Work Text:
KARKAT: HOW THE FUCK DO YOU DO THAT WITH YOUR HANDS?
DAVE: dunno man
DAVE: guess it just comes naturally
DAVE: runs in the strider blood
DAVE: sick fires coursing through my veins just begging to be bled out
Karkat stares intensely at Dave’s hands, gliding over his turntables and keyboard at lightning precision.
DAVE: wanna try
KARKAT: WHAT? HOW THE FUCK WOULD I KNOW HOW TO WORK THOSE THINGS? DON’T TELL ME YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT I’D EVER BE GOOD AT THAT.
DAVE: dude everybody has some beats in them you just gotta let it flow
Dave takes Karkat’s hands and places them on his turntables, making sure there wasn’t any oil on them first. His hands immediately clam up and start gently shaking. He knows how special the damn ‘tables are to him and doesn’t want to gunk them up or accidentally break them. Dave moves behind him to see better, essentially hugging Karkat from behind and reaching his arms overtop of his. He chokes down the flushed feeling in his chest, choosing instead to scowl over his shoulder at him. All he receives in return is a roll of the eyes.
DAVE: okay so basically you start up your track and then you gotta plug in the midi device
KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK IS A MIDI?
Dave snorts. He finishes setting up the program for a new project and then places one of Karkat’s hands onto the sliders next to the discs and one atop them. He fucks around with the settings and instrument tracks and eventually finds a sample pack he likes. He gives Karkat a quick demo of the tools in the app and then shoves the laptop into his arms.
KARKAT: WHAT IN THE BUCKETFUCKING HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO WITH THIS, YOU INANE ASSHOLE?
DAVE: uh
DAVE: make music?
DAVE: you dont have to obviously i just figured you might have fun with it and get out some of those emotions
KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN, “EMOTIONS”?!?
DAVE: that
KARKAT: FUCK YOU.
DAVE: woah man, lemme take you out to dinner first at least, no need to rush things
Karkat’s cheeks flush in synchronization with his heart. It’s a stupid thing to take seriously, he knows, but it’s a nice thought. Hell, maybe it’s even a great thought. It’s not like there’s a whole lot of places to “go” on this meteor, but he could figure something out, right? There’s always coffee, but that’s not really a date, is it? Holy fuck, what if it is? What if Dave has been pseudo-dating him this entire time and he has just been too much of an oblivious bulgechafe to notice? What happens if-
DAVE: earth to karkat, earth to karkat, do you read me, karkat?
Dave waggles his hand in front of Karkat’s face as he realizes he’s been staring at him this whole time. His mouth opens and shuts as if he were to say something, but the words die on his tongue. Dave leans in closer to his face to see beyond the hair blanketing his eyes, causing Karkat to panic more than before. His face morphs into one of sheer hatred; completely contrasting the feelings swirling in his stomach right now. Dave snickers and unplugs the turntables.
Karkat growls. He knows that he’s being a prick and he knows what he’s doing. Or, at least, he thinks Dave does. He scoops up the computer and stacks the turntables on top of it.
KARKAT: LATER, ASSHOLE.
The door to Dave’s respiteblock slides shut behind him.
Dave swaggers into Karkat’s room with a smug grin on his face for no apparent reason. Karkat jumps up and rips the headphones out of his ears. While baring his blunt fangs, he shouts assorted arrangements of cusses into the air.
KARKAT: HEY, WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE? DON’T JUST BARGE YOUR ASS INTO MY RESPITEBLOCK LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW ANY BETTER! I KNOW YOUR THINKPAN IS SMALL, BUT I WOULD ASSUME THAT YOU’D KNOW BETTER THAN THAT!
DAVE: lmao you said dude
Karkat searches for something to say beyond a gaping mouth.
KARKAT: FUCK YOU! IT’S YOUR FUCKING FAULT, ASSHOLE!
DAVE: karkles. are you flustered.
KARKAT: WHY IN THE TAINTCHAFING FUCK WOULD YOU THINK THAT?!?!
DAVE: i mean usually you have more
DAVE: ahem
DAVE: *colorful* words, if you will
KARKAT: OH, NOW JUST BECAUSE MY “CREATIVE JUICES” AREN’T FLOWING, I GET TO BE CALLED FLUSTERED? GREAT! THAT’S JUST WHAT I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NEEDED TODAY!
DAVE: uh yeah about creative juices
DAVE: did you ever get that funky flow going
DAVE: like with music and all
DAVE: did you make anything
The color drains from Karkat’s face. He grumbles out a “no” and quickly goes to delete a file. Dave notices, but doesn’t take the PC. He instead lays down on the bed beside Karkat, swinging his legs in the air like a schoolgirl, ironically, of course. Karkat’s brows furrow as he stares at Dave, trying to read the look on his face.
He’s not gonna lose sleep over it.
It’s 2:13 am, and Dave is listening to music.
Well, not just any kind of music. The kind of music that makes him want to rip his ears out; music with shitty, rough vocals. Music with awful, cheesy backtracks. Music that is made with no intent of anybody else hearing it, despite the fact that it’s being heard right now. Dave’s red face is illuminated by the light of his computer screen, casting a mildly-sitcomical appearance as he so stoically listens. The audio file has been compressed due to both the stupid lossy format it was saved in and the fact it was recovered from the computer’s trash, which only compressed the data even more, considering the laughably small amount of space left on his PC. Like, who the fuck would save an audio file in a .ogg format? He’s not sure if he’s trying not to laugh or trying not to cry at this point. Who the fuck made this abomination?
As soon as the vocals start, he’s given an answer.
Dave’s heart sinks. Karkat Vantas; a fucking Paramore fan? Holy shit, that’s pure fucking comedy. He’s about 99.9% sure that the instrumental is from one of their songs. It has the same name and everything, is this a cover? He listens harder and rewinds, since the actual lyrics were drowned out by his own raucous laughter.
The song jumps back to the start. He attempts to actually take it to heart this time, choosing to soak it all in and grab his shitty earbuds he found on his nightstand. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t sound any better, but now at least the rest of the shifting and faint scraping of metal is completely drowned out. Anything to at least try and appreciate the production of the music he encouraged Karkat into making.
He curls up and rests his head on his knees while he listens closely. He tries to appreciate it as-is; to not completely nerd out on it. He interprets the lyrics through a self-deprecating filter in his head. It’s a completely foreign concept to him that maybe, just maybe, he might be a little more special to someone than he thinks.
Nope. He absolutely did not just get butterflies at the start of what appears to be the chorus. That did not just happen. His face starts to flush redder and redder as the words are repeated like a subliminal message. It’s getting hard to bear. It's making his face increasingly hot and he's trying to not shut the laptop in retaliation.
He wishes that he could reach through the screen and just kiss him already. Has it really been three years already? There’s no way that he’s really held out that song. Is it that obvious to Karkat - that he’s practically the only thing on his mind 100% of the time ever since he’s been on this godforsaken meteor? Or, does he feel the same way, and is venting his “emotions” in here like he encouraged him to? Nothing makes sense right now. It feels so selfish to him to assume that he’s the one being talked about here. What if it’s Terezi, or someone else he’d pine over like this? It’s not like the three of them hadn’t danced a borderline-caliginous waltz before the meteor. But, that seems increasingly unlikely as the lyrics continue. What kind of “risk” would he be taking with Terezi? And, despite his sparse comprehension of quadrants, he doesn’t think that ashen feelings would be talked about this way, at all.
Fuck.
The door slides open to reveal Karkat Vantas, clearly wearing the missing pair of headphones. It’s finagled to fit around his horns, leaving one ear uncovered. He deadpans at Dave, proving himself completely unreadable as his face tries to figure out what emotion it’s going to express today. It settles on an amalgamation of shame and self-centric rage and he darts towards him to rip the earbuds out of the headphone jack. The audio keeps playing. He searches for words to form, but they just won’t fucking come to him. He’s left staring at him with his mouth gaping, desperately trying to snap out of his humiliation and get the fuck out.
Close up, he can see the flushed face Dave is donning and the chills that have formed on his arms. It’s a game of waiting for who’s going to make the first move, negative or not. Thoughts ring in both of their heads and puncture their lungs, proving it impossible to breathe through the tension.
Dave drops the computer.
His head is spinning. He’s never tried this before at all, but goddamn if he hasn’t thought about it. He’s just not sure how to not mess this up.
He stands up and puts a hand on Karkat’s arm. Karkat starts to cry; crimson tears roll down his face and trace his jaw.
Dave moves his hands to Karkat’s hips. He falters under his touch and looks at him wide-eyed. He bites his lip in concentration, trying to figure out how to make this work. There’s no way he’s not totally sweating right now.
He takes a step forward with one of his feet and dips Karkat down. He chirps out of shock and instinctively puts his arms around Dave’s neck. His bloodpusher is pounding out of his chest and he’s dizzy and he can’t fucking believe what’s going on and he’s still crying and-
He kisses Karkat like the world’s about to end.
Karkat shakily brings his hands up and pulls Dave in even further as he tries desperately to get himself together. He cards his hands through his hair and grabs a handful of it as he gently drags his teeth across Dave’s lower lip. His lips part in response while he completely gives into every warm, fuzzy, electrifying feeling he’s ever had. His whole body feels boneless and his arms start to shake. Karkat slides his tongue into the slick heat of his mouth and it feels like a dream and so much more. Dave’s brow furrows as he kisses him even more passionately at this point, simply trying to soak it all in and explore every part of him he can because he doesn’t know if this feeling will last or if he’ll ever get the chance to do this again.
Karkat breathily pulls away and lays on the floor beneath him. Dave lets him go gently and lays beside him, still gasping for air. Karkat is grinning uncontrollably, wiping away tears and saliva with the back of his hand. As Dave tries to get his breath under control, he notices that he still has butterflies from the entire ordeal. There’s a pleasant buzzing feeling radiating throughout his entire body, and he giggles deliriously out of relief and giddiness. Karkat starts to do the same and Dave leans over him to go for a quick peck but it quickly becomes much the same as the previous one, but much less tears and much more grinning and giggling. As Dave pulls away, the song starts to automatically repeat. Karkat groans, wipes his mouth again, and walks over to the computer.
KARKAT: WE ARE NOT PLAYING THIS AGAIN.