Chapter Text
–---
(now)
“I suppose”, General Harley says, frowning, “That it does sound rather pointless.” He considers Dave for a moment, twirling his moustache. Then he waves his hand absent-mindedly: “Oh, very well. Go tell them to call it off.”
Dave has barely shouted out the “Thank you, sir!” before he's already off, running as though his life depends on it. He's almost startled by the sincerity in his voice.
He stumbles across ridges, sweat pouring down his neck, arms and legs throbbing as he goes.
He pays no attention to the startled “Oi, watch it, mate!” he hears, nor to the loud explosions near him, because his mind has sped up to a blur of run run run run and he's never ran like this, not ever, not even when Bro was still around because
he can do it, he can save them
and so Dave runs.
–--
(then)
“You lot can all go off and get killed. I'm not that stupid.” he says, sun-bleached hair gleaming white in the oppressive heat.
“Oh, come off it, mate!” John exclaims, eager eyes shining as he shoves him. “For country and glory, eh?”
Dave snorts. The steady buzzing of the wildlife drones on. “You mean for England's glory?”
“It can't be worse than here.” Sollux notes, nose wrinkling as his eyes survey their surroundings: dusty, endless fields of arid ground, three lonely, worn tents, and the constant, ever-present sun.
“Amen to that.” Dave says, digging his heels into the ground as he stands up.
His clothes are sticking to him again. He runs a hand through his hair, finding it knotted.
“So you're coming too?” Tavros asks, earnestly.
“Nah.” is his final response, bones cracking when he stretches. He squints at their surroundings before he continues. “But I sure as hell ain't staying here either.”
John watches him as Tavros pouts. Sollux watches the sky instead.
They stow away on the next train, hoping for adventure.
Be careful what you wish for indeed.
–---
He enters the race for fun- he hasn't run much since (bro left and dirk died and he ran away) a long time agobut he figures it's a good opportunity to gain a little cash.
People look at him oddly when he strides past them, all tall limbs and dark glasses and skin too pale for their little rural community.
Still, he gives his name and finds his place and smiles to himself as the other competitors file in.
He runs.
He doesn't expect this scrawny local to rush past him and almost fly over the ground, though.
The crowd cheers as they finish, and the kid grins to himself, flushed and sweaty and standing out like a sore thumb amongst the other country hodges.
Dave watches him.
He keeps on watching him as he goes to enlist, and then when some guy goes: “Hey, I know this kid! Vantas? His da would skin him alive if he knew- he's just eighteen, in' he?”
He watches Karkat Vantas leave, back straight and jaw clenched.
–----
He doesn't know why he offers, but by the time he's aware of it, they're both on a train to Perth.
“I know the city,” he says. “I can show you around.”
He doesn’t tell him that Striders never randomly extend aid to strangers. Dave has, now, without knowing what he wants in return.
They run after the train when it goes, leaping up and hauling themselves inside. The sun is already setting.
Karkat is fast asleep when the train huffs and puffs and stops.
Dave takes one look at the barren landscape and cruelly bright sun and realises this is so not Perth.
“Well, shit.”
Karkat's response when he awakes is a little more colourful.
–-----
“C'mon, Kark...Don't be stupid!”
Eyes as harsh as the glaring sun, Karkat turns once, teeth bared in a feral growl, and stalks off again.
Dave turns helplessly to the lone construction nearby: a tiny shack where a crazed, orange looking fellow lives, muttering to himself about 'them trolls' and cackling as they go off.
“You'll never make it, you know!”
Dave sneers at him, then stumbles off after Karkat.
He's a city boy- he can scale ladders and jump from roof to roof, he can lose someone in a maze of streets, he can disappear from a dead-end as if he had wings- but here in the middle of nowhere, he is utterly lost.
“Vantas, come on! We won't make it out here! Just wait for the next train!”
“Wait for two weeks out here? I'd rather die.” Karkat snaps, dark hair glinting and back stiff.
“Yeah, well you're doing great on that part.” Dave mutters.
He shifts his bag, looks at the endless stretch of desert, and follows his feet.
–---
They spend the night shivering. Dave has no idea where they are.
He's already panicked twice because they could even have been walking in circles, they don't know, and they're relying on Karkat's stupid pocket watch slash compass thing, and they're gonna run out of supplies soon and this is exactly the worst kind of situation he could find, exactly the kind of thing Bro had warned him against.
He grits his teeth and clears his dry throat and listens to Karkat's steady steady heartbeat as it beats and beats and beats its rhythm in the silence of the wilderness.
–----
“You're nothing but a coward!” Karkat shouts to the skies the next day, throat raw and eyes wet from the harsh whipping wind.
Dave feels angry energy burn him up.
(“Like a bleeding volcano”, Bro used to say. “You're gonna explode and destroy yourself sometime if you don't start keeping it under control.”
He'd been bleeding, lying on the floor, and he'd thought I'd rather explode than be like you and then all I want is to be like you.
He’d never really gotten to figure things out with Bro.)
His feet carry him all the way to right behind Karkat from where he'd been lying on his back, what felt like hundreds of miles away.
(He thinks: “Rather a coward than dead” and steers his mind away from Bro.)
Out loud, he says: “The only reason I haven't knocked you out yet is because I don't want to drag your pathetic ass over to the next water point, kid.”
Karkat blinks at him, jaw still clenched, and Dave seethes.
They don't mention the “Great War” again until later.
–-----
“It's them miracles, son.” Gamzee tells them the next day with hazy, contented eyes as he watches them gulp down water.
Dave doesn't believe in miracles, but he'll accept that it's some god-damn good luck.
He'd thought Karkat had gone insane by his sudden shout- and honestly, someone that idealistic and righteous deserved to go insane- but when his lazy eyes had caught up with the other young man's keener ones, he'd noticed the tracks too.
They'd run like hell.
It was hope, it was exhilarating, and the pain from his aching bones seemed to push him even further.
The wild-haired merchant had taken one strangely unsurprised look and stopped his goats.
Dave, smacking his wet lips, gave him a weary glance over his darkened glasses.
“So how often exactly do you encounter a pale-ass city guy and some weird prairie kid lumbering across this god-forsaken desert?”
The merchant simply smiles unsettlingly.
Karkat scowls. “I'm not a kid, dipstick! I'm barely two years younger than you!”
“Ah, the sweet smell of innocence.” Dave sighs, only because he knows it will tick him off.
Karkat growls.
Gamzee smiles.
–----
He drops them off not far from a tiny little town (the epitome of urban civilisation, dave says), near a grand old house surrounded by jarringly lush trees.
The girl sitting on the porch is the prettiest girl Dave has ever seen. It almost hurts.
Instead of telling her, he whistles a low tune.
She looks up, almond shaped eyes widening ever so slightly had she pauses in her reading.
“Miss, awfully sorry to interrupt-”
Neither she nor her sister, it appears later, mind the interruption in the slightest.
They usher them in, paying no attention to their grimy states even as they settle down amidst cristalline decorations and pure white carpets.
They sit around a coffee table, the girls' eyes darkened in amusement as the two recount their story, interrupting each other as they go.
(“Which is when Vantas is like, hey, this seems like a great ravine to fall down-“
“You mean when you decided to try and lean your weight on me without warning-”
“I was trying to get my shirt off, Karkles, chill-”)
“So,” the younger sister asks, surveying them with her mouth quirked upwards (good lord, dave thinks, what a woman), “I'm guessing you adventurous gentlemen have other names than Karkles and jackass?”
She drops the word casually, like it doesn’t sound completely alien in her mouth. Dave grins at her.
“Karkat Vantas.” Karkat says. “Dave Strider.” Dave adds.
“Rose Lalonde.” she says, and gives them her hand to shake.
“Roxy.” says the other girl, laughing. And then: “Hey, Karkat- you O.K. over there?”
Dave turns. Karkat's eyes are wide.
“Rose Lalonde? No goddamn way...”
She stiffens slightly. It's almost unnoticeable.
Dave notices.
“You've heard the name before?” Roxy asks, smiling. Her eyes are intent.
He waves their concerns away, turning his own dark eyes on Rose: “Kanaya says hi.”
Dave watches, fascinated, as her composure disappears. He feels almost weirdly jealous of the way her world suddenly seems to revolve around Karkat only. “You know Kanaya?” she breathes out.
“Rose-” Roxy warns, expression still wary.
Karkat lifts his collar. Underneath hangs a silver pendant. The sign on it is the same one as on his compass.
Rose reaches out, almost as if in a trance, looking up with a startled expression when Karkat coughs lightly. She sits back, closes her eyes, then straightens.
“Well. This certainly is not something I was forseeing.”
Roxy laughs. Karkat does too. Dave observes them, relaxes slightly.
The rest of the night goes by almost smoothly.
(Later, Dave watches Karkat fiddle with the pendant as they lie in the guest room. He doesn't ask. Instead, he listens to Karkat's steady breathing.)
–-----
They receive a kiss on the cheek from both the girls.
Roxy's is a little risqué.
(he vaguely remembers a roxy from long ago with dirk maybe and her eyes say yes but he doesnt ask because that is not something he needs to know)
Rose's is a little meaningful.
(he grins at her and her smile could cut through stone)
“They're pretty girls, huh.” is what Dave says as they walk down.
Karkat hums, eyes distant. His gaze on Dave is a little too knowing. “Yeah. Pretty girls.”
(Dave watches Karkat watching him and his brain whispers something about pretty boys so he stops listening.)
They say goodbye a little stiffly. It's weird going through so many emotions towards someone in so little time- from nothing to annoyance to hatred to awkward kinship to something like friendship.
Karkat shakes his hand firmly nonetheless.
(Dave watches him go, stomach twisting slightly, and thinks of Dirk. He needs a drink.)