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see you all in three years!!!
~john
Dave drops the heavily-graffitied Armageddon poster onto the hallway floor with a sound only just qualifying as a sigh and takes a moment to contemplate the fact that he’s probably about to cry onto a heavily-graffitied Armageddon poster. He takes an additional moment to contemplate the fact that this won’t be the first time he’s cried onto said heavily-graffitied Armageddon poster, and god, when did his life become this pathetic?
Learned Dave Strider scholars (see: Rose Lalonde) would probably say that it’s been this - okay, she wouldn’t say pathetic, exactly, but - it’s been this way since he was scooped out of a crater by an asshole with pointy sunglasses. Even more learned Dave Strider scholars (see: Dave Strider himself, thank you very much) would probably say that it’s been since this game, and more importantly, this three year hell-trip, started. Both of these would be incorrect.
It’s certainly true that all of the aforementioned moments fucked Dave up in various ways, but anyone with at least two functioning brain cells would be able to tell that the moment Dave Strider’s life became officially Pathetic with a capital p when he developed a crush on John Egbert at age twelve.
And now it’s three years later, and Dave’s feelings haven’t lessened at all despite his constant attempts to push them down, and he hasn’t seen John in nearly two years, and all he has is old chat logs and one heavily-fucking-graffitied Armageddon poster with a promise that Dave’s been clutching to like a lifejacket the entire time he’s been on this meteor, and all he’s trying to do is hold it together.
(He’s not holding it together.)
Of course, just as the lump in his throat starts to become unbearable, footsteps begin to echo down the dark hallway he’s currently hiding in. It’s kind of a perfect mimicry of the not-actually-that-acrobatic steps Dave has taken off the handle recently.
Shit, he thinks. The bright orange scribbles that Davesprite added to the poster are like a signal flare screaming, “Hey! Emotional issues over here!”
Quickly, and with a silent prayer that it’s not the Seer of Light approaching, Dave flips the poster over and shrinks back against the wall. His heart is pounding, and he wants nothing more than to be back before he was on this fucking meteor, or at least before he thought it was a good idea to hide out in this hallway instead of his room.
The footsteps get closer, louder, and Dave drops his head back against the wall in relief when he realizes the footsteps are too heavy to be Rose’s. In fact, their uneven, shuffling rhythm can only mean that it’s Karkat coming down the hall. Great.
Dave considers Karkat a pretty good friend now, sort of, but that doesn’t mean Dave needs or wants to see him at this exact moment. If Karkat sees him like this, he’ll never let Dave live it down, and he’ll tell everyone else on the meteor and they’ll all find out that he likes John and -
Karkat’s footsteps stop with a soft scuff on the floor. Dave winces and tries to silently get closer to the wall - a mistake. As he scoots, the poster gets caught under his foot and makes a deafeningly loud crinkling noise as it crumples back towards Dave. The vague figure that Dave can now definitely recognize as Karkat freezes about ten feet away. Dave attempts to hold back both his breath and his tears, but he evidently fails.
“Hello?” Karkat says, and his tone is… nothing like Dave’s heard before. It’s still that scratchy, permanently mid-pubescent voice, but he’s not yelling. He doesn’t even sound aggressive or mad, just gentle, cautious. The only time Dave’s ever heard him sound like this is during late, sleepy nights in Can Town with Dave and the mayor, and even then, it’s not quite this soft.
For a moment, Dave allows himself to imagine that he’s about to get motherfucking comforted . That Karkat has sought him out because he cares, and hell, maybe Dave can even get a hug out of the whole situation, and - no. Karkat Vantas doesn’t fucking care about him enough for that, and honestly, does anyone?
John, maybe , Dave’s traitorous, gay brain whispers, and god, he can’t take this. He can’t. He needs John here right now and he needs to know that someone cares, but all he has is a dark hallway and a dumb poster mostly addressed to Vriska and a sinking knowledge that he just got his hopes up for nothing that comes when Karkat whispers, “Gamzee, is that you?”
His voice is still so soft, and there’s an absurd moment where Dave considers impersonating Gamzee for any number of psychologically-revealing reasons. He quickly remembers, though, that he doesn’t actually know much about Gamzee at all, especially not why he’d make Karkat use that kind of voice, and that that’s almost definitely a bad idea given his current situation.
“Uh, no,” Dave finally says. He mentally pats himself on the back for managing to keep his voice from immediately giving away the tears that have finally started to wind their way down his cheeks.
There’s a long pause. Dave takes a deep breath and stands on shaky legs, mind already racing with possible escape routes back to his room. He opens his mouth to blurt some excuse, but it’s Karkat’s voice, now back to its usual irritated roughness, that breaks the silence.
“Dave? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Okay, correction. Karkat’s voice isn’t back to usual; there’s a layer of something unfamiliar underneath the gruffness, something leftover from two minutes ago.
“I’m - it doesn’t matter, okay, what are you doing here? And why did you think I was Gamzee? I’m pretty sure that freak never leaves the vents, he just stays up there like some sort of fuckin’ vent goose, just honking and scaring people and doing whatever he does with those bodies, probably staging some sort of homoerotic Faygo circus, not that the homoerotic part really factors in that much, like, it’s mostly just about the Faygo and the clownery and all the fucking corpses are just bros…” Dave, for probably only the second time in his life, trails off into silence. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that there was an aspect of that sentence that disturbed him more than the idea of his friends’ friends’ corpses being used as puppets in a juggalo nightmare, even after all these fucking years, and yet.
It’s not like he can avoid this. He’s a fourteen year old god, and he’s in a dark hallway crying over John Egbert and the fact that he’s insanely touch-starved, and he still hasn’t managed to find a way out of this situation.
Karkat, strangely, is also quiet, even after Dave’s words have had plenty of time to ferment in the stale air. There’s a rustling noise, and then he finally speaks. “Gamzee’s not a fucking freak, okay, idiot? He’s just - fuck. It’s his blood, okay, he can’t help that shit, but you can certainly help not being such a culturally insensitive dick, and, and it’s not his fault that he also has probably the world’s worst moirail.”
There’s another pause. Dave can’t decide whether to focus on defending himself, trying to remember what stupid quadrant the moirail thing is and how it relates to this situation, just getting away from here, or trying to comfort Karkat because he’s finally figured out what that softness is - it’s the sound of someone about to cry.
Okay, correction. It’s the sound of someone crying, with that weird, insectoid clicking noise that Dave now knows to associate with highly emotional trolls. Decision made, then.
“Hey, dude, are you… okay?” Dave asks, wincing at how phony his attempt at a sympathetic tone sounds. God, this sucks, but at least if Karkat’s the one crying he has no room to ask Dave what’s wrong with him .
Karkat huffs. Dave pushes his shades up on top of his head in hopes of seeing a little better, and it makes his heart pang when his eyes adjust to the sight of Karkat hunched over, arms wrapped tightly around himself, with red-tinted tears streaming down his face. But, like, in a totally bro way, because there is no way that Dave can even begin to let himself think about thinking about the way Karkat sometimes makes his pulse pick up.
“I’m fine,” Karkat snaps. “I just thought you were someone else, but you’re obviously not, so I’m just.. I’m going to go now.”
He starts to stomp off back the way he came, but Dave’s not quite enough of a dick to let a crying friend just disappear like that. And besides, attempting to comfort Karkat offers a small distraction from some of Dave’s own problems, sort of.
So Dave reaches out and grabs Karkat by the sleeve of his oversized sweater, yanking him back just before he steps out of reach, and pulls him back over. “Dude, no, don’t pull this shit, tell me what’s wrong.”
Karkat stumbles slightly as he moves back over to where Dave can see the slight glint of his eyes, and the resigned expression on his face seems to imply that he’s actually going to open up a little bit - and then, because paradox space has a personal vendetta against Dave Strider, Karkat steps on the poster.
It crumples even more under his feet as he regains his balance, which isn’t ideal for two reasons. One, Dave would prefer to still have the poster to angst over, and two, now the focus has shifted back to why Dave is in a dark hallway with the poster in the first place. Shit.
Karkat leans over and picks up the poster, pinching the corner of it like it’s going to bite him. “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s, uh, it’s just a movie poster? I know you probably haven’t seen that one because it’s not a romcom, but -”
“Dave. Shut up.”
Karkat flips the poster over, and his face is illuminated with neon orange light. It almost makes his red-rimmed eyes look like they’re on fire as they dart across the drawings.
“That’s just, uh, I drew that, because you know how John and Rose had those things in their rooms, it’s like that, basically, but in a more ironic and not weird game construct way and-“
“This is the note from John, isn’t it,” Karkat says. It starts as a question but ends as the plain truth, sitting flat and unavoidable in the middle of the hallway.
“Uh,” Dave starts, “uh, yeah. It’s not like - it’s just been… a while. Since I’ve seen Jo - them. Him and Jade.”
Karkat glances at the poster once more, then drops it down by his side. He uses his other hand to pull an impressive Bridge of Nose Pinch/Eye Wipe x2 Combo, then looks back up at Dave with a long suffering, still choked-up sigh. “Why are you in this hallway crying over this poster?”
Dave pulls an equally impressive Shades Equip/Arm Fold/Deflection x3 Combo. “Why are you in this hallway crying over Gamzee ?”
“I asked first, idiot, and contrary to popular belief, I’m still the leader here. Just tell me what the fuck is wrong so we can both go to bed, and I don’t have to stay up all fucking night worrying about you.”
Okay, there’s definitely something to unpack there, because since when does Karkat care that much? And not to mention, since when does Dave unpack things?
“It’s none of your business, okay?” Dave says. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Newsflash, asshole, as the leader, it’s kind of my entire fucking job to keep you and the handle together, despite the fact that you seem deathly allergic to it, so tell me what’s going on.”
Dave wants to be irritated, but when he goes to raise his voice, all that comes out is a defeated, “Just drop it, dude, I’m fine.”
Karkat huffs, the sound seeming to come from deep in his throat, and stubbornly refuses to drop it. “Is this about Jade or is this about John?”
A long time ago, that sentence would have activated Dave’s fight or flight reflex in a heartbeat, but his parasympathetic nervous system is so fucking tired of jumping at everything now. His heart rate picks up, though, and all of his attempts to remind himself that Karkat doesn’t actually know anything and that trolls don’t even have the concept of gay or straight so it’s not like Karkat can judge him, right, fall flat.
The silence is reaching a point of confession in and of itself when Dave finally says, “No, it’s not - I don’t think of, uh, either of them like - it’s - they’re my best friends, and I miss them, and I just.. That’s it. That’s all it is. I don’t even know what you’re trying to say, here, but it’s not it, okay, I’m just tired and sick of being on this stupid rock and I want to go to bed.”
Dave cuts himself off this time, because he knows that if he keeps talking, he’ll start crying again.
Karkat seems to also sense this, and his next annoyed huff has that fucking softness creeping back in again. “Dave. There’s clearly something going on, and if it’s some human society bullshit that’s keeping your head up your nook, you know I’m literally a fucking alien, right?”
That’s… a little too close for comfort.
The thing is, okay, that Dave knows no one on the meteor would actually care that he’s not straight. He knows that even John probably wouldn’t care that much (other than possibly freaking out when he realizes that his best friend is in love with him, but, well. You get the point.) But the distance between knowing that and actually being able to process that there might not be negative consequences if he comes out is easier said than done, to put it lightly.
“If it’s any consolation,” Karkat begins, slowly and with the scales of his voice tipping more and more towards soft instead of harsh, “I get it. Having feelings when you’re not ‘supposed’ to, I, uh, I get that a lot.”
There’s a beat. Dave looks at Karkat, wary, thankful that his shades prevent any awkward eye contact, and definitely not overthinking what Karkat just said. “I never said it was like that,” he mumbles, but he knows that Karkat knows he’s right.
“Dave.”
The thing is, okay, that Dave also knows that Karkat knows that he has Dave cornered. Not physically, no, because Dave could dart down the hall and be locked in his room in a matter of seconds, but this is the closest anyone’s gotten to the truth in a long time, and Karkat’s not going to drop this. And to that effect, Dave doesn’t want to leave the conversation without finding out what’s going on with Karkat.
He takes a deep breath. Okay, yeah, he’s about to do this. He’s going to do this, and it’s going to be fucking fine because it’s not even like anything from Earth matters anymore. Okay. “Okay, okay, just… you can’t tell anyone, okay? It’s barely a thing, it’s like - like, a negative thing, but, uh, yeah. It’s - this is about John.”
Karkat hums in unsurprised acknowledgment. “Flushed?” he asks.
His question takes a moment for Dave to process; he’s a little too busy trying not to set his last remaining bridge to the handle on fire. Once he finally realizes that Karkat has spoken and now repeated himself, great, that’s just great, it takes another several moments for him to process that Karkat is talking about fucking quadrants, Jesus Christ. He groans. “Dude, I don’t fucking remember which one that is.”
“I’ve explained this a million times, I swear, you are intentionally trying to -“ Karkat cuts himself off with a sigh and sits down on the ground. “Sit down, I’ll explain.”
Reluctantly, Dave joins him on the floor. Their knees brush when Dave swings his legs around to sit criss-cross applesauce, and it makes Dave’s chest tense up in a way it really shouldn’t given, you know, the whole topic of this conversation.
“So,” Karkat begins, and Dave can’t see him well in the dark but he just knows Karkat’s steeping his fingers together and making that About To Make A Twenty Minute Speech face. “As you should know by now, the types of troll romance are divided into four quadrants, and since you’re human and don’t usually understand black romance, I’m just going to talk about red romance.
“There are two types of red romance - flushed and, uh, pale. Flushed is probably the closest thing to human romance, with all of the kissing and dates and shit, and I’m going to guess that’s what you’re feeling for John.”
Dave reminds himself that Karkat’s not going to flip out on him, exhales shakily, and nods. “Yeah, that’s… yeah. It’s, um, I’ve liked him since we were twelve, that’s practically since I’ve met him, and I’ve never told anyone else. Like, ever. Rose suspects, obviously, but she’s never quite…” Dave looks down at his lap, twisting his hands together almost as if in slow motion. His internal clock is still working fine, of course, he’s a god of time, but it feels like each passing second drags on for hours. “I, I miss him. A lot. And of course I’ve never told him about any of this, ‘cause like, what’s the point when he would just reject me, y’know?”
Karkat, thank fuck, doesn’t reply with a canned, “Oh, you never know!” that Dave would expect from anyone else; he just keeps quiet, listening,
“And even if that wasn’t the case, it’s - I know we’re in space, and I know Earth is dead and so is all of that culture and I know that aren’t really rules anymore, I know there never really were rules beyond my apartment, like, at least not in the way I thought of them, but I can’t… it’s been three years and I still don’t know how to let myself think about John without feeling sick.
“But that’s whatever, it’s what I’m used to, right, so what the fuck does it matter? Nothing’s going to come of it, and then when everything with Terezi happened I thought I was finally getting over all of it, but now I’m here, and I’m just more confused than before because, um…” Because it’s different than John, nothing’s ever been like that, but because I see you and all I want is to make you happy and maybe even hug you, but you’re an alien and you’re a boy and I’m still in love with John and it’s not going to fucking work. “Because, yeah, I just - shit’s confusing. And I miss John, and even though I thought having a break from him would help at first, everything’s just gotten worse.”
Dave pauses, breathes in, closes his eyes, keeps going. “You know when something’s good, but it’s also kinda bad, and sometimes you think it’ll be better to just cut the good thing out entirely? But then you realize that even though it had bad parts, you almost want them back because not having the good thing is worse than the bad parts ever were before?”
He winces once he finishes talking, because that was not coherent at all, but Karkat actually seems to be nodding. There’s a silence, stretching long and thin and cold, before Dave figures out that he’s the one that’s supposed to be breaking it. “It’s, uh, yeah. That’s.. pretty much it.” He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until the hand he adjusts his shades with comes away wet.
“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to start getting all fuckin’ emo on you,” Dave starts, but he’s cut off when Karkat leans forward and pulls him into a hug. It’s - not what Dave expected in any way, shape, or form. First off, since when does Karkat Vantas just hug people, and second off, since when are trolls so good at hugging?
It’s kind of an awkward angle, with both of their legs crossed between them and Dave’s arms kind of trapped at his sides, but Karkat’s oversized sweater is soft and warm, and for a moment, Dave finds himself leaning into the contact.
Just as soon as Dave closes his eyes, though, Karkat abruptly drops his arms and sits up. “Sorry about that,” Karkat says, “I didn’t mean to treat you like some fucking, I don’t know, cullbait wriggler, or some kind of moi- just, sorry. Sorry.”
Dave runs a faux-casual hand through his hair, like there’s any hope of him still appearing cool right now. He doesn’t know what just came over him. He’s a fucking Strider, and Striders don’t talk about their feelings in dark hallways in the middle of the night (or ever, really). Hell, Striders don’t even have feelings other than an affinity for puppets and beating up their kid brother on rooftops and, okay, yeah, Dave’s done thinking about this right now.
“It’s all good, dude,” Dave says, “hey, enough about me, though, what’s going with you? You can’t act all worried about me and then just pretend like you’re completely fine right now.”
Dave’s expecting another deflection, some sort of snappy, profane remark about how Karkat’s the leader and doesn’t owe Dave anything, but what he gets instead is a defeated sigh and an, “Okay.”
Somewhere far down the hall, a door swings open and shut. Karkat stares at the source of the sound for a long time before seeming to decide that no one’s coming, then turns back to Dave.
“Uh, so I’m not sure what you know about this. Probably not a lot, because you’re kind of an obtuse fuck, but Gamzee and I are - were? I don’t fucking know - uh, we’re moirails. That’s one of the red romance quadrants.
“It’s not quite like the flushed quadrant, it’s more about emotional support, if that makes sense. I know this might be hard to understand since there’s no kissing or anything like that, but it’s still romance.”
Dave is trying to be a good listener, he really is, but it’s only Karkat’s sharp glare that keeps him from making a probably culturally insensitive remark at that. Once Karkat seems satisfied that Dave is actually going to remain quiet, he shifts his weight and continues.
“So a big part of moirallegiance, especially with a highblood like Gamzee, is keeping each other grounded. And -“ Karkat’s voice falters a bit, and there’s a split second where Dave wants to pull him into a hug - “and I fucked that up. I wasn’t paying enough attention to him, I was being a shitty moirail to him in so many ways, and he… fuck, I mean, he killed people.”
Karkat looks up at the ceiling for a long, long moment. “He killed people, and I didn’t fucking do anything, and even in the moment all I could think about was how, how…” Karkat falters again, trailing off in what Dave is pretty sure is omission rather than a lack of words.
“How what?” Dave asks in the gentlest tone he can manage. The second the question leaves his mouth, though, he realizes he already knows the answer. Karkat’s told him already, little clues throughout the conversation that are only now coming together. “You’re … flushed for him, aren’t you?”
“Was,” Karkat corrects. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Was,” Dave concedes. “That’s… shit, dude, I’m sorry. Are you, like - okay? Have you seen him since… that all happened?”
Karkat shakes his head. His throat clicks in the silence. “No. I thought it would help, and I guess it’s helped me get the fuck over him, but it’s like that thing you said about the good and the bad, sort of.
“He hadn’t been a good moirail in a long time, and I hadn’t either, but -“ Karkat looks up at Dave, while somehow managing to look like he’s not actually looking at Dave. “It’s fucking stupid, but I miss at least being able to pretend I had someone like that.”
Dave stays quiet, although he’s not sure if it’s because he wants to be a good listener and make sure Karkat has said everything he needs to or because he doesn’t know what he’ll say if he opens his mouth.
The thing is, okay, that Karkat’s been - seemingly, at least - dropping a kind of hint through their whole conversation that has Dave’s heart and mind racing. The thing is that when Dave and Karkat started to become friends, there was a brief period where Dave thought he was finally getting over John… and falling for Karkat instead. The thing is that Dave realized that he wasn’t, that the way he felt about Karkat was something completely different that he kept refusing to learn the language for. The thing is that Karkat breaks the charged silence with a noise like a choked sob, and Dave knows he has no choice but to lean in and hug him.
And so Dave does.
It’s awkward at first; Dave is pretty sure that he could count the number of times he’s hugged someone on one hand and he’s pretty sure that they’ve all been this awkward. But then Karkat inhales, a rough, shuddering sound that makes something in Dave’s chest twist, and pulls Dave flush to his chest.
It’s like something unlocks. Without even meaning to, Dave finds himself holding onto Karkat just as tightly as Karkat’s holding onto him.
“Hey, it’s okay, dude,” Dave murmurs, patting Karkat on the back because he’s 90% sure that’s what you’re supposed to do when your bro starts crying into your shoulder? “Shhh, it’s okay.”
Karkat’s first response is to cry harder.
Dave kind of freaks out at that, but then he realizes that Karkat isn’t letting him pull away, is hugging him even tighter, actually, and when Karkat starts running a comforting hand up and down Dave’s back, he thinks he understands.
They stay like that, whispering small comforts across the negligible space between them, for longer than can be excused under any pretense of friendship. The meteor remains silent around them. For once, Dave is quiet, and it’s not even out of any self-restraint. He just… doesn’t have anything to say. All of his brain power is focused on every point of contact between him and Karkat and the way Karkat’s breath eventually begins to even out. It all helps in a way that Dave didn’t really know that something like this could. The time left to travel feels suddenly manageable, the hallway less dark, the million and one Earth taboos Dave’s breaking right now a little more distant, when all Dave can really think about is the way Karkat’s hair is surprisingly soft against his cheek.
The world itself seems to have slowed down by the time Karkat clears his throat softly and sits up, disentangling himself from Dave like he’s putting himself together again.
Dave lets him go with a reluctance he doesn’t want to admit. His arms feel empty, and his voice feels like it hasn’t been used in years when he says, “That was kinda, um, pale, huh.”
It’s too dark to see for sure, but Karkat’s tone makes Dave willing to bet at least $15 that he’s blushing. “Shit, shit, fuck, it was, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I know things are different for humans and I shouldn’t have assumed, I should’ve fucking told you I was feeling fucking pale, and -”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Dave says, still in that strange, unused voice. He ducks his head into his elbow and coughs a little to clear his throat and his mind. When he finally speaks again, he actually sounds like himself. “I…..” You’re not alone, me too, me too. “It’s all good, dude, I’m… if you, like, if you need to. We can do this.”
Karkat bites his lip, one of his sharp teeth poking out and glinting just slightly. “Are you sure?”
I’m sure, I don’t know what any of this means but I know I never want to hear you cry again unless I get to hug you like that afterwards. “Yeah,” Dave says, and it comes out a sigh that he prays doesn’t sound resigned, doesn’t sound like avoidance, doesn’t sound like he wants this so badly even if he’s not sure how to reconcile that fact. “Yeah.”