Chapter Text
For all the times you've been told by Lalonde that your lexicon is astonishingly large and disturbingly vulgar, you can’t help but think that a few crucial words are left undefined. More specifically, "pride", and all variations thereof, seem to be missing from your speech entirely. How could they not be? In your eyes, there isn't much of anything to be proud of, anyway, not even with the ridiculously low expectations you hold everyone to, including yourself. (What's that? Strider's compiled an entire Midi Fighter's worth of samples that feature exclusively you shouting insults at him, and he's remixed them into a reputable set of "beats so ill they'll make your pants shit their pants"? Excellent. You could not give even a fraction of an airborne fuck.)
Pride certainly seems to be an issue with you, one that can easily be seen by the untrained eye, and it's no secret why. You don't know why you bother hiding it at this point. Perhaps, (a), the symbol printed square on the chest of your sweater in warm grey provides you with a sense of nostalgia or familiarity, but (b) is far more likely, in which every drop of candy red tainting the inner walls of your veins disgusts you to no conceivable end. Getting the smallest and lightest of bruises can send you into hysterics, at which point you hole yourself up in your respiteblock for a good few days and refuse to speak to anyone but the Mayor.
Sometime during your third perigee on the meteor, you find yourself rearranging your meager collection of salvaged novels by title font, simply because there is nothing else to do. As you take out one of your favorite romances, entitled something elegantly long and printed in Century Gothic, you pause to leaf through the pages and reread a chapter or two. Your thumb slides against the edge of a page the wrong way, though, and before long, pinpricks of red start collecting along a small, fresh cut on your fingertip.
"Fuck," you whisper, and you drop the book haphazardly as you stand up. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," you repeat to yourself as you push open the door and sprint down the hallway like a marathoner on his last mile, desperately searching for an ablution block. You remember one being just around the corner and turn, only to find yourself on your back just a few seconds later. You mumble something profane ("fuck", most likely); your head knocked against the metal floor, and it aches dully.
Also on the floor: one Dave Strider, clutching the back of his head and cursing softly. "Goddamn," you catch near the end, as he's standing up, "probably got a nasty bruise there." He notices you still getting up a few seconds later and looks surprised, almost as if he can't believe that he fell because he ran into someone. "Evening, Vantas," he says casually. He kneels down and offers you a hand. "In a hurry?"
You swat away his hand and stand up on your own, hiding your still-bleeding thumb inside a closed fist. "Yes, I am, fuck you very much," you retort, "so I'd greatly appreciate it if you fucked off to some opposite corner of the meteor and wrote some more shitty raps, or whatever it is you do in your spare time."
He feigns something like offense and crosses his arms. "Whoa, okay, pal. First of all, don't knock the raps. I've seen you bob your head and tap your foot to my deadly rhymes whenever I play them in the commons, so don't even go there."
You scowl. "I don't--"
“Second,” he interjects, which makes your scowl deepen, “you don’t really look like you’re in desperate need of the shitter, so what gives? Why are you running around and bumping into innocent, handsome bystanders like a headless chicken?"
"None of your damn business," you spit, pushing past him. "And next time you see me walking towards you, move out of the way."
You manage to get the door open and step inside the ablution room without hearing another word come out of his mouth. You keep your fist clenched and use the other one to rummage through the medicine cabinet, trying to find a bandage. "Shit, where are they?" You dig through bottles of cough syrup and aspirin before you realize that Dave is standing (or, well, leaning) in the doorway, just a few feet away from you.
He barely gets out a sigh before you turn on your heel and throw a punch, aiming right between his tinted lenses. You're sure it'll land for a split second but he--he just catches it, like your fist is a softball thrown underhand at some shitty little-league game and nobody's keeping score. You'd be impressed if it were anyone else. You try to pull your hand away but he keeps a grip on it, impossibly strong despite looking nonchalant.
"Christ. Remind me never to play the 'guess who' game with you." He gives you the tiniest smirk and lowers his hand, consequently lowering yours in the process.
"You're such an asshole," you growl, making another attempt to pull yourself free. It's unsuccessful.
"Oh, Karkat, you're not just figuring that out, are you?" The way he says it--kind of amused, just short of laughing--makes you want to tear your hair out. Or his hair out.
"Would you please shut the fuck up and let go of me?" Your papercut is pressed against your palm, and it stings.
Dave softens his grip on your fist, ever so slightly. You think that this is your chance to escape, but then, he puts his other hand over yours and smooths it flat. He moves your thumb off to the side and closes your hand into a fist again.
You watch, too stunned to break away, and look up at him when he's done. His hands are still a shell around yours. They're oddly warm. "What the fuck--"
"First rule of close combat," he starts, and you're beginning to think he has a thing for interrupting people. "When you strike with your fist, make sure your thumb is on the outside. Shit's how your digits get snapped in half like weak-ass toothpicks."
"Don't you dare fucking lecture me on the proper techniques of bashing your head in," you hiss, but you're getting nervous; now that your thumb's on the outside, he could see the cut.
"Just some good advice from your friendly neighborhood Strider, bro." He lingers for a moment before letting go and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, well, fuck off. I don't need it." You pull your hand close to you and turn back to the cabinet, continuing the search for something, anything, you could use to cover up your wound. It's still bleeding, and your pusher's beating fast--did he ever catch a glimpse of it?
It only takes a few seconds for Dave to end up beside you, peering into the cabinet with a seemingly disinterested stare. "What are you looking for, anyway?" he asks.
"What did I just say to you?" you shoot back, getting more annoyed by the second. You stop pushing around medication to give him a hard glare. "Fuck. Off. I'm in the middle of something here."
He tilts his head. "If you're looking for bandaids, you're not gonna find any in there."
Your glare falters, and you step back, keeping your hand curled against your chest. He saw it, there's no doubt now.
"It's cool, though," he says quickly, startled and a little confused by your reaction. "I have some in my 'dex, if you really need one." You stare at him in disbelief as he decaptchalogues a box of bandaids and pulls out a small, square one, unwrapping it. Then he reaches out to you. "Gimme your hand."
You shake your head, moving farther away from him. You want to glare at him again, but it would be pointless; he knows, and you don't have the willpower to pretend that it was ever the kind of secret that he could never find out.
"Karkat, come on." Dave wiggles his hand slightly in encouragement. "I don't bite, I promise."
You mull it over for a few seconds before inching closer, and you put your hand in his, palm-up, so that the cut shows. He sticks the bandage right over it and lets go, throwing the wrapper in a nearby trash can. "There. All better."
You pull your hand away again, hesitantly this time. You're not sure what to do.
"Gotta say, Vantas, I didn't expect you of all people to get so pissy about a papercut," he admits. "I mean, I know that you hide out a lot right after you accidentally get hurt, but this seems kind of wimpy."
"Gee, I wonder why I have a panic attack every time my blood decides to come up to the surface as if to say, 'Hey, fuckwit, now everyone in your immediate vicinity knows what color I am!'" Your words have a very sharp and obvious edge of sarcasm to them. "It's almost as if I was practically raised to hide the singular quality that denotes my value as a member of society!"
Dave doesn't quite seem to get the memo. He shrugs. "I dunno, man, your blood looks pretty normal to me. I don't really understand why a bunch of grown adults would go apeshit over some sick scarlet."
You're so shocked by his ignorance that you actually feel like you have to sit down, but you keep standing just to spite yourself. "You wouldn't get it," you say, stepping forward and jabbing a finger at him. "You've never had your life depend on you making it through the day without getting a bruise, or a scrape, or a goddamned papercut. You've never been afraid of growing up and having to die the very second those drones find out you're ten feet clean off the spectrum."
This time it's his turn to step back. He puts his hands up in defense. "Whoa, I didn't mean to--"
"And you," you continue, because like hell are you going to let him interrupt you one more time, "have never been too scared to even cry about how shitty your life is, because, guess what? Your tears could give away your dirty little secret, too! Those fuckers are out to get you, no matter how good it feels to let them fall."
He seems genuinely concerned by everything you're saying, but he's still too surprised to say anything. You take this rare opportunity to keep shouting at him. "My entire existence is just paradox space concentrating every error it could possibly make onto one mediocre, eternally miserable being. I'm a mistake, Dave, and I'm just trying to cope with the fact that that's all I'll ever be. So excuse me for doing the one thing that gives me some false sense of security."
After one very long bout of silence, he draws in close and puts a hand on your shoulder, gently. "I understand," he says, his voice startlingly quiet.
You almost shove him off, but you don't just yet. "How could you possibly know what it's like?" you say harshly, staring him down.
Dave takes a deep breath, in, out. Without saying a word, he slips off his shades, hangs them on the collar of his shirt. He blinks to adjust to the light before turning to look at you again.
You can't breathe for about eight seconds. His eyes are intense, a burning vermillion, so full of emotion and so lacking in brightness at the same time. They're warm, but they're also kind of sad, like a dying fire. Most importantly, though, they're beautiful, strikingly so, in a way that you would never be able to admit to him. You want to say a million things but not a single one makes its way past your lips.
Your eyes stay locked for a while before he quickly puts his shades back on. He exhales quietly. "Let's just say that you're not the only freakshow here."
He pats your shoulder twice, then turns to leave the room. And you're left standing there, holding your bandaged hand to your racing bloodpusher and wondering just exactly what made that moment so poignant. For the first time in a long time, you let yourself remember that you made his whole universe, and by extension, him, and you can't help but feel a little proud that you created something so strange, and yet, so wonderful.
Perhaps "pride" isn't as foreign a word to you as it used to be.