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Ever since the first time you admitted to yourself that you want to kiss Dave Strider, eleven years old in your mother’s house, staying up far later than you should have for the thrill of transgression and his words, holding your pillow tight to your chest as you fell asleep with your laptop still open, you’ve imagined it more times than you’d strictly prefer to admit.
Sometimes, it goes like this: He appears on your doorstep late one night, after a meeting, judging by his rumpled suit and half-styled hair. You’re still awake, of course, and you somehow know to look out of the window just in time to see him coming up the front steps. You pull open the front door and are about to let him inside when he steps forward and kisses you like he couldn’t possibly wait anymore, hands warm on your shoulders and hair golden in the soft porch light.
Or, like this: You’re at his apartment. You’re hanging upside down off the edge of his couch, comfortable with him in a way no one else gets to see, watching him lose at video games and pretend his failure is solely for your amusement. When he turns to inform you that the game is, in fact, rigged, you slide down onto the floor, place your hands on his cheeks, and tell him that it’s quite possible that he just sucks before cutting off any of his possible protests with your lips.
Or: You’re back on the meteor. Dave’s in the room you’ve claimed as your own, head on your pillow like it belongs there, and his hands wave aimlessly as he tells you stories from before the game. You listen, and while comforting people has never been one of your strong suits, you wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him close when his voice gets shaky. Even after he’s calmed down, he doesn’t move from your arms, and you press a kiss to the top of his head, right where he says he got stitches when he was eight.
Or: You’re walking through a park. It’s the middle of the night, so you know you won’t be seen or recognized, and somehow, he’s taken your hand. He’s talking about something stupid and you’re giving him shit for it, lightly, teasing you’re like teenagers again, and then he stops and turns and looks at you, really looks at you, shades on top of his head and eyes somewhere between warm and scared. You ask him what he’s doing. He says he doesn’t know, turns the question back on you. You think on it for a moment. He’s still holding your hand. You say you’re doing something you should’ve done a long time ago, apologize for the cliche, and lean in to find him already meeting you there.
Or: You spent the night at his place, and you’re in the kitchen making cereal as you wait for him to wake up, even though it’s already past noon. When he finally comes in, wearing only boxers and a soft smile, you remember that you would’ve waited hours, days, years, for him, if you had to. He reaches for a bowl from the cabinet in front of you and drops a kiss on your cheek as he puts it down on the counter.
Or: You’re at Roxy’s house, your little family squeezed on the couch together, playing Truth or Dare from an absurd set of boxed cards Dave alchemized. He says he took out the sexual ones, but when you pull a Dare card, it says that you have to play seven minutes in heaven with the person on your left. You meet red eyes when you look up, and he “ironically” pulls you into the coat closet with a grin and a bad gay joke. His hand is on your waist, somehow, and this close, you can feel his breath as it ghosts across your face. You don’t know who leans in first, but you do know that you’re met with wolf whistles when Roxy drags the two of you out eight minutes later.
The point is that you’ve thought about a lot. But, of course, as it so often happens, when you finally do kiss Dave Strider, it’s nothing like you imagined.
Kanaya is the one that, ultimately, encourages you to get over yourself. She appears behind you late one night, one hand on your shoulder and the other holding a mug of tea, and nods towards the wall calendar that you’re staring at. “Where are you and Dave meeting tomorrow?” she asks.
“His place,” you say. You lift your hand up and place it over hers, running your thumb across her cool skin, before turning to face her. Then, because it’s late and she makes you want to be spontaneous purely by the way you don’t think you can know discomfort around her anymore, you add, “I think something’s going on with him and Dirk.”
She arches an eyebrow and nods towards the living room, like she knows that this conversation is going to last. You follow her through the doorway and onto the couch, and once you’ve kicked your slippers onto the floor and curled up against her side, you start again. “I’m not certain of what the something is, of course, and I’d honestly be shocked if they knew, but they just - move around each other strangely, sometimes. Like they’re aware of the distance between them. And Dave talks about him less, which leads me to believe that he’s afraid of talking about him in the wrong way.”
Kanaya hums softly. “Yet, as far as you know, they both place more stock in the concept of incest than you do?”
“Something like that,” you say. “It’s not exactly a conversation I’ve had with Dirk, so I’m not sure where he stands. But he learned plenty of his values from his Bro, and as you know, Dave is far more inclined to follow mainstream social values than he’d like people to think. I don’t think anything has necessarily happened between them, except for possible private realizations of their feelings.”
“So you still believe that they harbor flushed feelings for one another?”
“I’m not sure if I’d define them as solely red, honestly, but I do think there’s something there. Which, of course, could always just be projection.”
Kanaya places her mug on the coffee table with a soft clink and wraps her arm around your shoulder. “It could be,” she says, “but I know you know how to evaluate things with a level head. And from what I’ve seen, I don’t think you’re wrong.” She pauses. “Are you going to bring this up with Dave tomorrow?”
“That’s the question,” you say, looking up at Kanaya out of the corner of your eye. You don’t know if you’ll ever be used to how beautiful she is. “You know that my… feelings for Dave - or Dirk, for that matter, but that’s another conversation entirely - are not strictly familial.”
“Really? You’ve never mentioned,” she says dryly, and you laugh a little.
“A shocking development, I know,” you say. “Well. It might be for Dave, at least on the conscious level. But if he’s entering a strange territory with Dirk, that could be a sign that he’s opening his mind a bit, and, well, you know how I am.”
“Awfully possessive,” Kanaya murmurs, and you can feel her smile when she presses it against the top of your head. “So you’re considering making a move, then?”
“With your blessing, of course. And a level of confidence that, I have to admit, I’m not sure that I possess.”
“I have nothing but the utmost of faith in you, my light,” Kanaya says, “and you know that I would much rather you find a better outlet for your feelings than staring wistfully at your chats with him like your lover has just been sent off-planet.”
“I know,” you say, but then you bite your lip. It’s a habit you’ve grown out of except for when you’re thinking about Dave, about your family, and you don’t want to know what that signifies. “Although, I do think that dramatic yearning is just a bit better than estrangement.”
“Rose,” Kanaya says patiently. “You and I both know that you would not have set your sights on Dave first if you did not believe that the worst case scenario with him is the most salvageable.”
“I know,” you say again, because you do. Your feelings for Dave run the oldest, maybe the deepest, and he feels like the safest, somehow. He’s the most skittish, perhaps, but years of precedent say that he is also the most likely to let any awkward moments slide away.
“Well, there you have it,” Kanaya says. She kisses the top of your head. “And, of course, I believe it’s human tradition to assure you that if Dave does manage to hurt you, I have a chainsaw and quite a proficiency with it. Not that there would be much for me to do after you got through with him.”
You laugh softly at that and try not to imagine her saying that last sentence in any other context. “Well, I certainly hope it won’t come to that.”
*
It doesn’t, of course, in the end, but you don’t know that for certain as you come to a soft landing at the end of Dave’s driveway the next night.
Most of the windows in his house are dark, but the clean, bright light filtering out of the kitchen windows is welcoming. You pull out your phone to let him that you’ve arrived as you walk up to the front door.
tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]
TT: I’m here.
TG: sweet
TG: be right there
tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]
True to his word, Dave swings open the door just as you step onto the porch. He’s wearing a worn gray sweatshirt that you’re pretty sure you’ve seen on Karkat a few times and red flannel pajama pants, and you’re pretty sure that, nerves aside, you’re not going to be able to go home tonight without at least an awful, embarrassing attempt at a confession.
“Shit, I didn’t know we were dressing up,” Dave says.
You step into the house, careful to watch where your hands are as you pass him, careful not to let them brush his shirt or his arm, and give him a soft smile. “I’m not dressing up, I just like to look presentable when I leave the house,” you say. It’s mostly true. Your loose button-up and slacks aren’t your usual outfit for your hangouts with Dave, sure, and you did have an entire 80s-style dress-up montage in the mirror before you left, but you let Kanaya talk you out of the dress, so, really, this is fine. It’s fine. Your brother is shaking his head at you, offering you his elbow like he’s a gentleman, and at some point tonight, you’re going to tell him that you love him and that you’ve wanted to kiss him since you were eleven and that if you could, you would pull him into an embrace and never let him go - or at least, one of those things, and it’s fine.
“Uh-huh,” Dave says. “To the living room? Although I guess if you wanted to stand in the doorway all night and pretend we’re, like, forty-somethings that drag out all their greetings because their only friends are their work buddies and we all know that shit is entirely circumstantial, and Chris is getting a promotion so you just know we’re gonna be standing here for fifteen minutes at least just to congratulate him on that, and-”
“Yes, yes, late stage capitalism leads to some dire interactions,” you interrupt, placing your hand on his arm. His skin is warm through his sleeve, and you remind yourself that blurting your feelings out directly probably isn’t the best course of action. “To the living room.”
“Right this way,” Dave says, with a half-bow, like you haven’t been over here more times than you can count, and leads you to the couch. You take a seat in one of the armchairs across from the worn sofa, half because you generally prefer not to sit in Karkat Vantas’ buttprint and half because you don’t think you can trust yourself that close to Dave tonight. “Want anything?”
“Well,” you start wryly.
“To drink,” Dave quickly clarifies. “Not that I wouldn’t love to hear about, like, how you’d ‘love for me to wear deodorant, Dave,’ even though I’ve literally proven to you that I do, or whatever. Shit. Do you remember that?”
“Funnily enough, I do remember the eighty day deodorant-themed Snapchat streak we had,” you say. God, sometimes you wonder how you’re so in love with him. “But no thanks on the drink.”
“Cool,” Dave says. He flops down onto the couch, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, and turns the TV on. It’s a commercial for something you don’t feel like paying attention to. “Y’know, I bet some Snapchat exec has, like, a whole fuckin’ folder of our armpit photos now. Shit. That’s weirder than it should be, I think.”
“You should have thought of that before you started sending the pictures, then,” you say.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, we all know you read the Terms and Conditions, but c’mon, I had my honor to defend.”
“I have never read the Terms and Conditions for anything in my entire life,” you tell him. “But I’m not above Seeing them.”
Dave waves a hand dismissively, then reaches up and pushes his shades up on top of his head. You want to say that it doesn’t still make you feel like your internal organs are all melting into some disgusting, sappy goo to know that he feels like he can just do that around you, but - who are you kidding? “Same difference,” he says. “Oh, by the way, Karkat’s out for the night. I mean. I’m sure you figured that out from the lack of stomping and general semi-endearing bullshit, but now it’s, like, official.”
“How’s he doing?” you ask. You try not to feel - well, no sense beating around the bush, you try not to let Karkat make you jealous. Dave has repeatedly told you that things with him are weird, nebulous, but never really red, and you try to remind yourself of that. It’s not even that you have any right to be jealous, considering that you have Kanaya and you don’t ‘have’ Dave in any sense of the word, but you can’t help it. You know the way that Dave loves is overwhelming, and you know that if there’s a chance that only one person can take that on, you have to make sure that that one person is you. Sure, it’s a selfish desire, but after everything, it’s one you’ll allow yourself.
Dave shrugs. The commercials on the TV switch to a random game show, and you let yourself relax back into the chair some. “He’s Karkat,” he says, “so, like, good. Y’know how it is.”
“He certainly is Karkat,” you say.
“Yep,” Dave says, popping the p so quietly you almost don’t hear him do it. “So, uh, how are you? How’s Kanaya?”
“Busy as ever. She’s been so kind as to oblige my interest in gardening, but I think her patience with my lack of skill might be running a bit thin.”
Dave raises an eyebrow. “Gardening? I knew you, like, grew up in the middle of the woods or whatever, but I can’t see you really getting into that shit.”
You shrug. “Well, I figure that we have enough time to try pretty much whatever hobbies we have even an idle interest in, so why not? And don’t get me wrong, I’m not awful or anything, just … impatient.”
Well, that’s certainly an accurate adjective choice. Your heart is pounding in a way you’d like to call bullshit on, since it’s not like you should actually need it to beat anymore. It’s just strange, talking to Dave like this, with the real reason for your visit sitting just below your soft palate while he has no idea what’s coming. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to risk ruining his night. The more you look at him, the easier that part is to ignore.
“Yeah, that’s fair,” Dave says. “I mean, I guess I get the patience thing? ‘Cause, like, yeah, I have the whole dead things thing going on - fuck, that was a stupid way to say that, but you know what I mean - but y’know, I can always speed up the process or whatever if I want. Hey, if you wanted, I could probably, like, give your plants a little speedrun juice or something.”
“I think I’m alright,” you say, and you mean it. “This is probably going to sound stupid, but I want to do it right, if that makes sense. Not in a, oh, I’m so tortured by the loss of my humanity way, really, just … I want to do it right.”
Honestly, what is it with you and all of these phrases that work just a little too well placed in a more relevant context? I want to do it right. Of course you do. You can’t risk doing this wrong, not when Dave is, in a sense, the one at stake. You have to do this right.
Dave is looking at you carefully when you pull yourself out of your thoughts. He watches you watch him for a moment, then says, “You alright? Obviously, like, I’m not trying to make this a whole therapy night or whatever, but you seem, I dunno, distracted. The couch is open if you want it.”
He’s talking about the metaphorical therapist’s couch, of course, the one that you usually place everyone else on, but your eyes dart to the spot next to him before you can stop them. You could do it. You could go sit over there, lean against him, your head on his shoulder and your hand brushing his, and you could see what happens next.
You consider it for a moment, but when you reach the part in your imagination where you have to actually speak, the words aren’t there, and you make the executive decision that sitting here with Dave like this, him watching you and you watching him, his pajama pants low on his hips, his hair tousled and just a bit of stubble on his jaw, is going to end with you making some sort of mistake if it lasts a moment longer.
“I’m alright,” you say. “Just thinking about some things, I guess.”
Dave sits up, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. “What things?”
He’s looking right at you, his eyes soft in the warm overhead lights, and for maybe the first time, you wish he would put his shades back on. “It’s nothing,” you say, and you hope to god he lets you drop it almost as much as you hope he doesn’t. “Do you want to go flying? It’s a nice night.”
Dave watches you for a moment longer, brow furrowing just a bit, but then he drops his hands and nods. “Sure, let’s go. You need a jacket?”
You shake your head even though you were cold on the way over because you don’t think you could handle having something of Dave’s wrapped around you like that, and he gives you a thumbs-up as he slips his shades back over his eyes.
“Alright, let’s go, then.”
“Let’s,” you say, and you follow Dave out of the back door in his kitchen and up into the night sky. It is cold, but nothing you can’t handle, it only takes you a couple of moments to reach an altitude where no one on the ground can see you.
Dave leans back and tucks his hands behind his head like he’s lying on a couch instead of in the air and gives you a small smile that’s trying to be cheeky but doesn’t do a good job of hiding the question lying behind it. His hair has already been tousled by the wind, and you suddenly wonder why you ever thought this would be safer than his living room. “Where to?” he asks.
The two of you fly nowhere in particular, as you often do, just drifting along with the wind. Dave seems to realize that conversation isn’t working all too well for you at the moment, so he does the talking, telling you about the movies he’s working on, “just for fun, really, and also, we’ve really gotta beef up Earth C’s meme game, because have you seen the shit they post?” and the pie Karkat made the other day with “fuckin’ bugs, Rose, like, I’m pretty sure he got them from the backyard, and when Jade came over, she said it was good, but I’m gonna need some actual incentive for that,” and a million and one other things, his hands waving and his poker face falling away more and more as he remembers that he can be comfortable around you. You watch him, listen to him and nod and laugh in all the right places, and you think. You think about the boy that talked to you in your room on the meteor, the boy who refused to let you die alone, the boy that you’ve watched heal and become someone amazing, someone so, so different but achingly similar to who he was when you first met, and you think that if it were possible to be a little more in love with him than you already are, you would be, ten times over.
You think it’s been a couple of hours by the time he slows, and you realize that you’re back over his house, just a tiny, glowing speck on the ground below. “Guess we’re back,” Dave says, but he makes no move to descend.
“That certainly seems to be the case,” you say. There’s a silence. You know, logically, that this isn’t your last chance. Yes, you could tell him right now, but you could also tell him once you’re on the ground or while he’s walking you to the door like a gentleman or as soon as you get home, pulling out your laptop like you’re in middle school again; you have a million and one chances, and the time’s never going to run out.
But - it feels like it’s your last chance. Or at least, it’s the only option that this night has led you to. You want him like nothing and no one else, and you want to have him first. See again: selfish desire, see again: eleven years old, see again: his hand reaching for yours a moment before you died, side by side.
“Dave?” you say, at the exact moment that he says, “So, what are you thinking so hard about?”
You both laugh a little, and your heart is pounding, and you wave your hand to tell him to go ahead.
“I asked what you’re thinking so hard about,” Dave says. He’s standing in the air now, none of the flipping around that he was doing earlier, and his hands are fidgeting at his sides.
You’re beyond thankful that he’s wearing his shades. “How things could’ve turned out differently.”
Dave arches an eyebrow, brings his legs up so that he’s sitting criss-cross applesauce in the middle of the air. He’s somehow closer to you, now, maybe a foot or two of space between you and him. “How so?” he asks, and you wonder, abruptly, if he already knows.
You fall silent, the words and confidence suddenly gone. What is there to say? How can you say it? “I-” you start, after a long moment, but you stop when Dave unfolds his legs, his face turning something like serious and something like worried and something that you can’t place at all, and moves so that he’s halfway behind you. He wraps an arm around your waist, warm despite the cool air, and pulls you close like he’s catching you. You close your eyes.
“I love you,” you say, and, well, there it is.
Dave is quiet, but this close, you can hear the way he swallows, clears his throat a little, before saying, “Love you too, Lalonde.”
Intentional or not, he’s giving you an out. A way to end this entire thing, and maybe he’s trying to let you down easy, but you have to see this through. After all, you’ll have the whole of eternity to regret it if you don’t.
You open your eyes and tilt your head up just a bit, trying to focus on the stars instead of Dave’s arm, still warm around you. “No, uh,” you say, pausing when your voice falters. “Not like that.”
Dave goes still. This close, you can feel it, and it almost surprises you when he half-turns you around, his hands gentle on your waist, so that he’s facing you. It’s nearly impossible to say with his shades on, but you have a feeling he’s looking you in the eyes. Carefully, quietly, he asks, “What are you saying?”
“I love you,” you say again, and his face is so close to yours and his cheek is cold against your hand when you cup it gently. He’s completely still except for his eyes; this close, you can see them through his shades if you look closely enough, darting around your face like there’s an answer or at least an instruction manual somewhere. You whisper his name like an apology, he says yours like a prayer, and then you’re kissing him like it’s the only thing to do, because, in a way, it is.
He kisses you back without a second of delay, meeting your lips like he’s always been waiting for a moment like this. Your heart feels like it’s about to pound out of your chest, and your free hand manages to wrap around Dave’s shoulder and pull him close, close, closer. He moves with you, his hands still on your waist and pulling you in too, his lips parting just enough for yours to slot in between his.
It’s a cliche of cliches, but you don’t know how long it’s been by the time you break away to breathe, immediately tucking your head into Dave’s shoulder. Now that you’ve collided, you don’t think there’s any way you can tear yourself away from him now.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I was eleven,” you admit softly.
Dave’s hands slide up to wrap you in a hug, warm and more solid against you than you’d imagined him being, and when he laughs quietly, the sound runs over your skin like water. “I’ve wanted to do that since I was ten,” he says.
“Shithead,” you say, and you let yourself laugh into his shoulder, abruptly realizing that you might be close to crying, and he laughs with you, pulls you back just enough to tilt his head down and catch your lips again.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “Fuck, Rose.” His hands slide up from your shoulders to cup your cheeks, holding you like you’re something precious, something to be held close and loved and kept safe, and you melt into him. You’ll process his words later, when you can dedicate your brain space to anything but kissing him back, trying to make him understand how much you want this.
He meets you, because he’s perfect and of course he does, kissing you just as deeply and making these little half-gasp, half-word sounds into your mouth, and you should’ve known he’d never be able to shut up, even now, and you’re so in love that it hurts, bright and sweet, in your chest.
When you break apart again, he lets you take his shades off and tuck them onto the front of his shirt. He strokes his thumb across your cheek in a motion that you can’t believe can be described as reverent and says, “I … uh. Trust me, I don’t want to be talking right now, but I have to - what are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” you admit. A pause as you try to bring your heart rate down. “Kanaya knows, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Okay, that’s cool, I mean, I didn’t really think otherwise,” Dave says, “but, uh, like. What is this? Like, are we in one night fling territory, are we headed straight to sibling freakout time now that we’ve stopped macking on each other, are you possessed by some sort of horny demon intent on fucking with me with information no one should have access to, like, what’s the deal?”
You close your eyes for a moment, blink them open again. “It’s … well, what do you want it to be?”
“What do you want it to be?”
He’s going for banter, you know, but you’re not exactly the type to forgo an opportunity for dramatics. Not to mention that you can’t risk this just ending here because the two of you are incapable of being serious for longer than a second. “I’ll give you anything you want, Dave.”
He doesn’t hide his surprise quickly enough for you not to catch it. “Anything?”
“Well,” you say, because you most certainly said that the two of you are incapable of being serious, not just him, “I’m not cleaning the disaster area you call your room or eating Karkat’s bug pie. But anything else should be fair game.”
“Yeah, alright, fair,” he says, giving you a small grin. “Well, uh, in that case. I mean, I wasn’t kidding about the since ten thing, which means that I’ve had a couple of years to make some plans.”
You arch an eyebrow. “What sort of plans, Mr. Strider?”
“Oh, all sorts,” he says. He brushes his thumb over your cheek one more time, then drops his hands so that he can pretend he’s counting off a list on his fingers. “Uh, let’s see, kiss you a few more times, for one, maybe even get into sloppy makeouts territory if you want to get crazy with that, uh, a bunch of other shit that I’m just now realizing that I don’t want to say out loud.”
You smirk and let yourself fall into the feeling of the conversations you’ve been having since you were kids, still a little unable to believe that you can have an arm around his shoulders while he talks this time. “Oh, now I’m intrigued. What sort of other shit?”
Dave’s face flushes, the pink on his cheeks visible in the starlight. “Not like that, well - okay, maybe there’s some stuff like that, but more like, you know. Taking you out to dinner, if you want. I know you’re a classy broad like that.”
“Oh, the classiest,” you assure him. He meets the smile you give him with one of his own, and then you say, “So, just to make sure that we’re on the same page… dating? Is what we’re doing, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Dave says. “Uh, so. I know there’s probably a lot of other shit we should probably talk through, like, do we tell other people, ‘cause, um, y’know, and all of that, but if I’m being honest, I’m going a little crazy trying not to kiss you right now.”
Anything you could have to say in response is going to take too long to say, so you just lean in. Dave’s already there, his lips warm and soft against yours, and you feel like you’d be flying even if you weren’t god tier. Somehow, after minutes or hours, the two of you end up back on the ground in front of Dave’s house, then in his kitchen, then in his bedroom.
You touch him like you can’t stand not to, wonder if it counts as a simile if it just is the case. He’s beautiful under you, and he runs his hands over you like he can’t believe that he’s allowed to do it. You love him with all of the force of a decade and a death and a demiurge, and it feels like nothing else in the universe to know that he loves you just as much.
He lies down with his head against your chest, afterwards. There’s a white sheet haphazardly tossed over both of you, but you’re not sure who put it there, just that it makes you feel somewhere between a Greek goddess and the twenty-something star of an indie film. You suppose you’re a bit of both.
“So,” Dave says. “Why tonight?”
You tangle your fingers into his hair and lean your head back on one of his pillows. “I couldn’t wait anymore.”
Dave is quiet, uncharacteristically so, for a long moment. You gently run your fingers through his hair and let him think. Finally, he says, “Okay, listen, I love you, like, a ridiculous amount, and now that I can tell you that I’m never gonna shut up about it, but all I’m saying is that you’re legally not allowed to say anything to me about Freud ever again.”
You laugh a little. You could bring Dirk up now, Dave’s handed you the perfect segue, but … you’ll leave that for another day. Instead, you just say, “Alright, that’s fair,” laugh again at Dave’s soft grumbling, and keep running your fingers through his hair until you’re both asleep.