Chapter Text
Your name is Dave Strider, and you are a feathery asshole on a ship en route to the fourth wall holding enough people to fill five planets. The most notable people being your best bro, the windy kid, and his ectosis, the dog god. You can't help falling over all this hilarity, especially considering John threw a bucket into Jade straight at Karkat's head.
"Ahaha you fucked up," you snicker, elbowing John in the side. "You basically threw the equivalent of a dildo to a group of aliens, you've got some great first impression skills Egbert. Show 'em what you're packing right away."
"Oh shut up!" John says, huffing and crossing his arms. "Like yeah, okay, maybe I made everyone moderately uncomfortable over there, but I'm sure the trolls can work past that."
"Well you've certainly given them something to play with during their journey. A catalyst to all the interspecies sloppy makeouts that are now definitely happening."
"Ugh, now I feel all dirty! Shut up, Dave!!" Jade whines, and you laugh more.
John chuckles a bit too now, and sits down by a couple of nakking asshole crocodiles. "Oh man, I'm sorry to defile your body like that, Jade." He stretches his arms a bit. "Well, nothing I can do about it now. So we've got three years ahead of us."
There's a bit of a silence then, not accounting for the white noise of the consorts, dersites and prospitians. You can't help but find the prospect a bit relaxing. Almost makes up for the stressful months you spent trying to revive these two kids. "A few years to lay some ill beats, fine by me. If that dope plan falls through I guess I'll sit around drawing shitty comics, alleviate some of Daveprime's hefty workload."
"Right, because it is such a hard comic to write," John teases.
"Shoosh John, you gotta respect a genius at work. Gotta get into artistic zen mode to make this as shitty as possible. Find new methods to compress more and more."
Jade's giggling to herself too. "I'll help with that!! Space is my specialty!"
"Aw yiss, got a god dog with the powers of space to help make my comics as grainy and jpeg as possible." You give her a fistbump; she's deserved one for a while anyway.
John laughs again, and you relish it. You've come down with a case of the fuzzies, being with these two after so long without them. John's easygoing manner is as endearing as ever and maybe that dorky laugh is a little cute. "Watch out though! Alpha Dave will be teaming up with Terezi to make the shittiest possible comics ever! Yeesh, Karkat's gonna get so pissed, he'll be all, damn you fuckers! I said no troll and human sloppy makeouts! Remember when he group messaged us and told us that, Dave?"
And just like that, the fuzzies are gone and you feel your stomach being weighed down. Yeah, no, if you had anything to say on the matter, Terezi was a bitch psycho that tricked and killed John quick into the game, and no, you don't recall that conversation with Karkat. You remember Dave talking about it, but you didn't take part. You never talked to the trolls that much, and the implication that the 'main' you was actually that close to the troll who killed John actually pissed you off whenever you heard it.
It's that reminder that this isn't your John, and more importantly, you aren't his Dave. You aren't 'main' Dave, you aren't 'real' Dave, and despite this three year respite, you're a straggler from a doomed timeline that the universe loves to cut down. Like it was trimming away the useless parts. You're a dead man walking and you don't even have the comfort of being your own person.
Your face remains stony, but you feel the edges of your mouth tugging downward. Jade was always a bit sharper than John, and she has Jadesprite's memories now too, so she has an inkling to why your shoulders are suddenly a bit tenser. But John doesn't realize why what he said created an awkward silence, so after a few seconds his smile wanes a bit and he just goes, "What?"
And it kills you, because you resent alpha Dave spending more time with John, and you're jealous of your own self, because you want to laugh at the memories with John, and talk about them in a flippant manner. You don't want to be the cynical asshole that's ruining this feel good fest, but hot damn, the wet blanket you are putting on this get together is unreal, it doesn't even happen. Five minutes into this fun get together and you've already started to ruin it.
So you just try and salvage it. "You underestimate me; like shit Egbert, only you would think I'd actually lose out when I have five planets' full of people helping me make the shittiest thing to ever cross any planet in forever. Like you're betting on the horse on a comet with four broken legs, odds like that may have the Egbert brand of approval but no one else's."
And he's laughing again and it's all chill, and Jade's giggling too, but she also shoots you this look that's a little too knowing for your liking and you hate it. You hate being this downer and you hate making people worry. But you've got a feeling that that's going to be happening a lot more on this trip.