent and popped the screw I think.” Dave nods as he fiddles with them.
“You’ve never actually been here on a karaoke night have you?” Sollux asks, faux innocence in his tone.
“Mmm, no. I usually have class today. Honestly, I’d thought the karaoke was a joke to put people off, I didn’t know they actually did it.” Dave admits, rejecting one screwdriver and trying another when the first didn’t work.
“So you’ve never heard Karkat sing.” Sollux smiles. What is he doing?
“He’s really good!” John says brightly.
Dave looks up at that and then over to you with very blatant scepticism on his face.
“The fuck is that look for?” you demand.
“I’ve heard you TALK, dude. Your voice sounds half like you’ve been sucking dick and half like you’ve been gargling gravel. Wait, no, like you’ve been blowing The Thing.” Dave says.
“And I bet you’re fantastic, are you? Is that where this is going? Put me down to build yourself up? How very middle school of you Dave, what a classic play, the judges are asleep forever now well done.” You sneer at him.
Yeah, this is why this is never going anywhere.
“Well… Dave would be good…” John sighs.
“Hey!” Dave protests.
“You only ever sing dumb things or rap!” John protests.
“Dave actually has a lovely voice, mother was quite keen on the both of us participating in musical theatre when we were younger. Dave was very good, it was fun.” Rose leans over Kanaya to snitch on Dave to all of you.
“Rose!” Dave says sharply, his cheeks flushing immediately. Without his shades on he’s so much easier to read.
“Ah, sorry, my mistake. Dave has never had any sincere interest or joy in anything ever.” She teases him.
“Whatever. I don’t deserve this, snarky broads dunking on me, tourists trashing my shakes, stupid bright lights.” Dave mutters angrily and the tiny screwdriver skips over his hand, just missing the lens of the shades and stabbing his finger enough to leave a scrape but thankfully not draw blood.
“Alright give that to me, you’re going to fuck your glasses or at least my screwdrivers. Gimme.” Sollux insists and snatches it from him without waiting for Dave to give it back.
Dave just groans, putting his head in his hands so he can cover his eyes. He’s sensitive to light, you know that much and Psii gets awful migraines, so you empathise there.
“I drove, you can lay down in the back of my car if you need to. Quiet and dark and all.” You offer.
Dave is opening his mouth, you’re sure to say no, but then something from the kitchen crashes and you see how he winces.
“You know what? Yeah, sure. Thanks.” He nods.
“Let me know when you’re done.” You tell Sollux who nods, grinning, and you know he absolutely won’t. You blame Nepeta for having this effect on him. Her or your mom. You pat your pocket to check your keys are there and lead Dave outside into the night, circling around to where you parked.
You unlock your car and wrench the back door open, leaping in first to knock your accumulated stuff onto the floor. You’re not expecting Dave to climb right in after you, forcing you to clamber over the back of the seat to get into the front.
“You don’t have to be up there.” Dave says and then snorts when you hit the horn with your knee ever so slightly leading to your car just loudly going MEEP for a moment.
“You should lay down.” You tell him so he shrugs and does so.
“Jesus you have a lot of shit in this car.” Dave curses as he shuffles about.
“Well I wasn’t expecting douchebags on my back seat.” You snipe back at him and watch as he fishes up a hoodie of yours and uses it as a pillow. You fall silent and hope that it’s dark and quiet enough for him.
This is a stupid crush, it’ll pass. It’s just… lasted for longer than the others is all. Dave doesn’t like you like that and just thinking that makes your chest sting slightly.
“I’m glad we’re friends.” You say in defiance of your thoughts.
“What brought that on?” Dave says from behind you.
“I was thinking about when we met earlier, on the drive here.” You tell him.
“That train wreck?” Dave snorts.
“Yeah, I guess I’m lucky we’re friends at all after that. Just ate my whole foot.” You say with a sigh.
“Well, I didn’t make it easy. Just because annoying you is shitloads of fun and very easy doesn’t mean I shoulda done it as much as I did. As I do. Also, you’re a grouchy little bitch and I’m an asshole.” Dave says in the dark.
“True. Sorry, I should be quiet if you’ve got a migraine.” You say softly.
About a minute passes in silence.
“Karkat?” he says.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad we’re friends too. Also, I know this is weird to say but your car smells like you.” Dave says and now you have to turn around again to look at him.
“What?” you ask in disbelief.
“It’s just like, ok, you know you can go to John’s house and you walk in through the door and you’re like ‘ah it’s John’. Even if you put a bag over my head and drove me around if you walked me into one of our friends houses I could tell you where I was. You don’t know your own house because you’re immune to it but you know other people’s, right?” Dave says in a rush with awkward hand gestures as he tries to speed through his explanation.
“I… guess?” you say slowly.
“But like your house wouldn’t smell like this car, your house probably is all of you together right but this is- it’s you. Like your sweater. Not that I sniff your clothes I just literally have had my face in it just now is what I mean. So that’s just a thing I noticed and said for some reason.” Dave says, his voice pitching a little higher with nerves.
“I guess that makes sense, I usually just drive myself places. And the best thing about having a car is naps between classes.” You concede.
“There you go, that’s why it’s you.” Dave says and you hear him sniff.
“You and… KFC? Do I smell KFC? Karkat I thought you were a vegetarian.” Dave says, leaning up on his elbows.
“It was finals week, I fell off the wagon. Don’t at me.” You groan, you’d hoped no one would know.
“For shaaaame.” Dave teases.
“Fuck off Strider.” You hiss and sink low in your seat.
Dave giggles softly, not a noise you’ve heard from him before and you hear him shift about in the back.
“Can you really sing?” he asks after a bit.
“Can you?” you ask.
“I wanna hear.” Dave says.
“I’m not singing to you in my car when you have a migraine, especially with no music. Doing karaoke is one thing, I’m not humiliating myself in here with you.” You say firmly. Besides, if you were on stage and he just heard you that’s one thing, in here you’d be singing TO him and that’s… that’s something.
“I don’t actually have a migraine, I think you got me in time. My hero.” He tells you.
“Really?” you ask.
“Yeah, so now you gotta sing so I can hear.” Dave says brightly.
“Alright, outta my car. Now.” You groan and haul yourself out. You pull the back door open and Dave joins you with a flash of a smile that makes something in your chest flutter.
Why can’t you just get over this crush like every crush you’ve had on any of your friends? Why does it keep sticking around? You lead Dave back inside where Sollux helpfully has his shades repaired and you pointedly ignore the look he’s trying to give you.
“Ah, my hero.” Dave sighs happily as he slides them on. See? It doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t.
You get sucked into an anecdote that Terezi is telling and you don’t notice the music starting up, not until Rose says something.
“I’ve never heard you sing either Karkat, you should.” Rose smiles and you turn to see some stranger onstage already, you guess they started for tonight.
“I don’t know, maybe.” You shrug. With his shades back on you can’t tell if Dave is watching you but you think he might be. You try not to think about it.
The night passes on and you get hungry enough that you go up to order food since everyone else is just doing that as and when they want it. Only yours will take a bit to cook and you’re already up at the bar so…
Your eyes track across to the menu of songs that they have at the karaoke stage, you know it well and you’re tempted. You do actually enjoy singing, you don’t think you’re great at it but it’s fun. Stage fright isn’t really a thing that happens to you much, or it is but only to the extent that it makes singing a thrill to do rather than terrifying. And yet now you’re a little bit nervous, you’re not stupid enough to say it’s not because of Dave. You should skip this.
“Do it!” Sollux yells from your table. That fucker.
“Do it! Do it! Do it!” several of your friends are chanting, the treasonous bastards you hate them all.
“Fine! Fine!” you shout back and stomp over.
Damnit this isn’t about Dave but you’re at least going to have plausible deniability of picking a song that you can play off as not serious or sincere like he no doubt would. Fuck, Sinatra – Fly Me To The Moon. You’ve sung it a thousand times, usually in bathrooms with damn good acoustics but whatever. Because you have no luck at all there was no queue before you so you have to go up right away.
Your stomach churns as you get up there but the practiced motions of singing sand down the edges of anxiety and you get on with the song. When you dare look over at your table you can’t help but notice that Dave’s attention on you is rapt and you really wish Sollux hadn’t fixed his shades so quick. The song ends and then all cheer or clap when you come down. Your dumb brother texts you requests from the table, you filter out the ones you’re absolutely not doing and slam through the ones that’ll be fun. Time After Time, Toxic and even Man After Midnight because why not? You’re grinning when you’re done but you feel a little like you’re running out of air so you come down.
You friends are clapping but Dave is out of his seat before you can get to the table, going right past you to the karaoke book and flipping through it. Is he trying to compete with you? You don’t care if that’s his goal because you know you’re not the best by any means so you’ll hardly be threatened if he’s better than you.
“Karkat you really are very good!” Rose says happily as you come back.
“Thanks, oh hey my fries came.” You say and Sollux pushes them across to you.
“I guarded them for you.” He assures you.
“Yeah, for a fee.” You scoff, noticing the dent taken out of the portion.
“Hey, Dave’s on!” John exclaims and you turn your head to see that he is indeed onstage.
The song is… not one you know and at first you think he’s singing something dumb, after all John said he never did anything sincerely. But there’s a backing track in there and you realise as he starts to go on that damn, Dave has RANGE. The music reminds you vaguely of muse but you know it’s not, the song does feel like something you’ve heard before and has probably come up before on your spotify recommendations or whatever.
Onstage Dave pushes his shades into his perfect hair (you hate him) and his eyes flick open and he’s staring right at you. How do you breathe again? Oh god the music is going all heavy on the piano and his voice is picking up, this is definitely how you die. He is good, he’s so good, fuck what is your face doing right now is he going to KNOW what you’re feeling? Shit!
“Take my advice and run while you still can! To the races, got my love jumpstarted. The only one I want is you!” Dave sings.
The thing in your chest that you carry for Dave, your crush, it’s doing just that. It’s crushing your heart, you’re having a meltdown. This is a disaster that’s upped its rating from crush to full on pining.
“I told-“ Sollux starts, all smug like he knew this was happening. He’s fine isn’t he? Sitting there with his arm around his spooky girlfriend when you have no one.
“Fuck you.” You hiss, not taking your eyes off of Dave.
“I told you he could sing too!” John laughs happily as he claps along with the drums in the song.
The guitars play and Dave’s eyes flicker over your table, a flicker of a smile on his face. You can’t even hate him because it’s not a cocky smile, he’s just happy and maybe a little nervous. Fuck your life, you nearly weren’t even friends with him at all and now this? Can you find a spoon on the table and just scoop your heart out with it? You can’t, not because of how that’s impossible but because that’d mean taking your eyes off of Dave and how he sincerely he croons the last lines of the song to you. No, not to you, it’s nothing to do with you.
He doesn’t sing a second song, which is probably good for your fragile constitution. You’re not counting the time he got up with John to sing the metal cover to the Ghostbusters theme because that surely can’t have been a thing you were forced to live through, surely not.
You try to enjoy the rest of your evening and mostly you manage. Your awful brother ditches you all for his girlfriend and eventually everyone else starts going their own way and you decide maybe you should duck out early too.
You walk to your car wondering how you’re going to deal with this escalation of your feelings. You’re wondering if you’re going to have the self-restraint to not google those lyrics so you can blare that song on repeat and think of Dave when you hear it. You hear footsteps following you and your heart leaps into your throat for all the wrong reasons.
And then all the right ones.
“Karkat, wait.”
You turn around, your hand almost touching the car door and see Dave hurrying to catch up to you.
“You weren’t bullshitting about being able to sing.” He says in a rush.
“Neither were you.” You say and Dave shrugs.
He stares at you and you stare back for a moment.
“You know what, fuck it, I might be totally misreading this. Maybe. Don’t break the sunglasses if I am, I already had to fix them once today.” Dave burbles on nonsensically.
“Sollux fixed them.” You point out.
“Shut up.” Dave groans and leans in and kisses you. You jerk back in surprise and realise your mistake immediately.
“Fuck!” you curse yourself.
“Shit, sorry.” Dave apologises and pulls back.
“Get the fuck back here and kiss me! That was what you were doing, wasn’t it?” you say loudly and Dave stares at you.
He nods, ever so slightly and gets closer again.
“Gonna try this again then, you want this, right?” he checks which is sweet, you like it.
“I want you.” You tell him.
“Shit, Karkat don’t say shit like that. You’re gonna kill me.” Dave wheezes and leans his hand against the back window of your car.
“I’M going to kill you if you don’t k-“
Him kissing you is a good way for him to shut you up it seems. Shit, this is so much better than any moment of idle wishful thinking had hinted it might be. You kiss him back like you have more than just a crush on him which is fine because that’s how he kisses you too.
“Do you wanna…” you mumble against his mouth when the two of you pause, “get coffee with me sometime or something?”
“We were just at a place that does coffee.” Dave points out.
“I mean a date, do you want to go on a date with me?” you say grudgingly because of course he’s still annoying. It is at that point that your useless car realises that two people pressed against it might be an attempt at theft and sets the alarm off, nearly scaring the two of you to death.
“Fuck me.” Dave gasps as you silence the alarm.
“If you go on a date with me I might.” You tell him, betting everything you have on this one play. Dave stares at you and you can’t help but notice that even in what little light is out here that his cheeks are red.
“Ok.” He says, his tone strangled.
You beam at him, goddamn your stupid brother is going to be so smug about this but you don’t even care. You have a date with Dave Strider!