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the moment of silence after you die, dave strider thinks, must be the loneliest moment in the world. dread has always been woven into his bones, his blood, polluting every second he had- but not like this. nothing was like this.
he remembers the day they pulled apart from the alpha timeline like it was yesterday- maybe it was. he does not know when or where or what he is in this strange too-dark-to-be-darkness, and maybe he is nothing at all. It was the littlest thing- a gear was fixed from where it had broken, something to do with a door mechanism nobody ever used- and then it was gone. shattered. like a dead butterfly’s wings in the palm of a child’s hand grasping too tight. it *hurt*, almost, the knowledge of it- like a recoil from the shotgun bro had tried to teach him to use, the one that was stuffed inside of the hall closet in the apartment he hadn’t seen in years. terezi and rose felt it too, he could tell. he’d never seen grief-and-guilt-and-pain and pure, exhausted, aching resignation mix on his sister’s face like that, and it almost made his chest tighten and sting all over again as he saw her feel the string holding them to a future draw taut and snap back on her, like the lash of a too-tight violin string breaking.
it was so quiet that day. it felt wrong, but what could he do? it was grief, in a way, but it never felt like it. it felt like the second after you drop something important on the ground and it shatters. the moment you realize that you have done something irreparable. karkat came into his room that night while he stared at the ceiling. the scent of sopor was thick around him, and he didn’t have to say why. dave knew. he understood. after all, if you’re doomed, why not try and do whatever you can to ease that pain? karkat’s shoulders were shaking, and his expression was softened and blurred with tears as red as the stained glass window of the cathedral he saw once on a bus ride. it was a portrait of jesus on the cross, bloodied and red but still resolute, still willing to die for the future of those around him. dave held karkat that night, but neither of them slept very much. karkat still smelled like home to dave, underneath the saccharine-sticky scent of slime, and when he dozed off in the irregular moments of what he thought would have been almost dawn, he thought christ was a fitting metaphor for karkat. born to die, in a way, but to save others. who was this saving? in a moment of bravery, he left the lightest of feather-soft kisses on karkat’s forehead. the troll didn’t stir from his fitful slumber. he could never understand, dave thought, what karkat was going through, but it could have never been easy.
it was so easy to fall in love like that- the space when there is nothing but you and those you care about. karkat woke late the next morning, messy-haired and sleepy-eyed in the soft light of the alchemized fairy lights, and dave strider wished that he could take a million photos, just to see the scene forever, because karkat vantas was the most beautiful sight in all of time and space like that.
“thank you, dave. for letting me stay. you know. last night. i...i think i just needed to not be alone for a little bit.”
his voice is bleary and soft, and it feels like soft rain during a houston summer. dave could listen forever.
“and i know that you’ll just say that it wasn’t a big deal, or that it was nothing, or that it didn’t matter, but it did. it meant a lot to me. so...thanks. i’m.. glad you’re here.”
karkat’s hand is cupping his cheek now, soft and gentle and so warm that he wants to lean into it like a cat being pet, and it is the kindest way anyone had ever touched him. he realizes that his shades are off, set aside to sleep. he realizes that he doesn’t care.
when dave strider kisses karkat vantas for the first time, it is knowing that the world has ended, and seeing the wild, bright unknown of whatever comes after. neither of them quite knows how, and it is awkward and new, and utterly, wonderfully, perfect.
dave’s never considered himself a romantic, but maybe, he thinks, one day, that could be changing. he knows karkat loves that stuff, and when he tries to set up a picnic for the two of them in a room without much in it, the alternian fruit salad bites him, and the candles are smoky and burn stutteringly, but seeing the way karkat’s eyes light up the room and his quiet laugh of gentle disbelief makes his heart melt in relieved affection.
dave strider is completely, utterly, head over heels in love, and he knows it.
here, now, in this space of nothing he is becoming, he wished that he had said it a million times.
they never talked about it, that much. the world ending. everything ending. *them* ending. dave wishes that they would have. it just hurt too much, in the late nights when he thought of it, karkat’s head rested on his chest and neither of them sleeping. it burned too much, to gaze into the blazing sun and face it. he knew that they were out of time, but somehow, he always thought they’d get just a little longer.
the day he died was a little like that. rose stayed in her room alone, that morning. he heard kanaya knocking at her door softly, and he saw the wine-red blood and the blood-red wine spilling across the metal floor when kanaya entered, soaking into the rug that rose had spent weeks crocheting, the colours of lavenders and sunshine and stormy skies in soft woolen doily-patterns. he heard quiet whispers of “no no no no please no” filling his ears and it was only as he fell to his knees, his sister’s blood smudging his face, that he realized that they were coming from him. kanaya was curling into herself shaking like a leaf in the breeze, and dave wanted to too. it was like a gnawing hollowness, the denial of something right in front of you, of watching a chunk of your sliced-off heart bleed to empty on the ground. it was the beginning of the end. or maybe it was the end of it. when he saw karkat coming out of the winding hall where terezi’s room was, teal soaking his skin up to the elbows, he knew too. the instant dave touched karkat’s shoulder, all the comfort he could think to give, it was like the troll shattered, falling to the ground.
“’rezi...i..i tried so hard to save her....but i was too late....the blood....there was so much blood...”
dave doesn’t know what to say, really. what to do. how do you comfort someone when the world is ending? he drops to his knees and wraps his arms around karkat’s shoulders, as though he can hold him tight enough to turn back time. he wishes he could. just to stay like this for a few more moments.
they hold each other like that for a while. neither of them have the energy to spare for tears, but they grieve together. it is quiet. and for a moment, it feels like someday, everything will be okay. when dave looks out the window, he sees the collision course they follow. cleanup for heroes doomed to die. he knows that there will not be a someday. not for them. when he goes back up to rose’s room to invite kanaya down for coffee of a late breakfast, or anything to not make her stay alone, the door is just ajar, and her sewing kit- the one she always kept in her pocket, the one she loved so much- with the ivy-patterned canvas and the vintage scissors and the tiny little star sketchbook for design ideas- is strewn across the hall, pins and needles and spools of thread scattered and thrown everywhere. the scissors are gone- he remembers, distantly, how they had been a present to her from rose- how he’d walk out of his room in the middle of the night and find her still trying to alchemize what she wanted. how relieved rose had looked behind her tired eyes on kanaya’s wriggling day party, when her eyes lit up at the delicate embroidery scissors, with their little brass handles carved like lace with tiny roses. it had been a happy day. a few months before the split. he does not need to look, now, to know where the scissors have gone. he notices the jade-green blood, half-iridescent, soaking into his shoe far too late, and it makes him feel sick to his stomach.
dave goes back to his room. he grabs one of the jugs of bleach from the cleaning supplies cabinet they never really ended up using. idly, he wonders what they could have used all the time they wasted on them for. how many days could he have spent with the people he loved? what could have happened in those days falling from the timeline? he wants to hit something with the injustice of it all, punch and kick and scream and cry, because how could he have been so stupid? to have wasted the hours he doesn’t get anymore because he lost them?
it’s his turn, now. he knows it.
karkat is waiting inside his room, the quilt kanaya made for him as a christmas present reddened and damp where his tears have fallen. in a moment, karkat wraps his arms around dave’s neck, clinging onto him. dave wraps his arms around him too, and buries his head in karkat’s shoulder. he still smells like home to dave, and it makes dave feel like his chest is collapsing in on itself, concaved to less than a hollow space. the jug of bleach is set on the ground for a moment. it is not forgotten.
karkat sees it when he lets go. dave knows he knows in a split second.
“dave, you...this is some sick joke, right? some sick fucking joke? you can’t be..not you too, right?”
karkat sounds desperate, devastated- and dave strider has never hated himself for doing something more in his life.
but he still cannot stay.
he steels himself with the same determination, the same icy chill he was raised to have. a strider man hurts people for their own good, a million times those words were blazed into his ears while he lay bloody on a rooftop ringing again.
“go away, vantas. i need to do this. it doesn’t concern you.”
he sounds like *him*- like bro- and it almost makes dave flinch back on instinct- reach for a sword and glance around and brace for the impact of a sword against his skin.
karkat’s eyes are filling with tears again, and the impact of it hurts more than any strife ever could have.
“doesn’t *concern* me? dave, what the fuck are you talking about? i *love* you! you don’t need to do this. please,- god, just....*please*, don’t leave me alone here. please, don’t leave me *alone*.”
dave freezes for a second. karkat stares back. the last card has been played. it is a second too long.
“god, y’know what! *fine*!! i guess i *can’t* fucking stop you! because *apparently* wanting the guy you thought was your fucking *soulmate* to not spend his last fucking moments alive with you chugging off-brand human clorox is an unreasonable fucking request! maybe....maybe you just didn’t give as much of a shit about me as i did about you! maybe i was a braindead fucking dumbass to think that you ever even loved me enough to give a shit about what i think!!”
karkat slams the door behind him when he leaves. dave slides to the ground, his back against it. he can hear karkat crying, now- his momentary desperate anger flickered out to nothing but loss and loneliness. dave’s guilt feels almost physical, now- like hot wax melted onto his skin that won’t let go. his hands are shaking. he realizes that his shades have fallen off, and that he must have stepped on them without noticing. one lens is cracked, the other shattered- the frame is twisted beyond repair. the jug is heavy- but not too much. his arms shaking, he slowly lifts it to his mouth. time is running out.
in the end, dave strider doesn’t need to kill himself. in the moment the bleach touches his tongue, searing it, the meteor crashes into another, shattering apart. the impact kills them all. there are no survivors. there is nobody left to remember them.
and now, dave strider is here. there is nothing. it is dark. *he* is nothing. the last thought he has before all he was is no more is that he just wishes that the people he loved did not die thinking that they were alone. that karkat did not die thinking he was alone. that he could have gotten just one last chance to say goodbye. it is what he has been thinking all along. it never comes true.