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There’s a new kid in class this year. He transferred into your school at the start of senior year, which is weird because usually parents don’t just up and decide to move at the end of a kid’s highschool years. He, however, made it known exactly why he left his old school.
On the second Monday of the year some minutes after the first period bell had rung, while you greeted some old friends, the new kid waltzed into the room. The teacher, not looking too surprised, stood at the front as he usually did.
“Oh, hello. We have a new transfer student this year. Please, go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone and take whatever empty seat you like,” Mr. Nitram said.
The new kid takes a moment to clear his throat, using his left hand to itch at the bottom of his nose. Ew, you won’t be shaking hands with him. “Hey,” he starts with a bit of a pathetic wave. He has nice hands, even if he’s gross with them. “Uh, I’m Dave Strider, I’m seventeen and I can give you the link to my Soundcloud and Venmo if you want.”
The class lets out some muted laughs, with your friend John looking especially amused. Mr. Nitram, however, flushes red with second-hand embarrassment. “Dave, please… Why don’t you tell us an interesting fact or two about yourself?”
“Oh, okay. So it’s that kind of sh-- thing?” He catches himself just before swearing, as if it’s incredibly natural for him to just swear in front of everyone. It is for you, but at least you can tone it the fuck down in school. “Well, I didn’t write anything down so I can just tell y’all about why I moved, then?”
“Get on with it,” you mumble a little too loudly, causing Dave to stare at you over the tops of his incredibly awful eyewear. Fucking Ray Bans and they’re not even the good kind. They look like something a cop would wear.
“Sorry, Princess Pea. Didn’t mean to disturb your slumber,” he heckles you, provoking a wave of laughter from your classmates. John elbows you and Terezi stares intently forward, listening hard to everything Dave is saying. “Anyway, I moved here because they can’t handle me at my old school. It’s a sexy way of saying that they sent me away because I kept coming in with bruises on my face ‘cuz my Bro thinks that his fists are a nice way to tell me to do better.”
In drastic fucking difference, your classmates fall completely silent. Mr. Nitram looks like he’s about to faint and he starts to walk forward to stop Dave from saying much more. Dave doesn’t seem too phased by this because he continues, “Oh and I kept stealing my teacher’s mouse so much that he tried to press charges. Like, I didn’t even really steal them, you gaping wad, they’re taped under your desk.”
The joke earns a few light, scattered laughs but… everyone is too busy staring at Dave with puppy dog eyes. Now that you’re really looking, you can see some healed scars marring his otherwise beautiful wrists and face. Shit. Maybe you should be less of a dick to him and maybe try to be nice for once.
“Haha, well…” Mr. Nitram walks from around his desk to put his hand on Dave’s shoulder. Everyone else is already buried into their own conversations and books, but you notice the way Dave flinches in fear. “Take your seats and open your notebooks up because… we’ll be taking notes from a video today,” Nitram finishes, walking over to the lightswitch to flick it off.
As he fiddles with the projector, Dave takes a deep breath and starts to walk to the very back of the row you sit in. You’re pretty much ready to go back to ignoring him, but Terezi has other ideas about that, you guess. Fucking traitor, you would dunk her head into a toilet and flush it right the fuck now if you could.
“The seat next to Karkat is open,” Terezi grabs his wrist as he passes her, gesturing pointedly at the empty desk just next to you. “You can sit with us, Dave. I wanna hear more about your amazing pranks.”
Dave’s stone-cold expression breaks, revealing a gorgeous smile. He has little freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose, as well as a long scar from what you assume is his… brother? He said Bro so you’re assuming he’s a brother.
“Aight,” he nods a little, swiping dust off of the desk with his hands before setting his books down on it in a neat pile. He doesn’t bother to open a notebook or anything. Instead, he pulls out his phone and hits record on some kind of app.
“You’re supposed to take notes,” you whisper to him.
“I have special permission, don’t worry about it… uhh, Katkat, was it?” He raises an eyebrow at you with a much too cute look on his face.
Hell no. Fucking hell to the fuck NO! You will not crush on this asshole. “It’s Karkat,” you hiss between your teeth, turning your quickly-heating face back to your own work. John and Terezi laugh amongst themselves and you spend the rest of the class trying not to look at Dave.
Goddammit! He just had to be hot, didn’t he? That’s it! You officially hate the new kid.
It’s the first day of Fall in your little corner of Chicago and you spend the day with Terezi, John, and one unexpected guest…
You all pile into your car and make your way for the coast. Not the ocean coast, of course, that’s just too far for you. No, you all decided to go to the lake coast and spend the day hanging out in high class coffee shops and bookstores. John was just fucking elated and Terezi only went because John was… You wonder if there’s something to that, but they can’t seem to really stand each other.
Oh well, it’s not your place to question their relationship.
When you all walked up to the first coffee shop, there was a face in the crowd that you recognized. Sitting by himself at a table for four, currently nursing a delicious mug of tea, was none other than Dave fucking Strider himself.
“Hey,” he waves, still just as awkward today as he was when you first met him. “I was wonderin’ when y’all were gonna get here. I got us a table.”
“Us?” You sneer at Terezi and John, who are putting a good bit of distance between themselves and you.
John speaks up first, “Well yeah, Terezi said that you--”
She clamps her hand over his mouth, “What John is trying to say is that we’re just as surprised as you to see Dave!”
Liars. Fucking liars, all of them. “Whatever,” you brush a curl of thick hair behind your ear. “I’m getting my fucking coffee and the rest of you can do whatever you want.”
Dave’s face falls into a frown and Terezi scrambles over to you, leaving John behind to chat with Dave. “Hey, so… can I talk to you for a second?” she asks, answering for you by tugging you into a corner as far away from John and Dave as she can.
You sigh, sounding a little angrier than you mean to, “What?”
“Okay, so,” Terezi looks down at her feet and then back up at you. “I kind of told Dave I’d set him up on a double-date with you, him, me, and John.”
You are at a complete fucking loss for words.
“Are you kidding me? Are you being for fucking real right now?” Your face makes sweet love with your palms. “So, who the fuck is ‘supposed’ to be dating who then?”
“I thought it was obvious that it’s with you?” She raises her eyebrow at you. You flush and she grins, “I’m just hanging out with John because we’re friends and that’s what friends do. You don’t have to stay, but Dave was too scared to ask you himself, you know.”
“I.. I mean, he is-- he’s not my first choice!” You whisper to her, now suddenly feeling afraid that Dave might be listening. God fucking forbid he think that you don’t want to spend time with him. Not… not that you don’t. It’s fucking complicated, alright? “Fine, but don’t be fucking weird about it, okay?”
“Haha, I knew it!” She slaps your back a little too hard, making you cough. “I knew you had a crush on Dave.” Your face feels like it’s on fire and you force yourself to think about anything except Dave’s beautiful hands holding yours. Wait. That didn’t work. Okay, how about… Dave’s-- no. Fuck.
You shut the fuck up pretty quick and just follow Terezi over to get your coffee. You’re not sure if you should get one for Dave, since he already has something to drink. In the end, you don’t get him anything, but instead, head back to your table where Dave waits for you. John has already occupied the seat across from him and he calls Terezi over to fill it. She sits down, leaving just the seat next to Dave open, just for you. Great. Fucking great .
“You okay?” Dave asks, giving you the barest hint of a smile. You can read genuine worry on his face, but he still makes an effort to try to be a good blind date. There’s a pun here with Terezi being blind, but you don’t care enough to make it.
Dave stands to pull out your chair and waits until you sit in it. After you do, he pushes you in and goes back to staring out of the window. You wonder what’s going on inside that head of his, since he’s never really made it apparent that he had a crush on you at all. If anything, his incessant teasing and jokes about you should say otherwise but…
“I’m fine,” you clear your throat, sipping on your iced mocha. “But thank you for asking.” Dave’s eyes are on you a little longer from the side of your vision, but eventually, he turns his attention to Terezi.
Terezi is busy wacking John with her cane, but she still makes time to chatter with Dave about what he does outside of school anyway. “So Dave,” she asks, putting her palm up to John’s face to push him back into his chair. “Got any hobbies that aren't being a musical master on Soundcloud? I love the raps, by the way. They paint a very nice picture.”
“Yeah!” John adds, swatting Terezi’s hand further away from his face until she rests it back on the table. “When’s the next one coming out anyway?”
“Oh uh, probably next week if I have the time for it,” Dave answers, scratching his face. “But like, I guess I also draw sometimes? The family they placed me with lets me have my own room, so I’ve been working on painting the walls in there. The Megido’s are pretty dope, they literally just told me to go fucking hogwild, I’ll have to invite y’all over sometime to see it.”
“Well, you can leave me out of it,” Terezi jokes with Dave easily, “because in case you didn’t realize, I’m not exactly the best judge of art looking good or not.”
He’s an artist? You never knew that, but you guess it makes sense. When he’s recording lectures and lessons on his phone, he’s usually got out a nice sketchbook. You suppose you always thought he was just dicking around with it. “Can I see it?” you ask, turning your head towards Dave.
Dave smiles at you, all toothy and gorgeous. The scar on his lip makes his smile a little crooked, but it’s still good and warms your chest. “Yeah, I actually brought my sketchbook with me today. I just started this one, like, a week ago? Something like that…” he trails off and reaches behind him into the backpack on the back of his chair.
He sets it out in front of you, thumbing across the pages until he finds something suitable. Shit, he’s really good. “You’re really talented,” you mumble to him. He hides his face quickly, but not fast enough for you not to notice how red he is when you praise him.
You flip through the pages, taking in all of his artwork. There’s lots of studies of different body shapes, hands, eyes, arms… everything you’d normally expect a budding artist to be working diligently at. He puts his hand out like he’s going to take it back, but you’re not done yet. Sliding the book a little further away from him, you keep flipping until you get to the most recent drawing.
“That’s… uh,” he grabs the sketchbook from you, but it’s too late. You’ve already seen it.
In the very back of his sketchbook is another page of studies, but you instantly recognize the face in each of the delicate lines. He’s been drawing you and you look… well, you look fucking amazing. As much as you hate to admit it, his artwork makes you look less like the frumpy mess you always feel like and more like a meticulously painted Greco-Roman portrait of some kind of god. There’s special attention paid to getting your thinly-hooded eyes, plump lips, and chunky cheeks just right.
“It’s really good,” you hide your face in the lip of your coffee mug and turn to face Terezi. “So, what’s next today, Terezi?”
She doesn’t seem to understand exactly what’s happening, considering she can’t fucking see any of Dave’s art. Regardless, she grins at you, practically fucking beaming devious energy out of every pore of her skin. “Oh, we’re going to the bookstore with Dave. I want to know if they have any audio books.”
“I want to get some games, they usually have a good second-hand game section,” John muses, flicking a jetblack wave of hair out of his face. “Ready to go?”
Dave stands, snatching his sketchbook off of the table to tuck safely into his bag. Damn, what you wouldn’t give for one more look at his art… “Let's go then,” he calls you all forward with the wave of his hand, but he hangs back to walk next to you.
Goddammit, how did you get roped into this?
The first week of winter is quickly approaching and the streets are already dusted with light-powder snow. It’s after school and Dave is walking just behind you, following you out to your car. Not much has happened since your blinddate in late September, except for the Halloween party…
You really don’t want to talk about that. Not with anybody and certainly not with Dave. If he’s content with ignoring your awful underaged-drunk kisses, then so the fuck are you. Besides, he deserves better than that. He deserves to be kissed somewhere nice, somewhere that isn’t the couch in John’s basement with fucking Monster Mash blasting in the background.
Today, Mrs. Megido wants you, Dave, and her daughter Aradia to come help set up the Christmas tree. Okay, well she didn’t ask for you directly, but Dave insisted on bringing you by anyway. He warned you that she can be a little overbearing, but she means well and if you can make friends with her… Well, Dave said that her spending limit on Christmas gifts is well into the hundreds of dollars. You’d never use anyone like that, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to rub elbows in high places on the off chance that you can suddenly afford that typewriter you’ve always wanted.
After following his terrible directions, you finally get to the house. It’s big, but maybe you only think that because you expected… something a little smaller. You guess it’s hard to separate the cramped one-bedroom apartment Dave told you he used to live in from his new, big house where everyone has space to do whatever they want. Speaking of Dave, he steps out of your car, making sure to lock it from his side since the lock on your side has stopped working. It’s sweet that he remembers the little things about you like that.
He pulls his keys out and you listen to the sounds of the street around him. His neighbours have a big husky dog in their yard and they wave at the two of you as you walk up to the door. There’s kids playing in their own yards and they play with the other kids loudly, yelling whatever make-believe nonsense that they please to each other.
“Megido, I’m home,” Dave shouts into the door as it unlocks. There’s the warm smell of baked cookies and pies floating through the air, beckoning you in along with Dave. A fire crackles in the fireplace and there’s soft, delicate piano music streaming from seemingly thin air. As you look up, though, you notice that there’s speakers on almost every wall.
A sweet, round face pokes out from the hallway, beaming at you. “Karkat?” She asks, putting a hand on her hip. There’s frosting all over the front of an apron that she has tied tightly around her thick waist. Wow, she kind of reminds you of your own mom, but a lot shorter.
“Yeah, I finally convinced him to stop by to help us decorate the tree. Man, you shoulda seen his face,” Dave easily fits into the conversation, like he always belonged here. You’re happy that he’s comfortable and can be himself here. “Anyway Mrs. M, we’re gonna head up to my room real quick ‘cuz Karkat wants to see my wall. Brb?” He speaks like a text message and you roll your eyes at the insanity of it.
“Okay, but don’t be too long. After this last batch of cookies is done, I’m gonna head up to the spare room and pull out the ornaments. If you’re not down here, I’m drawing a giant butt on your cookie,” she wags her finger at him.
She’s a hell of a lot nicer than you expected, in complete contrast to all of the side-eye ways Dave has talked about the shit he went through with Bro. He was never direct and, god forbid, is never serious when he talks about what Bro did to him. Dave showed you pictures because your morbid curiosity was too much and he was a little too excited to show someone. He kind of has a sick sense of humor about it, considering the stitches he had to get on his face from where Bro’s… beatings got him. He’s missing a tooth in the back of his mouth and the left side of his cheek doesn’t have a lot of feeling in it now from the reconstruction they had to do on it. It’s enough to make you sick, but Dave just happily chatted about it, like it never bothered him at all.
He’s weird, a little macabre, but he’s doing his best to stay positive about it and you guess you can understand why he is. With someone like Mrs. Megido around to take care of him, his weird personality makes a lot of sense. You wonder if Dave has noticed how much he’s starting to act more and more like the lady you’ve just met instead of the quiet, private kid you met back in early August. It’s a good change, though, so you’re not keen on ruining a good thing for him by making him feel weird about it.
Dave walks ahead of you up the stairs, looking back at you every once in a while, as if you’ll stop following him if he looks away. It’s not like you’d have a lot of options, though. You can hang out with Aradia, Mrs. Megido, or the dog outside. Nah, you’ll just hang out with Dave. Besides, he’s been talking up this painting for months since he refuses to take pictures of it for you. “It looks better in person, trust me, bro,” he always says. Well now you get to see what the fucking fuss is all about.
“My room,” Dave tells you, gesturing with his head at the last door in the hallway. The door is slightly cracked open and there’s a smell of something earthy upstairs. “Sorry if it stinks, I was doing this… uh, meditation thing that my therapist told me to do. I shoulda left the window open like usual, but it was snowing so…”
You shrug, sliding your hand up the well-polished rail of the stairs. Dave walks ahead of you and holds onto his door handle as he waits for your response. “It’s fine, I was just wondering what it was. Incense?” You ask him.
“Yeah, I hope that’s cool,” he looks down at the floor nervously and then back up at you. “Sorry if the painting isn’t as, like, awesome as I made it sound. I’m still looking for new colours to use on it cuz nothing fits right as the background and I--”
“Dave,” you put your hand up and shush him with a finger, “I’m sure it’s fine, just show me. Do I have to beg you, dipshit? Please, for the love of fucking God let me in your room.”
He smirks, “That’s what he said.”
You roll your eyes at him, “That joke has been dead for years and that’s not even how it fucking goes!”
Dave shugs, pushing the door open with his right hand. “We’re homo-inclusive now, Karkat,” he then grabs your wrist with his left hand and leads you into his room. It smells like burning herbs, spices, and a little bit like cigarette smoke in here. He’s never made it really apparent that he smokes, if indeed he does, so this is news to you. “It’s over here,” he gestures to the wall just to the left of the door, where the sun hits perfectly.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
It’s a nearly finished mural, painted in all sorts of colours, of… well, of John, Terezi, Mrs. Megido, and her daughter Aradia. There’s an orangey halo of light in the background and it’s practically shimmering in the early setting sunlight. Smack in the middle of it, wearing a shining golden crown of light, is you.
“I can’t get the colour of your skin right,” he notes, scratching at his chin, deep in thought. “Like I said, it’s not finished yet. You can take a picture, like… if you want to, but I did say it’s better in person, so…. yeah.”
You chew at your lip, leaning your weight from one leg to another. Something has been bothering you and you haven’t really said anything about it until now but… “Why do you always talk down your art?” you ask him, gesturing with your right arm.
“Uh… what?” He laughs a bit nervously, “I don’t do that.”
“You totally do, Dave,” you point out. You don’t mean to sound accusing, you’re just worried about Dave’s feelings. “Whenever the subject of your art comes up, you always shit-talk it to death. What’s the deal? Are you afraid of people thinking you’re talented or something?”
Dave rubs the back of his neck, “It’s not like that.”
Crossing your arms, you turn your attention completely towards him, “Then explain what it’s like, because to me, it looks like you hate your own work.”
He sighs, “...Okay, it’s like, complicated, but Bro would always… I dunno. He tore up a lot of my work and burned it in front of me ‘cuz I wasn’t doing exactly what he told me to all the time. It’s… hard to feel like I can show it to anyone, y’know?”
Well, now you feel like an asshole for asking, but as long as he’s talking about it… You can comfort him and at least make him feel a little better about it. “We’re not gonna do that shit because that’s called being a piece of shit. Bro was a five alarm public gas station bathroom diarrhea anal explosion. In comparison, you’re still a shit, but you’re more like a gilded golden shit, okay? So quit beating the shit out of yourself for him.”
Dave just looks at you, like he’s not really sure what to do with himself for a while. You wonder if you said or did something wrong, but before you can speak up to apologize, he’s walking towards you. Shit. Shit shit shit shit.
Wait, no. Hold on. He’s not coming over to murder you, he’s coming in for… a hug? He’s so warm against you, but he’s so much taller that he has to lean down a little to wrap his arms around you. You need to get a DAMN GRIP on yourself because you haven’t even lifted your arms to hug him back! Get the hell in there and hug that twink, Vantas! You hold him tightly, stroking along his spine slowly until you feel him relax into you.
Fucking nailed it, Karkat.
He holds you for a bit, and then he pulls back to look at you. Jesus, there’s… there’s so much tension in the air right now. This feels like a scene in a movie where the couple finally gets to kiss for the first time, and it looks like Dave is going in for it. Oh good fucking God, he smells so nice when he’s this close to you. His lips look so soft and you’re so fucking close. You lean back in and--
“Dave, are you coming down? I’m on my way up if you want me to meet you at the foot of the stairs, honey,” Mrs. Megido’s voice calls up the stairs and you frantically shove Dave away.
“Oh shit-- I’m sorry,” you ramble a little too loudly.
Dave flushes and looks away from you, “It’s okay, we should probably…”
You cover your face with your hands and rush toward the bedroom door, “Y-yeah.”
Stepping into the hallway, you take a few deep breaths to calm the racing in your heart. You completely fucking forgot that you were needed downstairs to decorate the tree. Goddammit, you know she didn’t do it on purpose, but why the hell did Megido have to tell you two that you need to come down now ? You could be locking some serious lip right now, but instead you’re flustered in Dave’s house with his foster mom smiling at you from down the hallway.
Shit, shit. SHIT. Okay, Karkat, take a deep breath. You can’t face Mrs. Megido like this, you need to just relax a little bit. In and out. Okay? Okay. You’re calm, you swear. It’s not like you were trying to makeout with her foster son in his bedroom or anything. Haha. Hah… you’re a wreck.
“Karkat, do you think you could lend me a hand with these boxes?” Mrs. Megido asks, sliding a plastic tub with the word “ornaments” written on the side of it across the floor. “Dave is grabbing the tree now, so I’m sure it’d be a great help if we took the decorations down.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Megido,” you give her a little smile and tug the box up and off of the floor. Heading down the stairs carefully, she follows behind you.
She laughs a bit, “You’re so formal, please, call me Damara. Dave might insist on calling me Mrs. Megido or Mrs. M, but you don’t need to. Any friend or what-have-you of Dave is a friend of the family.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks, uh, Damara,” you shrug a little, setting the box onto the floor of the living room. There’s a little circular snowflake rug laid out in the back corner of the room, so you slide the box over there and wait on the couch for Dave to come downstairs.
You don’t really get the chance to get too comfortable, because he’s down the stairs with a tall box within minutes. He wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his left hand, slapping the top of the box with his right. “This shit is heavy as hell, Mrs. M,” he complains.
“Oh, sorry! We must have left the lights in it from last year,” she bites the tip of her thumb. “Well boys, shall we get started?”
It doesn’t take too long to get the tree up and decorated, but you have a lot of fun doing it with Dave, Damara, and even Aradia joins in when she gets home from soccer practice. She’s a lot shorter than you expected, somehow even a little shorter than you and you were pretty sure you’re the shortest in your school. Aradia has a face just like her mom, but her hair is a lot longer and more wild. She’s ridiculously strong, though, and she makes quick work of hauling down the boxes of yard decorations.
While Aradia and Damara are outside putting the little reindeer up in the yard, you and Dave sit in front of the fire with a mug of cocoa. Dave put on some lofi music and the two of you are working on warming up since it’s so cold outside. You’re glad Aradia had the idea of using the fireplace instead of turning on the heating.
Dave leans his head against you, resting on the top of your head. “Thanks for helping out,” he says. “Y’know, this is actually my first real time celebrating Christmas.”
You raise an eyebrow at that, “You never celebrated ever?”
“It’s not like that,” he worries at his lip, taking his head off of yours to look away. “It’s more like… Bro just didn’t feel like that was a thing I needed and I guess I thought that was normal for the longest time. I only ever saw shit like this in movies and from my classmates. The first person to give me a Christmas gift was the lady at the shelter last year. I guess she felt bad because I didn’t have any siblings or anything like that to hang out with.”
“You were in a shelter?” you ask him, looking down into your mug. Shit, you didn’t know about that. You guess you have a lot to learn about Dave.
“For a little bit, yeah. I was getting placed and the youth shelter was the only place I could go since none of my family that I have left wanted me. My mom wasn’t interested and… well I couldn’t ask my sisters since they’re just kids like me. Obviously Bro was in fuckin’ prison,” he grips his mug a little tighter. “But it’s cool, I get to do it with someone who won’t try to knock my teeth out when I ask them to feed me something other than cheap takeout.”
You frown without meaning to, “You know what? If I ever see that guy, I’ll drown him.”
He smiles at that, “I’ll bring the bucket if you hold him down.”
You laugh a little and he joins you. At least Dave has a sense of humor about it because you can’t say you would if you went through the same thing. He’s pretty unique in that way and it’s just another thing you like about Dave. No matter what happens to him, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and keeps going. Maybe you could stand to do that some more instead of sobbing about every bad thing that ever happens to you.
You did , in fact, end up getting that typewriter. You were pretty busy with your own mom, dad, and brothers on Christmas but… somehow Dave found the time to stop by and drop your gift off. He also brought you a plate of cookies to share with your own family, courtesy of Damara herself. You wanted to cry, maybe kiss him right then and there, but your mom was kind of standing right fucking there, so you had to reel it in. Dave had to go anyway, since his sisters were in town for the holiday anyway, so there’s not much you could’ve done to wait around for Mom to fuck off.
On the plus side, however, John invited you to his New Year’s Eve party and he assured you that Dave would be there too. He went down the guest list with you over video chat, making sure to give you a little wink when Dave was mentioned and you swear if you were in person, you’d bash his damn head in. Fucking asshole, picking on you for liking Dave. You didn’t tease him when he decided to mack all over Terezi and Vriska in one night at last year’s party (and immediately regret it), so you’ll be ready if he slips up again. John Egbert never lets a deed go unsettled and you plan on taking advantage of that.
You walk into John’s house, a little shocked that it’s empty for the night. “John, what gives?” you ask him with a nudge in the arm. “Your dad and mom are usually here, aren’t they?”
“They went out of town this year, I guess! Not that I’m complaining because it means I get to play whatever I want as loud as I want and you guys don’t have to go home before midnight this time,” he grins. “Dave is already here, in case you were wondering.”
You flush and kick John in the leg, “Shut the fuck up, John.”
He nurses his leg, looking more wounded than he really is. You didn’t hit him that hard, “Ow, hey! I’m just telling you ‘cuz I’m trying to be your backup man… wingman? Side guy? What’s the word for it?”
“Wingman. I don’t need your help anyway, John ,” you stick your tongue out at him and close the door. Well, shit. “Okay… maybe you can tell me where he is.”
“Probably downstairs or in the backyard, but I’d check outside first since he was having a break with some girl earlier,” he points to the backdoor with his thumb and pats you on the back. “She was pretty hot, too. Leggy, blonde, wearing a black miniskirt with some pink sequin shirt… thing? You can’t miss her.”
Leggy blonde, huh? You worry at your lip and make your way for the back door, afraid you’ll accidently walk in on the two of them… kissing or something. Sure, that would suck but it’s not like you’ve made any moves on Dave. No official moves, anyway, only shitty awful ones that don’t mean jack fucking dick at the end of the day.
It’s pretty cold out and you forgot your jacket, so you rub your hands against your arms and try not to shiver when you head back outside. There’s a small bonfire going on at the back of the yard, but over here on the concrete landing connecting the garage to the backyard stands Dave Strider. There is indeed a leggy blond here, but wow… John kind of fucking failed to mention how pretty she is. She has a face like Dave’s in that she has a good dusting of dark brown freckles across her warm-toned skin, strawberry blonde hair with obvious dark-brown roots, and she’s incredibly tall.
She smiles at you when her eyes meet yours, “Oh hey, you look super familiar. Are you this Karkat kiddo I’ve been hearing about?”
“Uh, sure,” you shrug at her. Dave catches your eye and you greet him as well, “Hey Dave, who is this?”
“Hey! This is actually, uh… how do I describe it?” He looks over at her and she looks deep in thought.
A similar habit to Dave, she scratches at the side of her face while she thinks, “Well, we’re sort of like siblings, right? Rosie and you are twinsies, but I’m Rosie’s big sister on Mom’s side.”
Okay, you guess you can see why Dave is so stupid, it must run in the family. You feel dumb, now, thinking they were dating or anything like that. “You mean like a half sister?”
Dave claps once and points at you, “Exactly. This is my half-sister, Roxy. Roxy, this is my… my Karkat.”
“Nice to meetcha, Dave’s Karkat,” she puts her hand out for a handshake and you hesitantly take it. She then slaps your hand from the front, the back and tries to go in for a fistbump, but you don’t really know why. Roxy frowns, “Supposed t’be a secret handshake, my dear Dave’s Karkat. Ain’t no fun if you don’t play along with me at all.”
You shrug at her and she laughs a bit. Dave beams at you, throwing his arm around his half-sister, “Well it was nice of ya to drop me off, Rox, but you better dip. I wanna act like an irresponsible teen, maybe do some totally illegal activities, and I can’t have some adult cramping my style.”
“Man, I totally knew it,” she pouts. “The second I turned twenty, I’d stop being the fun sister, huh? I think Rosie wants me to rescue her from Mrs. M’s cookie murder session anyway, so… I’ll see you after midnight then?” There’s a quick hug exchanged and Roxy heads back in through the door behind you. Before she does, though, she stops next to you and leans in close to whisper something. “Be nice or I’ll hear about it, sweetie.”
With a flash, literally since her shirt is practically fucking shining, Roxy is gone and Dave is left to stare at you. “So… did ya need something? I was just about to have a cigarette and head over to the fire if you wanna join me.”
Your face warms and it’s not because Dave suddenly moves a little closer to you. He lights a cigarette and gives it a short puff, “I was just looking for you is all.”
“Did you want one? My eighteenth just passed and I wanted to see what the fuss was about, to be honest…,” he holds his hand out with a pack of cigarettes in it. “Actually wait, let's just share this one?”
He pulls on it again, blowing the smoke away from your face. It’s so cold that it’s hard to tell what’s the air being frosty and what’s the actual smoke, but regardless, Dave passes it over to you. You’ve never done this, it’s not like you’re old enough to smoke and you’re kind of a straight edge guy… if you don’t count drinking, that is. Dave smiles at you, opening up your index and ring finger into a V-shape. “You hold it--” he stuffs the lit cigarette between these fingers and you clamp them down around it, “--just like that, yeah. Don’t squeeze it too hard, though, it pinches the filter.”
You hesitantly take a small puff off of it while Dave walks you through on how to smoke it correctly. It tastes a little bit like apple chapstick, beer, but mostly tobacco smoke. It’s gross, but it’s a good way to keep Dave near you for the time. “It’s okay,” you shrug, taking a puff of smoke in and then blowing it back out away from Dave’s face. “I don’t think I’ll do this again, though. I’m only doing this because I--”
He raises an eyebrow, “Why?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to hang out,” you kick up a small pile of snow with your foot so you can look literally anywhere but Dave’s face. “So that’s your sister, huh?”
“Yeah,” he stretches his arms into the air and steps a little closer to you. Someone is playing crappy music from inside of the house, but it’s probably John. “She’s pretty dope but she’s got her own baggage. Rox brought my twin down to see me for the week and they’re heading home tomorrow.”
“Why aren’t you with them?” You ask him. It is pretty weird that his family is mostly all in one place, and yet he still made time to come bother you.
“Hmm,” he hums, looking down at his toes. Dave takes the cigarette from you and puffs the last of it, putting it out on the bottom of his shoe. Then, with a swift motion, he tosses it into the open trash can near the garage door. “I wanted to see you tonight, Karkat Vantas.”
Ah shit, he just had to go there, didn’t he? Does he even know what saying shit like that does to you? You wonder if you’re seeing signs of a crush where there aren’t any… “Oh,” you stuff your hands into your pockets.
Dave stares at you for a moment, stepping so close that your cheeks are nearly touching. “Yeah I guess I just didn’t want to end my night without seeing my favorite person,” he gives you a little smile, bumping his hip against yours. You stumble a little, but he easily catches you, grabbing your wrist to pull you back toward him. His lips are a little red, maybe it’s from the cold, but he just looks so fucking kissable right now.
The people at the bonfire are pretty busy getting absolutely hammered, but apparently not fucking John. As soon as you lean in to kiss Dave, John slaps you on the back, “Karkat, my man. Just the dude I wanted to see. It’s eleven and you haven’t had a single drink yet. Bring Dave in and grab a cup. Jade made some fucked up drink that’s like eighty percent wine and vodka and you gotta have some.”
You grunt at him, nearly smashing his foot with yours, but you hold back. You don’t need Dave to see you being more of an asshole than he usually does… you actually want to kiss him tonight. It’s fucking New Year’s Eve, what kind of piece of shit would you be if you ended the night without kissing Dave? Instead of acting like a pissed off petulant pissant, you follow behind John with Dave tailing just behind you.
John puts a red Solo cup into your hand and then another one into Dave’s. The three of you clink cups, shouting “Cheers!” in all different languages. John goes with something more forgein that you don’t recognize, Dave goes with Japanese, and you end up going with something in Spanish. You all drink and toast to the New Year, gulping down your drinks as fast as possible. Dave finishes first, immediately staring you down while you swallow the last bit of liquid at the bottom of the cup.
Holy shit, this drink is strong, but it tastes super good. You wanna ask what’s in it, but John is already way off his fucking rocker. He pulls Dave into a conversation and you follow the crowd filling up the kitchen until you find the alcohol. You fill another cup and drink that one as fast as you can, hoping you can get your obligatory two or three drinks in so you can just spend some time with Dave.
Eventually, about twenty minutes and another drink later, Dave walks into your line of sight. You stumble over to him, head spinning a little bit… damn, you didn’t mean to get this drunk. This shit just goes down too easy and it tastes like Mountain Dew, but also like cranberry juice. You’ll have to find Jade tomorrow and ask her what the hell she put in here.
Dave puts his arm around your shoulder, leading you out of the kitchen. “Hey, did you go crazy when I wasn’t looking?” He smiles a little, smoothing down the sleeves of your favorite sweater with his palms.
“No, no no. I just got bored of waiting for John to finish fucking flirting with you,” you shake your head. “He says he’s not gay, but man, every single time you’re around, it’s like I gotta beat him back with a damn rake to get him to lay off.”
He blushes, “Damn, didn’t realize my ass was such a hot commodity around here. I should really label it so it doesn’t get pilfered like a treasure chest from a sunken ship, huh?”
You’re in the living room but hardly anyone is in here, only a few stragglers. From what you can tell, everyone is outside or in the kitchen. “Yeah, you better. Whatcha got there?” you ask him, clearing your throat. You can feel yourself acting like an asshole and you want to stop.
“Oh in here?” He shakes his cup for emphasis, “This cup is for you, you better drink some water if you don’t wanna get crazy out of it super early.”
You take the cup from him, slowly sipping at it, “Fine fine, I got it. What time is it anyway?”
“Well most of everyone went out to light fireworks off, but it’s like almost midnight. Everyone should be back in soon, I think? You feeling better yet?” He takes your cheeks into his hands, examining you closely. “I can’t like, let anyone do anything with someone who isn’t sober enough to consent, you know. I’d be mad if someone tried to kiss you when you were this drunk.”
You blush like mad, “Shhhhut up, I’m fine. If I want to say no to, I will. I’ve never let anyone walk all over me and I damn well am not fucking starting now.”
“Hey, you better,” he lets you go and you sit up a little straighter. “Drink some more of that water, dude. I mean it, you gotta drive home or maybe let me drive you. I’ve had way less to drink anyway, man.”
“I’m fine,” you slide over next to him. “But you can drive me home if you want to and stay the night too, if you want?”
His face heats again, he’s so cute when he’s flustered. You get some kind of sick fucking kick out of it, but you’d never admit that shit to him. “Oh uh, look, it’s five minutes to midnight,” he smiles a little. “I’ll just drop you and your keys off, okay? I gotta get home to my sisters, remember?”
“Damn,” you accidentally say that outloud, but Dave doesn’t get much time to respond.
People are filing back in and quickly fill the living room. Someone starts playing “Lisztomania” by Phoenix as you all figure out your partners. Everyone is seemingly paired off with someone as the room stands to crowd up the floorspace. John, Dave, and you are the only ones left that you can see… except John gets snatched up by Terezi at the last minute.
Then, it’s just you and Dave standing against the back wall near the couch.
Dave stares at you and you stare back, the last thirty seconds of time seeming like they last forever. The room is doing a countdown, with some whoops and hollering, but you don’t pay any mind to any of it. You wrap your arms around Dave and lean in close to rest your cheek against his. He sighs a little bit, leaning fully against you.
10!
“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to pick me,” he whispers to you, stroking the back of your head.
9!
“Hey, you were the only one left and I would’ve picked you anyway,” you give him a squeeze. “What’s your resolution?”
8!
He laughs, “Maybe ‘be braver’ or ‘try harder’, something stupid like that.”
7!
“How about something you can actually do and not some abstract bullshit?” you squeeze his hips in your hands.
6!
“Okay, I have an idea,” he nuzzles against you with his nose.
5!
You raise an eyebrow, well aware that he can’t really see you from this angle. “What is it?”
4!
Dave thinks outloud, “Instead of something stupid that I can’t ever do, how about something I can do right now?”
3!
“And what is that?” You ask him.
2!
He speaks and you can hear the smile in his voice, “I want to kiss you, Karkat.”
1!
“Then do it,” you pull your head away and press your lips into his.
Happy New Year!
The room explodes with new music as you kiss Dave, his lips warm and plump against yours. Fuck, you’ve been waiting for this for so fucking long, it’s hard to believe it’s actually fucking happening. You can feel when he takes in a sharp breath, taste the cigarettes on his lips, and the little bit of alcohol on his breath. What you want to do is drag his ass into one of the bedrooms and kiss him more in private, but he really does have to go home soon… Eventually, without wanting to, you pull back to let him step away from you.
Dave stares at you for a minute, kissing you again like he already misses the contact. “Damn,” he speaks with his lips against yours. “You’re amazing.”
You roll your eyes and grab his face to tug him away, “I know but you need to get home to your sisters, don’t you?”
He pulls you against him and kisses you again, “You’re right… but… okay, you better let me come over tomorrow after they leave.”
You laugh into his lips, “Okay, okay. Stop kissing me so much, you weirdo. Take me home and we can… do this some more in the car while we wait?”
Dave grins, “Good idea. You better be good at holding your breath, Karkat. I’ve been waiting for months to do this shit.”
People are already filing out of the front door of John’s big ass house, piling into their own cars and riding with others. You, however, wait by your car for Dave. He twirls your keys in his hands as he walks up, smiling at you from the driver’s side door. When he does finally get to your house, you spend the next twenty minutes making out until the windows fog up and Roxy knocks on the window to announce that she’s here.
“Looks like the two of you had a good night,” she teases Dave as he steps out of the driver’s seat. “Don’t tear him up too much, Karkat.”
“I don’t do that,” you blush, stepping over to stand next to Dave. She steps into her own car and waits for you two to finish, thank God. “Hey,” you mumble to Dave, holding his hands in yours, “I had a lot of fun.”
“Me too,” Dave smiles down at you, leaning in for a quick kiss on the cheek. “Call me in the morning and we can… practice, if you want.”
You blush openly, “Okay… good night, Dave.”
“Good night, Kat,” Dave gives you a little wink and steps into Roxy’s car. He waves at you from the passenger side window and you make the quick walk into your house. With the door shut and locked behind you, you melt into a puddle on the floor.
Damn, you couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the night.